Decriminalize copying Wisconsin uncertified vital records. Explaining an outdated and convoluted law that needs changing.

The collection of notes on this site concerns the restrictive and outdated laws governing access to historical vital records in Wisconsin.  It advocates for the modernization of the penalty structure: Reduce the penalty for duplicating records for non-fraudulent, historical research purposes. 

It’s my belief this day in age younger people will be deterred from learning about their ancestors and heritage by these dated restrictions.  Wisconsin and its government needs to get its priorities straight about what is or should be public vs private and show its citizens that they serve them rather than being in the priority market to sell their ancestors records to genealogical companies.  Wisconsin is the most research and genealogical unfriendly state considering its laws and hybrid historical society archives model.

Goal:

Have Wisconsin decriminalize copying uncertified vital records after ~100 years has passed by modifying Wisconsin statute 69.24(1)  This will help genealogists and researchers.  The goal will be achieved by attempting to resolve this with law makers.  If that fails, then seek help in filing declaratory judgement or official opinion with the attorney general, to challenge the constitutionality of the application of the vital records laws.  These laws are designed to stop people form making counterfeits to get a fake ID.  What we have appears overbroad in terms of the penalty being the same for both certified and uncertified records and that it doesn't require the intent to deceive for it to be a crime.  

Things needing to be done;   

• Uncertified issued copies cannot and should not follow the same strict liability legal language as their certified counterparts.  As of 2017 Electronic Verification of Vital Events (EVVE), has largely superseded paper verification.  The form you fill out tells you the uncertified version will not be valid for legal purposes.  So why on earth if you were to copy this version should that equate to a felony?  Uncertified records are issued on plain paper and have no water marks, embossments etc.    Once this is remedied there will no longer be a mens rea conflict.  This is a doctrine that states to be accused of a felony you generally have to know you are doing something wrong.  Most people would not assume copying a reference vital record could result in a felony.  It’s not like a warning is stamped on the record.  

Quite honestly I feel even certified versions should not follow this (Wisconsin only) problematic language. Only if the intent can be proven by the state that the person who used them for fraudulent use should that equal a felony.  We are the only one with that strict liability stuff on the books, and that is only acceptable for laws/crimes that are well understood like rape etc.   

•  The second part is even certified records should be following some sort of rolling window of ~100 years (sunset clause) for birth, and 50 years or less for death records. Where afterwards they are free from any fear of any felony and are public records (Chapter 19).  They need to be formally reclassified after a period of time as historic/archival records rather than vital records in the eyes of the law.   
• This action ends; the need to potentially jeopardize your own identity by the required need to share PII to view or obtain these historic records.  Also the unnecessary need to mark these records not for identity.  (a law to prevent identity based transactions using 100 years old documents is a smarter law, if necessary) 
• It ends the regulatory overreach where the WHS is a custodian of the older records, but they use this statutory vacuum to maintain a functional copyright on what are supposed to be  public government documents at some point of expiry of fraud concerns.  
• Ends the confusion on if the pre 1907 records are valid vital records as they bear no registrar's signature.
• Ends the contradiction that anyone can obtain a Certified pre 1907 record if so needed (they waive the identification/relationship check) yet we have to keep these records safe and under Chapter 69 ? 

Maybe there needs to be different windows for birth records vs marriage and death?  A lot of states have different windows like that. (It makes sense to me as the birth record is really the concerning record, the others can "expire" sooner than the birth ones.  See 69.20(3)(e)2 - indexes for death, marriage and divorce records become available for public reproduction after 24 months)

The minimum I will entertain is non certified issued copies cannot and should not follow the same strict liability as their certified counterpart.  The WRDA and LRB concur this should be fixed.

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The problem with the WRDA and DHS is a mindset of using a legal blanket approach instead of fixing the problem.  The problem goes away by adding security features and educating people who verify identity off such documents.   An overly broad law is government overreach, especially considering these records are created with tax dollars and should be automatically returned to the public records status (no longer under the Chapter 69 umbrella) after the fraud potential has expired.  And that is generally seen as after a persons death.  Continuing to claim otherwise without evidence of fraud, simply so these records can be used perpetually under the guise of a functional copyright to fund various social services and the WHS, is a misuse of the law. It demonstrates flawed logic at both the DHS and state budgeting levels.

The taxpayers of Wisconsin have less access than VitalChek and Ancestry, with whom the state has created partnerships with.  We do not even have access to a complete indexing of events.  Thus many times placing an order is a complete shot in the dark and waste of money.  A rolling window and reclassification of those vital records to public records should have been implemented when the law was last changed in 2015.  Trying to understand the counter arguments is difficult when ones government is less transparent.

In January 2026 I started asking elected officials to seek an official opinion on the interpretation of the law from the Attorney General on the broadness of the law.  It's clear to me there are a number of officials at the register of deeds offices who are not aware themselves that the law makes no distinction between certified and non certified records, in the context of the potential penalty.  And there is now a question of is that overly broad?  One type of document one could commit fraud with, and the other it is not possible.

Sadly so far those requests have gone nowhere. It may be related to a recent eye opening article titled "Some records requests with Wisconsin DOJ take years to fulfill" by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in May 2026.  It highlights the inefficiencies under the leadership of AG, Josh Kaul.