Since (retrospectively-speaking) Mr. William H. Sorrell and the State of Vermont have IGNORED the Federal HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996) (P.L. 104-191) by USING and PUBLISHING said materials out the Eugenics Survey material documents pertaining to these families, I think that EXPOSURE of these particular Eugenics Survey Records is necessary, as it pertains to the "Abenaki" Recognition "dynamic," that has arisen since 1976 regarding these INCORPORATED groups of so-called and reinvented "Abenakis."
Yet, BEFORE I begin this endeavor, I think I need to EXPLAIN some DETAILS about the Vermont Eugenics Survey Records, historically and contemporarily-speaking.
SEE THIS LINK: http://vermont-archives.org/collect/pdf/PRA-005.pdf#xml=http://Rotunda:8080/isysquery/b5bad97c-f2ea-408d-8447-9da799e29401/1/hilite/
Eugenics Survey of Vermont and the Vermont Commission on Country Life records, 1925-1956.
Series ID: PRA-005
Location: State Archives
Extent: 38 cubic feet.
Access: Open *
Scope: Series consists of records from the Eugenics Survey of Vermont (1925-1936), a privately funded organization organized and directed by Henry F. Perkins, former chairman of the University of Vermont’s Zoology Department. The Eugenics Survey of Vermont led to the formation of the Vermont Commission on Country Life and its survey work. The series also includes records, newspaper clippings, programs, journal articles and other materials related to the Vermont Commission on Country Life. The series documents rural Vermont life and communities, and includes background reference material as well as detailed pedigrees of individuals being studied.
SEE THIS LINK: http://vermont-archives.org/bxdescription.asp?RS=PRA%2D005&rsCreator=Eugenics+Survey+of+Vermont%2E&rsTitle=Eugenics+Survey+of+Vermont+and+the+Vermont+Commission+on+Country+Life+records%2C+1925%2D1956%2E
1 V.S.A. §317(c) Definitions; public agency; public records and documents
(7) personal documents relating to an individual, including information in any files maintained to hire, evaluate, promote or discipline any employee of a public agency, information in any files relating to personal finances, medical or psychological facts concerning any individual or corporation; provided, however, that all information in personnel files of an individual employee of any public agency shall be made available to that individual employee or his designated representative;
VERMONT STATE ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION
NON- DISCLOSURE AGREEMENT
NON- DISCLOSURE AGREEMENT
De-identifying EUGENICS SURVEY Information
The Eugenics Survey of Vermont was part of an international movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries based on the belief that an understanding and manipulating genetic heredity was the basis of social progress. In identifying genetic traits it saw as worthy of either cultivation or elimination, the Survey compiled information on individual families and communities. Eugenic Survey records specifying "personal finances, medical or psychological facts concerning any individual are considered confidential under 1 V.S. A. 317 (c) (7). This law is in concert with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA) Privacy Rule which is a Federal law protecting personal health and medical information from disclosure.
Historically, the records of the Eugenics Survey have been open to the public and widely used. Therefore the Vermont State Archives and Records Administration (VSARA) permits the inspection and use of the records of the Eugenics Survey of Vermont provided that the researcher de-identifies the individual in any notes, documentation, or publications that the researcher creates or produces during or following his or her inspection and use of the records.
The HIPPA Privacy Rule identifies 18 elements that could be used to identify the individual or the individual's relatives, employers, or household members: these elements are enumerated in the Privacy Rule. These elements alone or in combination with other information may be used to identify the individual who is the subject of the information. Using initials and country geographic subdivision are acceptable. The identifiers that must be removed in all notes, documentation, publications, and related source material are the following:
1. Names.
2. All geographic subdivisions smaller than a state, including street address, city, county, precinct, ZIP code, and their equivalent geographical codes, except for the initial three digits of a ZIP code if, according to the current publicly available data from the Bureau of the Census:
a. The geographic unit formed by combining all ZIP codes with the same three initial digits contains more than 20,000 people.
b. The initial three digits of a ZIP code for all such geographic units containing 20,000 or fewer people are change to 000.
3. All elements of dates (except year) for dates directly related to an individual, including birth date, admission date, discharge date, date of death: and all ages over 89 and all elements of dated (Including Year) indicative of such age, except that such ages and elements may be aggregated into a single category of age 90 or older.
