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Even if I had driven a couple hours each way to get them it would have been cheaper... and faster - she should have them by Tuesday and NY state can take over 5 months.
Has anyone else found a similar problem? It seems rather peculiar to me.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Vital Record Madness
In NY, vital record copies for genealogical research are $22 each. This has made me, unfortunately, do a little at a time, when I had the money. Recently I ordered two death certificates for $44. Now, I grew up in the same county in NY, where my ancestors had stayed since immigrating to America. My family still lives there and yesterday my grandmother went to the county clerk with a list of 10 death certificates I need (plus 3 I don't have exact dates for yet) and was told they would be $10 each! She therefore is getting 4 and a half for the price I paid for two! I understand that if they mail them to me I should have to pay for postage, but $12 for a stamp? Really??
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Hi, Amanda! Yes, Michigan is the exact same way. I never deal with the state vital records office unless I have to. I go through the county clerk 99% of the time. What annoys me is that even though the state says I can get a birth certificate that is over 100 years old with no ID requirements, the Macomb County Clerk, for some strange reason, will never honor my requests for birth records over 100 years old. Their copies are only $10 vs. the state cost of around $20. Therefore, I have to go through the state vital records office and pay the higher fee. I think I could probably put up a fight with Macomb County, but since I don't have that many ancestors born in Macomb County for whom I need birth records (the really early ones are microfilmed anyhow by the FHL), I don't put up the fight. I'm also annoyed with Macomb County because they don't let anyone browse the death record libers even though the state has said that all death records, no matter how old, are open to the public. They will look up names in the index for you but force you to pay $10 for a certified copy. The St. Clair County Clerk, on the other hand, is really awesome and lets you browse the death and marriage records and their indexes during genealogy hours and you can transcribe them to your heart's content. I think the Macomb County Clerk needs to wake up and realize that identity theft does not occur because of someone going to the courthouse and taking the time to transcribe records. It's much easier and less time consuming to steal a wallet or start some phishing scheme on the internet. I would really love it if the Macomb County Clerk started following state laws. Sorry to go off on the Macomb County tangent but it really annoys me!!
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean about blatant overcharging. My example is trying to order a genealogy book through a genealogy website and the shipping charges to Canada from the US on a $25.00 book were going to be $22. I told them to keep it. Like you said you don't mind paying the actual cost but that is ridiculous. I just mailed two books to the US from here and it was $10 total for the two of them.
ReplyDeleteWell time to go and look around your site some more.
How unfortunate that this happens in so many places. Hopefully, as more records get put online this kind of overcharging will diminish.
ReplyDelete