They claimed to have destroyed the original handwritten index. Said it was only used to find where the paper BC was at so they threw it all away when they computerized. Even though it is specifically specified as to be retained forever, just like the BC’s themselves.
Then again, they also claimed that they didn’t have a computerized index to Certificates of Hawaiian Birth (even though the “for office use” portion of their request form has that index as one of the indices to be checked) - and they did eventually come up with it after The Post & Email pressed them hard (IIRC).
The thing that comes through with every new detail is that the HDOH is crooked, crooked, crooked.
Yeah, I know. Lies, lies, and more lies. No records are ever destroyed, and even if there were a loop hole in the law, registrars are too anal to destroy anything. Registrars truly believe the records belong to them personally so they guard them with every ounce of their beings. All those shelves and boxes ever so neatly labeled give them power. They are the Keepers of Hawaii. The original books are somewhere but no way anyone in our lifetimes will ever see them. Three generations from now, someone will sneak through the gates but they’ll likely find three volumes missing - Aug. 1961, March 1965 and Dec. 1971.
Further proof they weren’t destroyed is they claim they were destroyed when they went digital is that with that statement they’re admitting nothing was destroyed when records were photographed and put onto microfilm or microfiche back in the 80s through a grant. No, all, I don’t have proof but it’s not like Hawaii wouldn’t have latched onto that grant money and modernize. That grant was created because the books took up too much space, the older books in “older” states were getting damaged (not the problem in the “newer” state of Hawaii but still) and because the pages could easily be taken out of the books put together with brads like the indexes were. I can see the microfilm being destroyed because those are considered to be copies rather than the originals but one would think they’d give the boxes to the state library. This grant was what allowed so many libraries to have microfilm and microfiche records across the nation.
Placemark.