Trend is to Release Records, Not Restrict

New York City is seeking to limit public availability of birth and death records to 125 and 75 years after the event, respectively, according to a news action email I received from the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society.

I sprang into action and so can you. I signed the petition to not further limit access.

I also wrote a letter. A form letter is already drafted.  I modified it to suit my needs, which swung much further than the NYG&B Society.

I requested:

- A free, online, public index of births, marriages, and deaths within one year of the event.

- Digitization of individual certificates of births, marriages, and deaths and digitization of the indexes and older ledger books AND free, online, public access with some restrictions on recent births and marriages.

I don't think this is shocking or unreasonable in today's digital age. People who do not do genealogy are horrified when I describe what I have to go through, in terms of traveling and paying, to obtain a vital record. You have to pay for a vital record in New York. At least in New Jersey I can browse rolls of microfilm (remember the 1960s? I don't because I wasn't born yet) for free, snap a picture with my phone, and then hurl the image six decades ahead into the year 2017. Too bad if you can't visit Trenton.

Navigation skills required to find marriage certificates in New Jersey microfilm

Back to New York City. The web address keeps changing for the Municipal Archives. Below is a screenshot of what records they will provide. The cost is $15 per record, plus $2 for each additional year or borough searched. The birth records have remained steady at "before 1910" instead of one hundred years. Reclaim the Records plans to file for the release of the birth certificates for the years 1910 through 1917.

Ironically, Ancestry.com recently released an index of births of New York City for the years 1910 through 1965. Some of the images are of very poor quality, so I recommend looking at the actual images of the index and not merely relying on Ancestry's index of the index.

If you think that this is shocking to release a "recent" index of births, it is not unusual.  Here is California's index of births, marriages, and deaths through 1980 at Ancestry.com. The images link to the index, not the actual certificates.

Pennsylvania released its actual death certificates through 1964. No need to travel to Pennsylvania and sit at a microfilm reader. No need to pay for a certificate, wait months, then find out it's the wrong person and try again. This is fantastic.

Am I really asking for the moon for New York City (and New York State and New Jersey) to digitize and release its birth, marriage, and death records? I think not. The information is creeping out there through many outlets. Genealogists need legitimate, reliable resources for our work in the form of official government documents. We have online obituaries with loads of information, such as decedent's date of birth, spouse, and the names of living children and grandchildren. Find A Grave is another growing resource whose only requirement for posting is that the person is dead (and not a duplicate memorial).

Maybe there is hope for my home state. Reclaim the Records has secured and released the New Jersey index to marriages from 1901 through 2016. Yes. Through last year.

https://archive.org/details/NJ_Marriage_Index_2016

Another Piece of the Puzzle in Chicago: A Lutter Marriage

The marriage record arrived for Charles Lutter, the possible brother of my great great grandfather, Herman Lutter.  This record is from the Cook County Clerk in Illinois. Charles was 25 years old when he married Theresa Doanow in 1887 in Chicago.

Like the marriage record of the other possible brother, Alexander Lutter, in 1890, marriage records from this time period do not contain the names of the parents.

Alexander Lutter died in 1897 in Chicago; his death record does not list his parents.

Charles Lutter died probably in Brooklyn, New York between 1915 to 1917; I cannot find the record.

So I do not know the parents of Alexander or Charles to tie them into my Lutter line.

But with Charles' marriage record we have a possible lead.  Unlike Alexander, Charles was married by a pastor from a church: Carl G Zipf of the First Evangelical Reformed Church, 181 Hastings Street.  A church record might list additional information, such as names of parents, witnesses, and towns of origin.  Maybe even the children were baptized there.

Discovering this church's transformation was a group effort (thank you everyone!).

In 1887, the church was at 181 Hastings according to the city directory.  Today, there is no such church or street.

The Newberry, a Chicago library, has an online directory of church records.  A possible listing for this church:

On the "Our History" page of The First United Church of Christ, the church states it was chartered in 1865 as the First German Reformed Church and was on Hastings Street.  This could be what I'm looking for.  No email address, so I will write to them and ask if they have records and would be willing to search for me.

Birth Certificate Answers Some Questions

Following up on the expanding Lutter branch with the connection to Charles, I received the birth certificate for Otto Herman Luther.  He was born January 31, 1907 in Neillsville, Clark County, Wisconsin.

My great great grandfather was Herman Lutter and his brother was Otto.  Repetition of names is a clue that there is a relationship here.

This certificate was ordered online through WisconsinHistory.org for $15 and arrived via email within a few days.

I was hoping that a hometown in Germany was provided for the father, Charles, or Charlie.  No.  Saxony, Germany was the birthplace of Charlie Lutter.  The birthplace of the mother, Theresa Turnow, was provided: Kolmar, Posen [Prussia]; now in Poland.

My great great grandfather, Herman Lutter (1860-1924) was from Scheibe, now in Thuringen.  This area was south and east of Sachsen in the late 1800s.  What we know as Germany today was a collection of states that grew and shrank and were renamed often in the time that Herman Lutter left the area until his death.  It is possible that one member of the family referred to their area of origin as Thuringen and another as Sachsen.

States of Germany 1871-1918

And why is the reporting person Carl Luther?  Is this Charlie Luther, also known as Charles Luther?  Or do we have another relative living with them?