Iowans who research their “family tree” pressured Iowa lawmakers to think twice about new restrictions on the release of birth certifications — and won. A House Committee dumped the proposal which would have barred public access to the state’s birth records. Representative Gary Blodgett, a republican from Clear Lake, says he heard from plenty of genealogists.Blodgett says the records-clamp-down was proposed as one way to curb “identity theft.” He says you can get the information via the internet, so it probably wouldn’t have stopped identity theft anyway.
