50 year closure on Marriages

[Andcarred]

Hi JM,

I got my first passport in 1987 and I just needed the copy of my Marriage Certificate from the Church.  When I went back in 1997 I had to have a certified copy.  There used to be some old law that said if a woman was married she had to have her husband's written permission to leave the county.   I think Women's Lib took care of that one.

Andcarred

[majm]

    yes, apparently so.  Once upon a time a wife needed her husband's permission to go under the knife .... but if she was single, she could sign the authority all by herself. 

So, if the restrictions were lifted, ie anyone could buy a certified copy of a NSW BDM marriage registration for any marriage in NSW (give the clergy/celebrant say one month to get the paperwork uploaded etc and matched up to the Intention to Marry papers) ... ) then what will happen from an administrative position .... well perhaps very little will change initially.   But the information on the m.c. will no longer be 'secure' or 'sensitive' or 'private' and so cannot be relied on as part of any proof of identity.   

This lack of security has a flow on, for NSW BDM marriages include information that is found on birth certificates and other secure documentation....  That puts at risk those other secure systems. 

Back in the 19th Century, after the commencement of civil registration, if you wanted to obtain info about a marriage, you basically needed to know where it was recorded - so which deputy registrar had received the paperwork from the clergyman or had conducted a marriage directly...  There was a 40 plus years dispute between the Churches and the Colonial Government, and not much information was actually sent through to the Registrar General's Office in Sydney .... so the law was 'obeyed' in principle, but not in content ... summary info only sent through (so about as scant as say English certs were, sometimes not even that much/little).   

Just before WWI, the government provided extra funding and the Reg Gen's staff started to 'reconcile' the church registers with their own humble set of records....  and they got through many of the Sydney registers for most of the denominations....    BUT the clerks in the BDM were also needed once WWI commenced.   They were able to handle the paperwork for Base Records and thus allow the trained Army Officers to train others for front line overseas work.... So the reconcilation process on NSW marriage registers has NOT EVER been completed.  (Several attempts at securing funding have occurred, but only minor reconciliations have occurred).

But until around 2005, the family history buffs who moved over from manual record charting to using CDS and some new software etc systems, needed to rely on indexes that had not been prepared until the mid 1930s, by teams of volunteers (SAG etc) who basically gave the NSW BDM actual INDEX systems ... cross matched, etc.   Until then, they were working with by hand thumbing through each volume until they found what they wanted, where they remembered it may well be.... (yes, I kid you not)....

So until around 2005 we family history buffs had graduated from pen and paper to CD look ups and handwriting our results and then putting info into software thingys....

Now the Digger CDs etc are obsolete .... the domestic Reader and microfishe are long gone, and we  can look up the Ryerson index and the SMH or other newspapers online and proceed ....

But the restrictions on members of the general public to the BDMs at NSW BDM continue .... once upon a time, marriages were on 60 years restrictions, but now it is 50 years.   It was only 60 years because no one had updated the indexes for general publication purposes ...

I know that there's many an overseas government that considers the New Zealand and the Australian passport systems as being among the most reliable for security of the information bases upon which they rely.   I know that there's a huge difference between how Australian government agencies view securing the privacy of the individual and how perhaps some of the European governments handle those responsibilities covered under the United Nations treaties. 

I see no reason to snip/copy/download and thus perhaps encroach or  infringe the T&C of websites where there may be copies of Australian documentation that is likely still within restricted access time frames...  Just because someone else is infringing a privacy law/regulation (or any law) doesn't mean I should follow suit.     But it also doesn't mean I need to 'dob'.   

For those who don't like reading long posts, ... well, you have reached the end of this one. 

JM

[Westward]

Westward,

There's many opportunities to advance sensible discussions here on the Australia Board and elsewhere at RChat, and I approach each opportunity with good will,

I have limited the quote to the first few lines, to save space. That you replied with a page of information most of which came from other posts, suggesting I was amiss with my posting makes me assume you do not accept that posters might disagree with your point of view. Repeating something does not change what it says.