4. Telephone numbers.
5. Facsimile numbers.
6. Electronic mail addresses.7. Social security numbers.
8. Medical record numbers.
9. Health plan beneficiary numbers.
10. Account numbers.
11. Certificate/license numbers.
12. Vehicle identifiers and serial numbers.
14. Web universal resource locators (URL,s).
15. Internet protocol (IP) address numbers.
16. Biometric identifiers, including fingerprints and voice prints.
17. Full-face photographic images and any comparable images.
18. Any other unique identifying number, characteristic, or code, unless otherwise permitted by the Privacy Rule for re-identification.
I, ____________understand the content and substance of this agreement wand will comply accordingly.
Signature:_________________
Date:________________
Now, this "AGREEMENT FORM" is used now-a-days by the Vermont Archives, because (according to them), these Eugenics Survey documents, is quote, "sensitive." What the State is really saying is, is that the State DOES NOT want this documentation to be acknowledged and reviewed for what it REALLY IS.
It's like the State of Vermont, wants desperately to "keep the curtains closed", in a house that is stacked to the ceiling, with Eugenics Survey Records on various Vermont families (what the State or some person couldn't manage to pilfer away, and remove out-of-PUBLIC-view). The State of Vermont wishes (to my thinking) to pretend that there is no PINK ELEPHANT standing there (the Eugenics Survey Records of these Families) in the livingroom while everyone watches WCAX at 6 o'clock. The State of Vermont directly or indirectly, quietly, wishes these boxes found by Kenvin Dann retrospectively in the mid-1980's, had NEVER BEEN FOUND. The State of Vermont wants to cause these documents to "go away," because it is the VT State's "DIRTY LITTLE SECRET" (sort of). Which of course, seemingly tarnishes the State's promoted touristy-oriented "Green Pastures", clean "Dairy Cow Farms", "Norman Rockwell Painting," scenic "EVERYTHING-IS-PRETTY in a illusion-type-of "Vermont-is-pictureque" or "PURE VERMONT."
Well, I am not so sure, but that today (2010), some POLITICIANS in Vermont (and New Hampshire) are trying to rub the Eugenics cow manure off their hands, clothes and boots when it comes to the Vermont Eugenics Survey reality, by their attempts at "trying to restrict these particular documents that are historical evidence...from the PUBLIC of Vermont, etc" through having "descendants of families," that were targeted (studied and mapped out) by the Eugenics Field Researchers of the time, sign such HIPAA/ "user agreement." I myself find it INSULTING and SHAMEFUL that the State of Vermont attempts to push this "de-identification" (under the implication that these historical documents which were part of a scientific study of so-called "bad" and "good" genes, are somehow under the "protection" of the HIPAA Laws) of those people in these HISTORICAL EUGENICS DOCUMENTS. Eugenics Field Researchers were "social workers" who were formerly employed by the Children's Aide Societies (in some cases), etc. Harriett E. Abbott (employed under under Henry Farnham Perkins) was not a Psychiatric Doctor, Mental Health Professional, etc. What she was...was a female "Dr. Josepf Mengele,"! (Herr Josepf Mengele was a ruthless Nazi Concentration Camp doctor). She merely went throughout Burlington and elsewhere, SURVEYING families of mixed-ancestry, dispensing her eugenics-trained bias towards anyone she deemed or found to be allegedly "feeble-minded" "sexually deviant" "retarded" "diseased" "immoral" (or whatever she could surmise), just like Josephine Webster. She put her "charm" on, when talking to family members she studied. When she went back to her Burlington, Vermont based Office on Church Street, she brought out her pen and field work notations. Assuredly with the mind-set of a "Do-Good'er," yet with the intentions of Herr Mengele himself, she held that pen day-in and day-out, typing on that typewriter, and not a scalpel...she began to write her "eugenic-opinionated bias" against various people, their ancestors, and those ancestor's "descendants." The only difference between Mengele and Miss Abbott, was that she was wearing a dress, and appeared to be a friend, and not an enemy to these Eugenics-studied families throughout Vermont and surrounding States as well.!
It reminds me of when the "orchestrator's and perpetrator's" of the Nazi Concentration Camps, tried to bury the evidence of their crimes against humanity, from the outside world! Germany has atleast of recent, come to some grasp that the historical records of it's Eugenics past, as a Nation, do not belong buried in the past, but brought out into the light of the public, so healing can begin to happen within it's own German People.
Such is it that my wanderings on the subject of "Eugenics" this evening (as it pertains to my own awareness of what is happening in Germany today vs. what is happening here in Vermont) I will convey this "hypothetical story" with the people who are reviewing this blog, just to bring my point across.
