A separate FOIA lawsuit has now been filed against the Cook County Clerk over genealogical index access

I wanted to share another update with the genealogy community.

As I mentioned in my earlier posts (initial compliant and additional compliants), I was awaiting the public Access Counselor process to determine whether a separate FOIA case would need to be filed. That has now happened, and I have now filed the FOIA lawsuit as well. You can view the compliant here: https://www.scribd.com/document/1036594002/Cook-County-FOIA-Complaint-on-Genealogical-Index-Access

This final case is directed specifically at the Cook County Clerk’s denial of my FOIA requests for genealogical index materials relating to births, deaths, and marriages prior to January 1, 1916. The issue is not a demand for certified copies or unrestricted access to underlying vital records. It is whether the Clerk can categorically deny inspection and access to genealogical index materials through FOIA, rather than conduct the kind of record-specific review, segregability analysis, and inspection analysis that FOIA requires.

In other words, this case is narrower and different from the other suits. The earlier cases address the Vital Records Act, state supervisory duties, FamilySearch-related gatekeeping issues, and genealogy-related fee barriers. This one is specifically about whether the Cook County Clerk’s FOIA denials were lawful. As a note, through a separate FOIA with the IL Attorney General (IL AG), I requested all past PAC denials for Section 24 to gain a better understanding of the issue at hand.

I am posting this here because I know many researchers have encountered similar problems involving blocked access, delayed staff-mediated searches, fee-based processes replacing direct access, and categorical refusals that make older historical materials much harder to use than they should be.

I will continue to post updates as these cases develop. If others have dealt with similar FOIA denials or genealogy-access barriers in Illinois or elsewhere, I would be interested in hearing about it.