New York City Rules Updates published the following reminder that the
amendment to the General Vital Statistics Provisions of the NYC Health Code
Article 207 becomes effective on January 1, 2019.

The rule addresses when birth and death records are to be transferred >from the New
York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (NYCDoHMH) to the Department of
Records and Information Services (DORIS). The embargo dates are 125 years after
birth and 75 years after death. As a result of the over 5,000 comments in response
to the then proposed rule with these embargo dates, the NYCDoHMH further proposed
and adopted an additional rule expanding the family members who could access the
records >from the NYCDoHMH during the embargo period.

The new rule expands those who can access a death record to great-great
grandchildren, nephews, nieces, aunts, uncles, grandnephews, and grandnieces.
Existing code already permitted the following family members: the spouse, domestic
partner, parent, child, sibling, grandparent or grandchild. The rule also expands
those family members who can access birth records of a deceased individual to:
spouses, domestic partners, parents of children over the age of 18, children,
siblings, nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles, grandchildren, great grandchildren,
grandnieces, and grandnephews.

While requests were to expand those to additional family members and professional
researchers with no family connection to the people's histories they are
researching should have broad access to birth and death records, both of these
requests were declined by the Department.

To read the notice see:
hhttps://rules.cityofnewyork.us/content/amendment-general-vital-statistics-provisions-article-207-nyc-health-code
Marriage records are under the purview of the City Clerk's Office, not of
the NYCDoHMH and therefore, are not covered by this rule.

To read previous articles on NYCDoHMH rule on access to birth and death
records, see the IAJGS Records Access Alert archives at:
http://lists.iajgs.org/mailman/private/records-access-alerts. You must be
registered to access the archives. To register for the IAJGS Records Access
Alert go to: http://lists.iajgs.org/mailman/ and fill in the missing
blanks. You will receive an email response that you have to reply to or the
subscription will not be finalized. It is required to include your
organization affiliation (genealogy organization, etc.)

Thank you to Chuck Weinstein, member JGS Long Island for sharing the notice
posting with us.

Jan Meisels Allen
Chairperson, IAJGS Public Records Access Monitoring Committee