25 to 40 years into the future since the closing of the Auschwitz (to name just one of the many such places) Herr Buchholz, accompanied by his family went to Berlin, Germany to seek what became of their ancestors. "Stories" were told over dinners and over wintery fires. None were substantiated but over time became conjectured and pondered over by the subsequent generations of the family....from Grandfather....to Son, from Son....to Grandson. The "stories" lived on in the minds and hearts even after Grandpa Buchholtz passed away.
Upon becoming aware that the records from Auschwitz were being found in the walls of various homes in and around Berlin, such records were collected and donated thus became archived, and open to the public, so missing relatives could possibly find one another or find out many other details about what became of them. Unsubstantiated stories around dinners and wintery nights could finally be substantiated and re-oriented to the reality of what truthfully actually happened to these and many distant relatives and their descendants. Healing could possibly begin.....
Upon entering the building, Herr Buchholz was greeted by a woman, whom he in excitement explained to her, why he had come to such a place. Subsequently, the woman, by the name of Frau Köehler escorted Herr Buchholz into a "vaulted" storage room. He explained that his surname used to have the "t" at the end of it, but that it was dropped away two generations back, because of the Nazi Regime and the overall historical Germanic attitude's towards the Jew's, 7th Day Adventists, Homosexual's and others living within Germany, etc who were deemed "unfit" "undesirable" etc.
Frau Köehler nodded to the man in quiet understanding as she placed a paper in front of Herr Buchholz. "Please, sign here," as she pointed to the signature line on the paper. She continued, "Before I can photocopy any documents pertaining to your "particular family" Herr Buchholz, we will need to be assured, that as a researcher of your own family's involuntary incarceration as detainees at Auschwitz, we are requirying that you understand, that on any subsequent photocopies we may make for you, that you are agreeing to "de-identification" of your ancestor's names, addresses, telephone numbers, source(s) of the information, tattoo serial numbers, any photographic images or likeness thereof, health data, and any other possible identifications pertaining to the persons mentioned in these documents. By signing here, you agree to this agreement and will follow these conditions Herr Buchholz?," asked Frau Köehler, "do you understand?" she asked him yet again.
Looking at the Nazi Eugenics documents, with his grandparents, aunt's, uncles, and their relationships. Beside each name was the reason why they were captured, sent to the Ghetto's, sent the Institutions, sent to Auschwitz, and ultimately what resulted either immediately upon arrival, or thereafter. Babies and children seperated from parents, wives and husbands segerated in seperate buildings. Herr Buchholz looked confused. These were his ancestors who were detained at Auschwitz, who had starved, who had suffered, who were beaten and had been tortured day-in and day-out, until someone, a Nazi Soldier or a detainee forced to carry out who was to go where, had told his ancestors to line up and ordered to "enter the showers" .... children, women, men it did not matter .... "to clean your Jewish Stench off," said the sneering Nazi holding the German Shepard dog who lunging against the leash to get at the emaciated prisoners. Life was terminated at the hands of those who assumed that "they were doing good." Death was a welcomed "forever sleep" to those who had become mere emaciated skin and bones, as they walked forward on bare feet, silently and obediently, into the smoke stacked brick building, removed of all of their earthly possessions.
These historical Eugenic records were all that Herr Buchholz would have, as to some of his ancestor's "BEING," of which remained to tell the true history of world gone maddening crazy, to pass these documents down to his surviving own descendants, so that the truth would be corrected, and not lost.
Now, this "Representative of the State" Frau Köehler, was requiring him to "de-identify" and in essence, "kill" and "bury" the very documentary evidence of the truth of the historical past? To agree "to erase" from the records, the very physical evidence of his ancestors, and their descendants, from ever having lived, suffered and died? Herr Buchholz realized that he was being asked by Frau Köehler, in essence, to sign a de-identification paper, causing him as a descendant to perpetuate the erasure and denial of his ancestor's and their descendants lives. Frau Köehler reassured Herr Buchholz that "by agreeing to the the de-identification of the historical Eugenic documents, was to 'protect' the descendants of the subjected families descendants, a possible 'lasting stigma' of having been historically identified, eugenically studied, harrassed, relocated, incarcerated, institutionalized, eugenically sterilized, or murdered by the Nazis." To his thinking, the State was merely attempting to "hide" the legacy of a historical eugenical mind-set of the State in concert with various "private organizations," of which it continued to be involved with which historically perpetuated crimes against humanity supposedly for the betterment of society. To ask this of eugenically studied and targeted family descendants and require them to agree to de-identify their ancestors on such historical records, was to add insult to injury. All Herr Buchholz could do was ask Frau Köehler, "why do you ask this of me, to deny these ancestors and their descendants their very historical existence as human beings?" Frau Köehler watched as Herr Buchholz walked out of the "vaulted" room....some historical Eugenics Study documents duplicated, in hand.
