Important: Beginning in 2021 New Jersey will stop using Healthcare.gov and start using the State-Based Marketplace, Get Covered NJ State Marketplace.  Enrollment begins November 1, 2020.

The passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act on March 23, 2010 was a major change for health insurance in the United States.

Among other features, with the Affordable Care Act (ACA) people enrolled in an ACA Marketplace plan cannot be denied health insurance coverage for pre-existing conditions, and children can remain on their parents’ health plan until age 26. In addition, many states expanded Medicaid in order to cover more people in certain income groups.

You can find detailed and up-to-date information about the Affordable Care Act and the Get Covered NJ State Marketplace on the New Jersey State Library Affordable Care Act Research Guide.

Here are the 2021 important dates & deadlines for New Jersey:

• 2021 Open Enrollment starts Sunday, November 1, 2020.
• The last day to sign up for 2021 coverage is January 31, 2021.
• If you enroll by December 31, your coverage will start January 1. If you enroll in January, your coverage will start February 1.

Some states use the Federal Marketplace while others have built their own State-based Marketplace and may have different Open Enrollment periods.
Kaiser Family Foundation has a list of State Health Insurance Marketplace types.

Enrolling
Existing Federal Marketplace Customers – HealthCare.Gov provided Get Covered New Jersey with your current application and enrollment information. This was used to create a new account for you on GetCoveredNJ.
You should receive a letter from Get Covered NJ with an access code to log in to your new user account.

You can access your account starting November 1, 2020.

Tips for Choosing a Plan – things to consider when shopping for health insurance.

Plan Comparison Tool: compare health plans, costs, and estimate how much financial help you may qualify for.

To enroll you will need:

• Home and/or mailing addresses
• Birth dates
• Social Security numbers
• Immigration documentation, if applicable
• Employer and income information for every member of your household (for example, pay stubs or W-2 forms)
• Your best estimate of what your household income will be in 2021
• Policy numbers for any current health plans covering members of your household

Assistance:
Find Local Assistance – Get help from trained assisters and navigators.

Get Covered NJ Frequently Asked Questions     Customer Call Center 1-833-677-1010
Language Support: Get help in your language.

New Jersey requires residents to maintain health insurance. The New Jersey Health Insurance Market Preservation Act is a law that requires all NJ residents to have minimum essential health coverage throughout 2019 and beyond, unless you qualify for an exemption.

Other New Jersey Resources
NJ FamilyCare is New Jersey’s health insurance program that provides free or low-cost health coverage for qualified residents of any age. It’s also known as Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program.  Enrollment in NJ FamilyCare can take place any time.

Legal research often requires that you find information on a law from the past, or find the text of a current law, before it was amended. If the date isn’t too far in the past, you have a few digital options to find this information. However, what if you need an old law—1856, 1957, 1982?

When researching the distant past, your resources are often very limited and usually require you coming to the library and looking at a very old, very fragile printed book. However, what happens when we are closed? Great question!

HeinOnline (Hein) is our secret weapon, and it is available remotely to New Jersey state employees. All you need is a NJSL library card.

Hein is actually not a single database—it is a collection of databases containing legal resources covering all 50 states, the US Federal Government, and many international laws and treaties. Today I will focus on two databases: the State Statutes: A Historical Archive and the Session Laws.

You can find each of these easily from the Hein home page—just click on the U.S. State link to see both, as well as a database on Covid19 in America. When you select your database, you will see a pull down menu (see below), which allows you to narrow your selection.

State Statutes:  A Historical Archive

Select your desired database–I will start with the State Statutes: A Historical Archive.  I always start my search by state, but if you know the title you want, that works as well. After selecting “State,” I scroll down to select New Jersey.

The offerings of this database begin before New Jersey was a state. Titles include “Laws and Acts of the General Assembly of His Majesties Province of Nova Caesarea or New Jersey” from 1717, and the 1776 volume “Acts of the General Assembly of the Province of New Jersey”.  In addition, there is information on the laws and constitutions when we first became a state. There are digests of the laws, the statutes at specific times, revised statutes, indexes, and treatises discussing the laws.

All of the titles of this database are fully searchable PDF documents which can be downloaded, printed, and/or emailed. Beware. When searching the very old documents an f was often used in place of s, so a search for Housekeeper, will need to be entered as Houfekeeper to find what you need!

