"Notes on the history of the Eugenics Record Office" (10)

486. (d) While no dogmatic advice is ever given by the Eugenics Record Office in reference to problems which involve human heredity, persons who have presented their problems as to a clinic have, in every case, received careful consideration, and have been given reference to the world's present stock of knowledge of the inheritance of the particular trait involved. Such a reference when followed up, often results in the addition of an exceedingly valuable firsthand human pedigree-record to the archives of the Eugenics Record Office. (e) The inventory will show that whenever the Eugenics Record Office received a Record of Family Traits it returned to the volunteer collaborator a pledge to the effect that the particular record would be "carefully indexed and permanently preserved" for the benefit of the particular family, that the family would have access to its own record for study, and could make additions to it as new facts of family history and trait-qualities came to light. The use which this office would make of such a record, it was definitely understood, would be confined to scientific analysis, with complete respect for privacy of the record. This was one of the primary purposes of the office, and the person who filed his family record in the archives of the Eugenics Record Office was, according to the instructions of the administration, given definite assurance of permanency, in addition to safety, privacy and family accessibility.