Such is the reality of Vermont, as it pertains to the Eugenics Survey Records of the State, under the SEAL of the State, and the Auspices of the University of Vermont. The State Archives forces this "agreement to de-identification" today upon anyone seeking to research and gain photocopies of the Eugenics Records, and implying that such Vermont historical documents are "medical records." These Eugenics records were created as a scientific study (no matter the fact that the "scientific foundation" for such Eugenic Study was based on discredited principles, conjectures, and ideation's about human beings towards other human beings, and hereditary natural laws).
Mr. William H. Sorrell (Attorney General of Vermont) apparently concluded that the State and or himself are "above the very laws and restrictions" the State of Vermont Archives places arrogantly upon the public of Vermont, regarding the Eugenics Survey Completed-Incomplete-and Special "Family Pedigrees." Someone "redacted" portions of the document pages in these "Exhibits", to merely "make it look as if whomever were following the HIPAA requirements." The names were not redacted. The "cause of death" (health information) was not redacted (removed). What was "redacted" was genealogical connection(s) and "Source of Information" from these records.
If the Eugenics Survey Record documentary evidence is supposedly "medical records," (in part or in their entirety) then so too must all Vital Records be as well. Birth, Marriage, Death Records contain "health information" and "addresses" etc. as well, do they not? So, if the State of Vermont wishes to "restrict" and "contain" the Eugenics Survey documents from the Vermont general Public, then so too must the State of Vermont also "restrict" and "contain" any other documents that have "health" or "identifying" information contained on such. In this year, Vermont is considering CLOSING ALL VITAL RECORDS FROM THE PUBLIC. The "State" DOES NOT WANT anyone to know where they come from. They do not want truthful historical document records to be evaluated and reviewed.
Yet, clearly, from the website of the Vermont Secretary of State - Deborah L. Markowitz (see "Access: Open" * above in this posting) the Eugenics Survey documents are "accessible and open to the public." One just has to sign an "user agreement" agreeing to the "de-identification" of names etc on the historical documents, etc...even if they are one's own ancestor's, relatives, and or descendants. It goes beyond the pale that the State of Vermont Archives believes the Eugenics Records are "health records" or that these records should be "concealed" under HIPAA. These records, all records of historical merit need to be open to the public for the evaluation of the future generations, because to not understand the past, is to stumble in the present, and go blindly into the future. Our past, good, bad, or indifferent, is the very foundation is what it is. To deny that historical foundation, to "hide" it in plain sight is never a good thing to promote nor to advocate for.
Vital Records are "OPEN RECORDS" in Vermont, thankfully said. At least, for now. But for how long?, is the question....
I had retrospectively, obtained Vermont Eugenics Survey documents in May of 1996 (when the materials were not in disarray, nor pilfered away by some unknown persons, and so on since then). I did not have any requirement placed upon my person, of signing such a paper as afore-mentioned, regarding the Eugenics Familial "Pedigrees" photocopies that I obtained. I am not going to "erase" or "de-identify" the truthful reality of the Eugenic's Field Researcher, Harriett E. Abbott, etc., in the eugenical "studying" of the Phillips Families, the Woodward Families, the Sweetser Families, the Shonio Families, nor the Way Families, and so many other numerous families that she wrote about, in her non-medical opinionated "ignorance and at-the-same-time blatant arrogance" towards these Vermont families, of which (in part) I descend from.
There are some so called alleged and reinvented self-proclaimed representatives of the Abenaki (many people, in fact) who have used the Eugenics Survey Records of the mid-20th century have spoken about in the media...etc., in which they endeavored to solicit a sympathetic ear from the politicians and the public alike in the past such as Charles Lawrence "Megeso" Delaney, Dee "Bright Star" nee: Dudley, April Ann nee: St. Francis - Merrill, her father the late (deceased) Homer Walter St. Francis Sr., etc. These afore-mentioned people and their Incorporation's (what they are now calling "Abenaki Tribes") have attempted to portray themselves as the "victims" for the purpose of sympathy. They proclaimed their ancestors and their relatives were eugenically identified, investigated, and sterilized "because these people were and or are "Abenakis." What they have been doing is distorting the truthful historically recorded Eugenics documents in order to perpetuate their own present-day agenda's of seeking Federal and or Vermont State "Abenaki" Recognition for themselves, using the Eugenics Survey as an excuse for their lack of genealogical connection(s) to the historical Abenaki Ancestors and Abenaki Communities.
