I have just been through this with some records I noticed on an on-line
auction site where hundreds of records, including whole libers of court and
land records, from Lycoming County PA were being sold.

Clearly these came out of the county offices and the seller was claiming
that he had found them in an ancestor's attic.  I notified the auction
site, the County Sheriff, hisorical society, libraries, and a number of
genealogists thinking that they might want them back.

While some did express interest in them the general concensus was that they
had been disposed of by the county foilloing microfilming (one of hundreds
of sad stories) and they did not want them back.

What was so idiotic about all of this is the way it is all dismissed as
"well, we can't do anything about it now" and that while it may not have
been illegal to sell these things it was very much wrong from an historical
perspective.

Al of thee items wer ebeing stripped and cut up to sell as individual
scripts of interst to genealogists - whole legers and libers torn into a
thousand peices each selling for 10 bucks.

When I checked into the background of the seller and buyers I found one of
those fishy roundabouts that made me callt eh police - the seller claimed
to have found them, sold them to the buyer who then sold them back to the
seller, who in turn sold them back to the buyer who then was cutting them
apart only to have the original seller buy some of them back again!  (yes,
I know that's confusing).

When I brought this web of deceit (and their official provenience) to the
attention of the auction site all they did was ask the seller if he was
legit, which he of course said he was.  The local police never even batted
an eye, and most of the genealogists I told wanted to buy bits and pieces
before it was "too late"  I finally did get the scoop that they had been
discarded by the county following a microfilming project about 20 years ago.

Here in Virginia where I now live the state library recently recovered
offical records that were taken by Union soldiers in the 1860s and which
were privately held until they showed up on the same auction site.  I
understand that they paid good money to get them all back (and the dealer
took out all the good stuff signed by famous people and got in trouble for
trying to sell those items seperately) but the uproar was that the state
should not have to pay for records which are theirs and which are never
supposed to leave their care.  I believe they were treated as stolen
merchandise but the dealer was paid anyway (until he was found to be
cutting them up).

I know that countless official records newspapers and other documents which
were once public property have been dumped into the market, and many others
were recycled or shredded following microfilming (our own NY State
newspapers particularly come to mind).  In most cases the time of their
dispersal and destruction was not when conservation and preservation was of
concern, and that space and that the information was still preserved even
if on film, but the questiuon still remains as to what do we do with
records that are publicly generated and which find their way, through
official channels or not, into the public domain.  Do we treat them like
old books discarded from libraries - free game - or do we try to find a way
to undo the mistakes of an era when preservation was the least of concerns.

Remember that the incredible archive of the East and West India Companies
were sold at auction and sent to the rag factory in 1821 - a few years
before E.B. O'Callaghan went searching for them.  The loss is immesurable.

What happens in 10 years when the original microfilms reach the end of
their 50 year life-span?

        Dan W.


At 02:01 AM 10/27/01 -0500, you wrote:
>Hello
>        I have a question regarding the private sale of public records. I
>think
>that this issue has been discussed in the past on the list. So I
>apologize if I am repeating a previous question.
>        Over the past several
>months I have noticed a few public records
>being sold on EBAY. These included an item that was purported to be the
>official town records of a New York State town dating to the 1830s; in
>addition, recently I have seen mid-nineteenth-century court records and
>an election "register" for sale.
>        My question is, what is the legal status of these sales? Do the
>relevant governments, for example, the town in the case of the  town
>records, have
>any legal claim on these documents? Or are they simply private property?
>
>
>Thanks
>Ian McGiver
>