An open letter to my Indiana Congressman and Senators:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am writing as a professional genealogist, author, educator, and researcher to express my deep concern about the announced closure of the National Archives at Chicago and the National Archives at San Francisco in San Bruno.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For those of us who work with historical records, an archive is not simply a building in which records are stored. It is the place where evidence becomes accessible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That distinction matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I have spent years researching families whose stories cannot be reconstructed from records found online. Despite the extraordinary growth of digitized collections, anyone who conducts serious genealogical or historical research knows that enormous quantities of federal records remain available only in their original form. NARA itself holds billions of pieces of paper. Moving an undigitized record hundreds of miles away may preserve the document physically, but it can place that document effectively beyond the reach of many of the people who need to consult it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That is particularly troubling to me as an Indiana researcher. The National Archives at Chicago serves Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin. Its records document the lives of people throughout the Midwest through federal court files, naturalization and immigration records, Bureau of Indian Affairs materials, maritime records, federal agency records, and countless other collections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These are not merely records about government. They are records about people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They contain the immigrant seeking citizenship, the sailor working the Great Lakes, the family appearing in federal court, the Native American interacting with a federal agency, the worker whose life intersected with federal law, and ordinary men and women who may have left very little evidence of their lives anywhere else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Genealogists understand something particularly important about records such as these: we often do not know what we need until we see it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A catalog description cannot tell us everything contained in a box. An index cannot reproduce marginal notes, attachments, correspondence, photographs, affidavits, or neighboring documents that provide context. And a digitized image cannot help when the record has never been digitized.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I recognize that NARA faces legitimate challenges involving aging facilities, declining storage space, and the federal government’s transition to electronic recordkeeping. NARA has explained that these considerations contributed to the decision to close Chicago and San Bruno. But the changing needs of the Federal Records Centers should not automatically determine the future accessibility of the permanent archival records housed alongside them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Those are two different questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before permanent archival holdings are dispersed, I urge NARA and Congress to consider whether regional public access can be preserved, even if maintaining the present buildings is no longer practical. If these particular facilities cannot reasonably remain open, then suitable alternatives within the regions they serve should be seriously explored.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I also urge NARA to provide researchers with clear information about what will happen to each collection, where it will be housed, when it will become unavailable for research, when access is expected to resume, and what provisions will be made for researchers who can no longer reasonably travel to the new location.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For a researcher in Indiana, moving a record from Chicago to Kansas City is not simply changing its shelf location. It changes whether that record can realistically be examined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The National Archives has an extraordinary responsibility. It preserves the documentary evidence of the federal government, but preservation alone is not enough. Records must also remain meaningfully accessible to the American people whose history they document.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once regional archival infrastructure disappears, recreating it will be extraordinarily difficult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I therefore respectfully ask NARA to pause the closure and relocation process long enough for meaningful consultation with researchers, genealogical and historical organizations, tribal nations, educators, affected communities, and members of Congress. I also ask Congress to examine whether adequate alternatives exist for maintaining regional access to these permanent federal records before the present facilities are closed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our nation’s records belong to all of us. Their value lies not simply in keeping them safe, but in ensuring that future generations can find them, examine them, question them, and use them to understand the people who came before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As a genealogist, I see every day what happens when a record survives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I also know what happens when access to it disappears.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Respectfully,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lori Samuelson<\/p>\n\n\n\n
READERS: You have my permission to forward or alter this letter in anyway you’d like. Contact your representatives. They are SUPPOSED to listen to us. Here’s the link to find your Congressperson<\/a> and Senator<\/a>s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" An open letter to my Indiana Congressman and Senators: I am writing as a professional genealogist, author, educator, and researcher to express my deep concern about the announced closure of the National Archives at Chicago and the National Archives at San Francisco in San Bruno. For those of us who work with historical records, an … Continue reading “RE: NARA Notice 2026-037 \u2014 Closure of the National Archives at Chicago and the National Archives at San Francisco (San Bruno)”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[346,1437],"class_list":["post-3986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-trends-and-musings","tag-nara","tag-senators"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3986"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3986\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3988,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3986\/revisions\/3988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}