Excerpt from Annual Report, Vital Statistics of Massachusetts, 1987Public Health. With the exception of the administrative location of the State Registry, the actual mechanics of the system have changed remarkably little over the years.With limited exceptions, most vital records in Massachusetts are open, public records. The figure on the next page illustrates the registration process in Massachusetts. For open birth and death records, there is a triple registration process in Massachusetts. Theevent is first recorded in the city or town where the event occurred. The clerk of that community is then required to forward a certified copy of the record to the community where the person resided at the time of the event and a copy to the State Registry. Certified copies of the records may be issued from local or state records. If the record is a restricted record, such as those of out-of-wedlock births, the registration occurs only in the community where the event occurred and the state office.In addition to receiving a legal copy of each birth record from the city or town in which the birth occurred, the State Registry also receives a confidential copy of the birth record directly from the hospital or birth center where the birth occurred. This copy includes confidential medical information in addition to the legal information. It is this copy of the record which is processed to produce the statistical information on births contained in this report.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.