Session Laws:

The Session Laws database contains much more than session laws. You can find current statutes here, and a variety of related works as well. When you open the database, there are tabs to choose from—All Titles, State Session Laws, State Statutes, etc.. Under each of these, you can either search using the very helpful boxes at the top, or scroll to your state and go directly to that section.

This database is invaluable when researching superseded statutes or searching for an old law!

When you are looking at the current statutes, generally you will see a list of years and chapters at the bottom of the text. The earliest year is the enactment year followed by the amendment years. To see your pre-amendment version, decide which session law immediately precedes your chosen date. This will be the version of the law in place on your date in question.

Below is a screen shot of NJSA 39:4-138.1 Determination of No Parking Zones.

The area circled in red is the list of Session Laws that created this statute (L.1948, c342) and the amending legislation (L.1951, c.23 and L.2003, c.13). The years and chapter numbers can be entered into the search box, bringing you directly to the chapter law you need (see below).

Please note, when the results are returned, the first link is the entire Session Law Volume. To go directly to your specific chapter, click on Turn to Page. You can also open a PDF, download your results, or email the results (see below).

Even with a powerful tool like HeinOnline, it can be hard to trace the history of some laws. There has been legislation that completely revises the statutes or a section of the statutes that can make the path harder to follow than in this example. Legal research can often lead to more questions before it provides the answer you need.

We are here to help, even when we are working remotely. The Law Librarians can help you find legislative history reports and legislative intent, navigate the databases, or find additional information. Contact us at reflaw@NewJerseystatelib.org. We look forward to hearing from you.

The United States Census is Happening Now, Respond Today!

The 2020 United States Census, which counts every person in the United States and five U.S. territories, has been underway since April 1, 2020.

The goal of the United States Census is to count every person only once and in the right place.

Article I, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution mandates that a population and housing count occur every 10 years. The results determine how many seats in Congress each state receives. The Census also provides critical data that lawmakers, businesses, educators, and many others use to provide daily services, products, and support for individuals and their communities.

Self-Response

The 2020 Census, which asks a few simple questions, takes approximately 10 minutes to complete. There are three ways to self-respond: online, by telephone and by mail.

• How to Respond Online
• How to Respond by Telephone
• How to Respond by Mail

Utilizing these Self-Response options, reduces the need for Census Taker home visits.

How is your State, County, City or Congressional District Responding?

The Census has created a Response Rates Map to track the level of participation by geographic area.

The national view of the Response Rates Map offers a look at the full United States, with each state color-coded to reflect its 2020 self-response rate. Once you’re at the state level, you have the choice, using the menus to the right, to view response rates at several different geographic levels: by County, by City, and by Congressional District.

Self-Response Map: New Jersey

https://public.tableau.com/views/ResponseRateChallenge/StateDashboard?:showVizHome=no&:tabs=n&State=New%20Jersey&Select%20Mode=Total&Share

COVID-19 and the 2020 Census

In light of the COVID-19 outbreak, the United States Bureau of the Census has revised its operational schedule.  The 2020 Census Self-Response phase, which entails responding online, by telephone, or mail, has been extended to October 31, 2020.

To view a complete list of 2020 Census Operational adjustments, see:

2020 Census Operational Adjustments Due to COVID-19

The Census is Happening Now, Respond Today!

To learn more go to:  https://2020census.gov/en.html

For Libraries: Research Guides: 2020 Census Resources for New Jersey Libraries: Home

Researching our 19th century immigrant ancestors can be a challenging project because of the scarcity of some record types, inconsistencies between records, and a lack of verifying details. When there is a profound language difference, the complexity of this research increases exponentially. Tracing Chinese American ancestry can be particularly challenging because of the way names were recorded and transcribed.

Chinese-English Transcription Systems

Chinese names needed to be transcribed into the English alphabet for official documentation. A standardized transcription system, known as Wade-Giles, was widely used in the 19^th century. The Wade-Giles system was largely replaced by a new system, Pinyin, in the 1950’s and is still in use today. For this reason, a family name transcribed with Pinyin may not match the spelling of an ancestor’s name transcribed with Wade-Giles.  For example, the Pinyin transliterated names Zi and Cai would be written as Tzu and Tsai, respectively, in Wade Giles. You can learn more about Wade-Giles and Pinyin from these websites:

What’s the difference between Wade-Giles and Pinyin?