Mr. William H. Sorrell, in this created State of Vermont Repsonse to the Petition for Federal Recogniton by this "St. Francis/ Sokoki Abenaki Band of the Abenaki Nation of Vermont" INCORPORATION, is absolutely correct in what is concluded on page 243. I will put this "State of Vermont Response....." documention on this blog, page by page (all of it!), in the very near future. People in Vermont and New Hampshire NEED to read this particular documentation and seriously study it.
Why has the Attorney General's Office lost it's vocal cords, in its opposition to these "mere incorporations" becoming "Abenaki Tribes" by State of Vermont's Legislative sanction? It is quite puzzling (at least to me). Considering how much time, effort and funding, went into the study and discrediting of this Swanton based Incorporation, that Office went to such research lengths so as to publish not once, but twice, this material. I find it "odd" that the State Attorney General's Office has become so apathetic and quiet as to these incorporations, claiming to the Vermont Legisture that they are supposed "Abenaki Tribes," yet these groups provide no geneaological, nor historical foundation of their having connections to the Abenaki Ancestors. What little these "Abenaki Alliance" groups do have of evidence, they "hide" from the public, and continue to manipulate through their appointments to the restructured Vermont Commission on Native American Affairs.
The Attorney General's Office (the State) and the Federal Office of Federal Acknowlegment Department, both came to the SAME CONCLUSIONS, point-and -arguement after point-and-arguement, that April St. Francis-Merrill's Inc'd group could not and did not prove historically, socially, and most importantly genealogically, that such incorporation nor its members, were Indians, let alone Abenakis on December 2002, November 2005 and June 2007.
What makes anyone (political or layman) assume that this particular incorporated group in Swanton is a bonefide Abenaki Tribe today? Which is connected in a so-called "Abenaki Alliance" with four or five other so-called "Abenaki" Incorporations. Are these groups legitimately historical, socially documentated in the past-tense, and genealogically bonefide...meaning connected to historical Abenaki Communities?
Yet, BOTH the State and the Federal entities are absolutely silent today, as the Governor of Vermont signed Amendment to Bill S.222 in May of 2010, allowing these genealogically-unsubstantiated groups of people (who are "merely incorporations" sanctioned under the VT or NH Secretary of State's Office) attempts to gain Official State Recognition in Vermont and or New Hampshire?! Why? Because Senator Hinda Miller alleges that she belongs to a Tribe...a Jewish Tribe, so she declared....too?; Or as Senator Vincent Illuzzi stated that he is there, as Chairman of the Senate Committee, and he is going to recognize these groups as being Abenakis, because he needs to bring federal money into the State of Vermont, whether thats through these people making and selling their art wares, or soemthing else? Seems to me that this Arts and Crafts business dynamic is merely a "smoke screen" for something else. Land Claims? Casino's? What else?
How I do indeed "digress".....and go on and on....
So, as follows in the next posting, is Exhibit 9, as the State of Vermont's Attorney General's Office has published it "twice." I will follow-up with the unredacted Eugenics Survey documents and other informational documents pertaining to either the Eugenics Survey, and or the families (genealogically-speaking etc.) which were studied. It is time to open the living room curtains, open the window, and shove this PINK ELEPHANT out onto the dooryard of Vermont and surrounding State's....so that every neighbor, and everyone that drives by, can acknowledge, accept and review what truthfully went down, in Vermont.
Adolph Hitler was not the first person or the only one to study or perpetuate a Eugenics Study; it was created and perpetuated in Amerika first; and the Eugenics Survey was operating right here in Vermont (at the same time as it was happening in Germany, Poland, and various other area's of Europe) with the aid of the Children's Aide Societies, School Officials, Instituations, and so on....throughout New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, and very likely other State's as well.
People condemn Germany for the Eugenics (in their assumptions that Germany created the term Eugenics, etc). What Hitler and the Nazi Regime did historically and sadly, was employ Eugenics dynamics, that Amerika merely wanted to do, was trying to do, and at times, did do to people of which "they didn't like" and yet, so often people forget that the ideations began with Darwinism. No, the Vermont Eugenics Survey was not sterlizing "Abenakis" as has been repeatedly stated in the media by these so-called alleged and reinvented "Abenaki" incorporations and their members. No Abenakis, Indians...full-blooded nor mixed-blood persons were sterilized by the Eugenics Survey, "because they were Abenakis" and or identified as "Abenaki descendants."
This is a perpetuated MYTH about the Vermont Eugenics Survey
People will understand the foundation of my stated position(s) as I post the Vermont Eugenics Survey documents on this blog.Next...of course, will be posted "Exhibit 9"
"Redacted and Unredacted"
