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| Founded | Project started January 2015, formal incorporation December 2016, IRS non-profit status granted February 2017 |
|---|---|
| Founder | Brooke Schreier Ganz |
| Type | 501(c)(3) non-profit |
| EIN 81-4985446 | |
| Focus | Freedom of Information, open records, open data, archives, genealogy |
| Location |
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| Website | www |
Reclaim The Records is a non-profit organization and activist group that advocates for greater transparency and accessibility for genealogical, archival, and vital records in the United States. They use state Freedom of Information requests and lawsuits to force government agencies, archives, and libraries to provide copies of previously inaccessible records to the public. Reclaim The Records then digitizes and publishes the records online for free public use, without any copyrights or usage restrictions.[1]
Reclaim The Records is the first genealogical organization to successfully sue a government agency for the release of records back to the public. As of July 2019, the organization has acquired and freely published more than twenty five million records, most of which had never been open to the public before in any location or format, or else were only available in very outdated formats such as microfiche in limited locations but had never gone online before.
- ^ Klein, Daniel (May 5, 2017). "Group looks to open access to genealogy records". NJ.com True Jersey. Retrieved December 16, 2017.