Wade-Giles from Pinyin.info

Wade-Giles to Zhuyin to Pinyin Conversion Table

Despite Wade-Giles being in use by 1859, it would be unwise to assume every 19^th century record transcriber understood or even knew of the system. At least some record takers would have written names phonetically as they heard them, creating different name spellings for a single individual among contemporary records. Dialects would have further affected these spellings.

In addition, many 19^th century immigrants, including those from China, chose alternate names for use in America. In some cases, these were more Western-sounding names, like Mark or Sam. In other cases, names may have been selected for business purposes or to connect oneself with a more established person. In other cases, aliases were chosen for unknown personal reasons.

Sing Lee, Immigrant to Trenton

Identifying ancestors in official documents can be quite difficult, as is illustrated in the case of Sing Lee, a Chinese immigrant and business owner in Trenton in the 1890s. Very sadly, Mr. Lee was murdered in the laundry he owned at 160 North Willow Street on May 17, 1898. The case shocked the city and received wide coverage in local newspapers.

Without this newspaper coverage, it would be quite difficult to find any official documentation on Mr. Lee. Despite having his name and the exact date, location, and circumstance of death, a search for his death certificate at the New Jersey State Archives under “Sing Lee” and variations of this name returned nothing. Other typical avenues of research proved fruitless as well – Mr. Lee did not appear in Trenton on the 1880 Census and because the 1890 Census was largely destroyed in a fire in 1921, it was not searchable. Business records were not required to be filed with the State at the time and immigration records from Castle Gardens, New York, the main New York area port of entry at the time, did not provide an obvious match.

We find many useful details about Mr. Lee’s life in the newspaper articles covering his death, but even these details prove complex. One article states that Mr. Lee was also known as Eng Wing Fou. Another article offers more detail, stating his name was Eng Wing Foon, that he was 53, had been born in China to parents Hoong Sang and Dooey Man, and had arrived In New York ten years prior. He was also listed as having four sons, the eldest of whom, Eng See Ju, lived in Massachusetts and oversaw funeral arrangements. Another article suggested that Eng See Ju was Mr. Lee’s brother, not his son.

It was only by searching all deaths in Trenton for May 17, 1989 that a death certificate for Mr. Lee under the name Wing Fow was located, matching the known location and cause of death, and parents’ names.

Places to Research

Researching your Chinese American ancestors can be a deeply rewarding project, but given some of the unique challenges discussed above, the following tips and resources may be of help.

The New Jersey State Archives offers a searchable portal for marriage records May 1848-May 1878 and death records May 1848-December 1900. Name variations may need to be searched. All records can be viewed for free in the Archives or copies can be mailed for a fee, though no preview copy of the record will be available: https://wwwnet-dos.state.nj.us/DOS_ArchivesDBPortal/index.aspx#VS

Church records, local newspapers, and the collections of local historical societies may offer a wealth of information about the everyday lives and associations of ancestors. Your local public library may offer local history collections as well as provide access to local newspapers or commercial genealogy websites, like Ancestry or Family Search. Access points for New Jersey newspapers known to have been digitized are available here https://libguides.njstatelib.org/digitized-newspapers

NARA, the National Archives and Records Administration, offers these resources : https://www.archives.gov/research/chinese-americans

Castle Gardens, NY, the main point of entry before Ellis Island, has some searchable records: http://www.castlegarden.org/searcher.php

The Bancroft Library at University of California, Berkeley, has created a digital archive on Chinese immigration: https://bancroft.berkeley.edu/collections/chinese-immigration-to-the-united-states-1884-1944/index.html

The University of California, Los Angeles, offers a Wade-Giles to Pinyin conversion guide: https://www.library.ucla.edu/wade-giles-zhuyin-pinyin-conversion-table

This research guide from the University of Texas, San Antonio, is another wealth of resources: http://libguides.utsa.edu/c.php?g=515536&p=3542468

The Museum of the Chinese in America has built tremendous collections and offers research services: https://www.mocanyc.org/

Alice Kane, genealogist of the New England Genealogical Society offers a webinar and resources that may help your research: https://www.americanancestors.org/education/learning-resources/read/chinese-american-guide

When planning a response to COVID-19, libraries should consult their local governments and local Boards of Health for guidance and advice.

Other key resources include:

1. Guidance from the CDC 
2. A statement from Gov. Murphy that references Civil Service Guidelines

Note, as a precautionary measure, the State Library Information Center has canceled all in person programming and classes through April 17th. However, by statute, we are operational and providing services as long as the state government is open.