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Find Pieces Of Puzzle In Social Security Records

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By SHARON TATE MOODY

Tribune correspondent

Published: March 30, 2008

The Social Security Administration has two sets of records of great value to family historians. These are Social Security applications for benefits and the Social Security Death Index. Information from both is easy to obtain.

On Jan. 1, 1937, workers were first able to apply for Social Security numbers and begin acquiring credits for old-age benefits. Congress had passed the Social Security Act on Aug. 14, 1935, which President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law in 1936.

The application for a Social Security number is called the SS-5.

It is an extremely good resource for genealogists because applicants had to list their birth names and the names of their parents. This means married women included their maiden names. People with legal name changes for reasons besides marriage also should have entered their birth name.

You can order a copy of your deceased ancestors' or relatives' application - it may provide some valuable missing information or confirmation of details you suspect.

Rootsweb.com and Ancestry.com allow you to generate a letter to Society Security, but you also can write your own and send it to the Office of Earnings Operations, FOIA Workgroup at the Social Security Administration, 300 N. Greene St., P.O. Box 33022, Baltimore MD 21290.

Your letter should say that you are requesting the SS-5 and give the name and Social Security number of the deceased person. You must include a check for $27 for each file you request.

Finding That Number

When you don't know your relative's Social Security number, you'll need to find it before writing the letter.

This can be done in several ways. It may be in his or her personal papers, on the death certificate, in old banking records, on voter registration rolls at the courthouse or on old employment records.

You also could request a number search from Social Security by sending $29 to the same address listed above. You'll need to include the deceased's full name, date of birth and state where he or she was born to initiate this search.

Or you might be able to get the number from the Social Security Death Index. This index contains more than 81 million records created from files of deceased people whose deaths were reported to Social Security.

The Death Index is online in several locations. You can go to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints site (familysearch.org) and enter the name of interest in the "Search for Your Ancestor" boxes provided. By entering just a first and last name, you should be directed to a link for the index.

Another site that will take you to the index is Rootsweb, at ssdi.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/ssdi.cgi. I find this particular site works best if you choose the "Soundex" rather than "Exact Name" in the box after your ancestor's last name. Ancestry also offers an index search but only to those with subscriptions.

The Death Index doesn't contain the names of every deceased person who had a Social Security number. If no one ever notified Social Security of the person's death, he or she will not be listed.

Notifications of death were made for a variety of reasons. A family member may have reported it to request survivor benefits or stop Social Security benefits to the deceased. Some mortuaries also report death as a service to the family.

A Death Index report will include the name, Social Security number, state in which the number was issued, date of birth, date of death and last residence of the deceased. Social Security doesn't guarantee the accuracy of the files so you are clued for errors.

The address of the deceased will consist of only a ZIP code and town name and not a street address.

Don't make the mistake of relying on the town noted in the Death Index file as proof of where your ancestor died. It may not be.

For instance, when an elderly person no longer can care for his or her affairs, a third party may be legally designated to receive the benefits on his or her behalf. The address will show the ZIP code and the town to which the benefits were mailed.

Meanwhile, when the person died in the same county to which the benefits were mailed, this information can lead to another valuable document. You now know where to look for a death certificate.

Using The Death Index

One of my client's parents divorced when he was very young, and he been estranged from his father since he was a teenager. I located a person of the father's name and date of birth using the Death Index. This gave me a town, state (derived from the ZIP code) and date of death. I was able to request a copy of the death certificate from the state's vital records department archives.

On the death certificate was a street address at the time of death, along with where he was buried. It also gave me names of relatives who had been unknown to my client and opened doors for additional contacts.

Death certificates usually contain names of the deceased person's parents and spouse. The name and address of the person providing the information and how he or she was related to the deceased also will be listed.

Using Social Security applications, Death Index files and death certificates is a classic example of how a variety of documents must be used as pieces of the puzzle of our ancestors' lives.

Sharon Tate Moody is a certified genealogist by the Board for Certification of Genealogists. Send genealogy questions and event announcements to her in care of BayLife, The Tampa Tribune, 200 S. Parker St., Tampa FL 33606; or stmoody0720 @mac.com. She reg

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