On the Topic of releasing certificate information:
I was married over 50 years ago. Many details of this marriage are online both within and without the NSW BDM registry. As far as privacy is concerned this worries me much less than the government wanting to keep all my details and medical records in a large data base from now until 30 years after I die.

[Westward]

Hi JM,

I got my first passport in 1987 and I just needed the copy of my Marriage Certificate from the Church.  When I went back in 1997 I had to have a certified copy.  There used to be some old law that said if a woman was married she had to have her husband's written permission to leave the county.   I think Women's Lib took care of that one.

Andcarred

To get a passport (1970s) I needed 2 marriage certificates a divorce certificate and a birth certificate. My husband needed a birth certificate. I now understand why women choose to retain their birth name after marriage.    

The Qld certificate I had from the celebrant was not acceptable, but in the 1970s I simply had to go to the registry, state who I was and purchase my certificate. To the best of my memory I didn't have to show any ID! (times have changed)

And it wasn't only women who had to get their partner's permission to leave the country. When my ex and I were separated, but not divorced, I had to sign papers giving him permission to leave the country. He needed this to get a passport. I don't know if this is still the case today as we have got our more recent passports at the same time.

 

[majm]

Hi Westward, and everyone following Andcarred's thread 

I cannot fathom why anyone would think that by my quoting earlier posts, that I am somehow not accepting that there are other view points, either on this thread or on any thread across RChat's many boards. 

So, Westward, among your recent posts, you wrote directly to me:

That you replied with a page of information most of which came from other posts, suggesting I was amiss with my posting makes me assume you do not accept that posters might disagree with your point of view. Repeating something does not change what it says.  

I agree Westward, that repeating something does not change what it says, and I note that by quoting from earlier posts I am simply drawing attention to the matter under immediate consideration.  I am not the only RChatter who uses the quote option kindly provided by RChat's owners. 

I wonder why you needed to provide the NSW BDM’s 1960s marriage registration, and the Divorce papers when applying for your passport in the 1970s.  Surely all you needed was your birth certificate and your then current marriage certificate?  I believe the Qld marriage registrations include the bride’s maiden name, and the name of her parent/s including maiden name for mum, and in your instance surely the status would read divorcee ... I believe Qld bdm marriage registrations are very informative and have been so for many decades, back even before WWI.
 
I am very confident that if you were to seek an Australian passport today, you would not need to provide the NSW marriage registration or the Divorce papers as part of the proving process.  Your birth cert and your Qld marriage cert give all the details needed for the application to proceed.  Back in the 1970s you would likely have been asked, at least verbally for your date of birth and your mum’s name when seeking your birth certificate.  Similarly back in the 1970s you would have been asked, at least verbally, for date of marriage and your then name, when seeking your Qld marriage certificate.  The BDM officer was able to verify your information against the information recorded on their registration of your Qld marriage in a discreet way without accessing the computer image readily available today.  Different technology, but same principles in the process. 

I am sure that apart from yourself on that NSW 1960s marriage registration that is available for purchase by any member of the general public, that there are others identified on it who may well be still alive. You and I both know that Australia has strict privacy laws/regulations/practices.  I see no reason to make these less restrictive, and I believe they apply to all the various government agencies, so I am sure that you and I are not the only ones concerned about the megdata issues.  If you were to start a thread for a discussion on that in respect to family history, I suggest I may well support your viewpoint.

I know that my next door neighbours’ NSW marriage registration is indexed online. 1966, and I know both sets of their parents are still living (born 1919 to 1925).  It is entirely possible, perhaps likely that their official witnesses may well be still living too. So that’s four  people (parents of the bride and groom) who many would consider, through age,  as becoming vulnerable, and at least two, but possibly up to four people (bride, groom, witnesses) who are approaching an age when they too are becoming vulnerable (baby boomers from WWII).  Moving the NSW restriction to access towards the Queensland limit (75 years) may well be the option that protects those older living members of our Australian communities.

JM