This is a reminder that the fees for all records including genealogy requests through the USCIS are going up on October 2, 2020. If you are planning to order any records this is the time to do so. While USCIS was planning to furlough more than 13,000 employee furloughs Tuesday, that was cancelled. Officials said “unprecedented spending cuts” and a revenue increase allowed the agency to drop the furloughs, but they warned of longer wait times and further backlogs, including for those seeking work permits, green cards or citizenship.  “Averting this furlough comes at a severe operational cost that will increase backlogs and wait times across the board, with no guarantee we can avoid future furloughs,” Joseph Edlow, USCIS deputy director for policy, said in a statement. “A return to normal operating procedures requires congressional intervention to sustain the agency through fiscal year 2021.” It says it will maintain operations through September, when the fiscal year ends. The cuts include nonessential travel and reducing work sent to private contractors who handle paperwork.  The agency’s roughly $4.8 billion budget comes almost entirely from application fees it charges. See: https://vosizneias.com/2020/08/25/us-citizenship-agency-drops-plan-to-furlough-70-of-workers/

As I posted back in July, last November, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced through the Federal Register that they intend to increase the request fees charged by them, including for genealogy services.  Currently, the G-1041 Index Search Request is $65 and form G-1041A Genealogy Records Request is $65. The USCIS proposed to raise the fees to $240 and $385 respectively.  These were a 269 percent and 492 percent change respectively.

The USCIS published the final rule on July 31 which will become effective on October 2, 2020. These fee increases range from 146 to  308 percent—still quite substantial. The new fees will be: for Form G-1041, Genealogy Index Search Request, when filed online as $160 and $170 when filed on paper. Using the same methodology refinement, DHS establishes a fee for Form G-1041A, Genealogy Records Request, when filed online as $255 and $265 when filed by paper.”

See: https://s3.amazonaws.com/public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2020-16389.pdf. The final rule covers more than genealogy and is quite long –over 570 pages. I did a word search for the term “genealogy: and the following have information of interest for genealogist. The fees portion are included on pages 16-17. Other items of interest are included on pages: 179, 187-203; 415, 419, 428-429; 433-434, 436, 438, 446-448, 461-463, 475, 511-513, 530, 532.

They further rationalized the genealogy fee increase by,” INA section 1356(t)(1) authorizes DHS to set the genealogy fee for providing genealogy research and information services at a level that will ensure the recovery of the costs of providing genealogy services separate from other adjudication and naturalization service’s fees. USCIS must estimate the costs of the genealogy program because it does not have a discrete genealogy program operating budget. Nor does USCIS discretely identify and track genealogy program expenditures. The same office that researches genealogy requests, the National Records Center, also performs other functions, such as FOIA operations, retrieving, storing, and moving files. In the FY 2016/2017 fee rule, DHS estimated the costs of the genealogy program indirectly using projected volumes and other information. The projected costs included a portion of Lockbox costs, genealogy contracts, and other costs related to the division that handles genealogy, FOIA, and similar USCIS workloads.” They also responded to one of the genealogy submitters: “USCIS receives fewer than 10,000 genealogy requests each year, so the fees should not affect hundreds of thousands of people as the commenter mentions.”

They also commented on the electronic version of records,: “DHS is expanding the use of electronic genealogy requests to encourage requesters to use the electronic versions of Form G-1041 and Form G–1041A. DHS is changing the search request process so that USCIS may provide requesters with electronic records, if they exist, in response to the initial index request. These final changes may reduce the time it takes to request and receive genealogy records, and, in some cases, it will eliminate the need to make multiple search requests and submit separate fees. Moreover, DHS notes that providing digital records in response to a Form G-1041 request may reduce the number of Form G-1041A requests that will be filed because there would already be a copy of the record if it was previously digitized. As a result, the volume of Form G-1041A requests USCIS receives may decrease, though DHS is unable to estimate by how much. .. DHS recognizes that some small entities may be impacted by these increased fees but cannot determine how many or the exact impact. “

Note: DHS stands for Department of Homeland Security of which USCIS is under.

As with the proposed fee increase USCIS still maintains, “DHS is unable to estimate the number of G-1041 index searches and G-1041A records requests considered small; however, some will receive a reduced fee and savings, by filing online. Therefore, DHS does not currently have sufficient data on the requestors for the genealogy forms to definitively assess the estimate of small entities for these requests. DHS is unable to estimate by how much because DHS does not know how many individuals will have access to a computer and/or internet capability. The case management tracking system used by DHS for genealogy requests does not allow for requestor data to be readily pulled.”

For a Genealogy Records Request, requests for copies of historical records or files must: (1) Identify the record by number or other specific data used by the Genealogy Program Office to retrieve the record as follows: (i) C-Files must be identified by a naturalization certificate number. (ii) Forms AR-2 and A-Files numbered below 8 million must be identified by Alien Registration Number. (iii) Visa Files must be identified by the Visa File Number. Registry Files must be identified by the Registry File Number (for example, R-12345).

Information required for release of records. (1) Documentary evidence must be attached to a Genealogy Records Request or submitted in accordance with the instructions on the Genealogy Records Request form. (2) Search subjects will be presumed deceased if their birth dates are more than 100 years before the date of the request. In other cases, the subject is presumed to be living until the requestor establishes to the satisfaction of USCIS that the subject is deceased. (3) Documentary evidence of the subject's death is required (including but not limited to death records, published obituaries or eulogies, published death notices, church or bible records, photographs of gravestones, and/or copies of official documents relating to payment of death benefits).

Fees must be remitted from a bank or other institution located in the United States and payable in U.S. currency. The fee must be paid using the method that USCIS prescribes for the request, office, filing method, or filing location, as provided in the form instructions or by individual notice.

If you want to place an order this would be the more cost-efficient time to do so. The forms may be found at: https://www.uscis.gov/genealogy

To see previous postings about the USCIS and the fee increases,  go to the archives of the IAJGS Records Access Alert at:  http://lists.iajgs.org/mailman/private/records-access-alerts/. You must be registered to access the archives.  To register go to: http://lists.iajgs.org/mailman/listinfo/records-access-alerts  and follow the instructions to enter your email address, full name and which genealogical  organization with whom you are affiliated   You will receive an email response that you have to reply to or the subscription will not be finalized.

Jan Meisels Allen

Chairperson, IAJGS Public Records Access Monitoring Committee

On 13 July 2020, I sent a request to support@... asking what steps I should take to go about correcting the spelling of the names of my grandparents in the Vienna Marriages database.  I haven’t received a reply.  Since then, I discovered in Vienna Deaths that the birth date of one great-grandfather is missing, and the death date indicates only the year; I can provide all the missing information, but don’t know the procedure.  Where should I send the request to correct these details?  Many thanks!

Selma Sheridan

Oswego NY

Dear all

In his long discussion Mr. Cherson writes that Camille Pissaro was of Danish-French descent. Wrong! Jacob Abraham Camille Pissarro was born Jewish, to a father of Portuguese marrano extraction who was an active member of the little Jewish community of the island and to a local Jewish mother. He came in conflict with the Jewish community because he married the widow of his uncle which for the strict orthodox then and now is utterly forbidden. This has of course nothing to do with the judicial Cassirer issue. But to the many solutions suggested by Mr. Cherson I would add, why not donating the Pissaro to the Israel's Museum in Jerusalem?

Prof. Isak Gath MD, DIC, DSc

Faculty of Biomedical Engineering             Tel. Office #972-4-8294115

Technion Israel Institute of Technology             Home #972-4-9835704

32000 Haifa, Israel