The Panama Historical Society, which meets the first Wednesday of each month in the upstairs Salon Balboa at the Niko’s next to the Balboa Stadium, gathered on June 5 to hear Albert Brown, an archivist for the Panama Canal Authority, advise them on how to get research and obtain canal records.

"My main duty is to receive documents, and codify, classify and preserve them," Brown explained. The majority of the documents that he manages are microfiche copies of originals that are now stored in the United States, but his office, now in Room 14-B of the Administration Building at Balboa Heights but soon to move to Corozal, is also usually the place to go if you want to know which US archive to visit when you’re in search of originals or canal documents that are no longer available in Panama. Brown also fields questions about canal records sent to him at his email address, which is abrown@pancanal.com.

The original canal records are generally found in three places in the United States, the regional depositories of the National Archives in St. Louis, Atlanta and College Park, Maryland. Among the most commonly requested documents, most personnel records are found in St. Louis, while medical files are in Atlanta. Canal Zone vital records, certificates of births, deaths, marriages, divorces and adoptions, now must be obtained from the US State Department. (Documents about births and deaths at Gorgas Hospital after the treaties went into effect in 1979, however, are kept by the Panamanian government.) Canal Zone College and La Boca College transcripts are obtained at Fort Benning, Georgia. Original personnel and tax records for the Isthmian Canal Commission and its successors the Panama Canal Company and the Panama Canal Commission, and also of the Panama Railroad, are all found at National Archives branches.

For many purposes, certified copies of the original documents are needed, but for a lot of other uses the microfiche files that Brown maintains serve well enough. His office helps a lot of writers and historians, people researching their family trees and those interested in obtaining records of when they or their relatives passed through the Panama Canal. "We have people who write me from all over the world," Brown said, noting that the peak visitor season for his office coincides with dry season, when many of the tourists who come here in those months drop by with their inquiries about various documents.

Some of the more popular requests are for photos. The canal’s Graphics Branch has some of these readily available, but most of the canal’s photographic record is in the St. Louis branch of the US National Archives. In either case, copies can be purchased. Brown noted that old personnel files typically include photos, which are often of great interest to the descendants of people who worked in the old Canal Zone.

For those interested in historical research, there are records of things like accidents in canal waters, the French Canal archives, files on the Canal Zone’s cemeteries, and documents from the Canal Zone’s legal system. "A lot of people don’t know that they had a death penalty here," Brown pointed out, noting that among the records that still exist are those of a few executions at the old Gamboa Penitentiary.

Nowadays there are fees for copies of documents, and if any significant time is spent assisting in research, there is a $7 per hour charge for that, too. "There’s nothing free anymore," Brown warned.

© 2002 by The Panama News All Rights Reserved For information or problems with this page contact: editor@ThePanamaNews.com
News Business Editorial Opinion Letters Arts Reviews Community Fun Travel Galleries Calendar Outdoors Dining Science Sports Español Archive Front Page also in this section: Black Ethnicity Day Penwomen