Associations representing professional and amateur genealogists are supporting the efforts of archivist organizations to preserve access to government records—despite shrinking budgets for this purpose.

Working together through the Records Preservation and Access Committee, the genealogical groups announced July 5 their backing of a joint statement issued previously by the Council of State Archivists, National Association of Government Archives and Records Administrators and the Society of American Archivists.

That statement said an inability to process a collection of records in a timely manner is not a justification for withholding records that are in the public domain. In those cases, standard practice for archivists is to issue at least a summary, and then—once someone requests those records—process them in a reasonable amount of time.

In a news statement, the Records Preservation and Access Committee noted that decreasing budgets are limiting, and in some cases precluding, access to state and municipal archives.

RPAC is sponsored by the Federation of Genealogical Societies, the National Genealogical Society, and the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies, and is supported by the Association of Professional Genealogists, the Board for Certification of Genealogists, the American Society of Genealogists, and the International Commission for the Accreditation of Professional Genealogists.

Organizations participating in RPAC represent thousands of local, state and regional genealogical societies and more than 400,000 members, including more than 2,000 professional and forensic genealogists.

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