This was on the Newberry Library site over the weekend: http://www.newberry.org/genealogy/news/default.asp?id=119&action=single 12/9/2005 Social Security Death Index: Who's In It and Who's Not? The Social Security Death Index (SSDI) is one of the most useful tools for searching for 20th century ancestors. It can also be one of the most frustrating. In order to use it to its maximum advantage, we need to know who's in the SSDI, how they got there, and what an entry in the SSDI can tell us. Since the Social Security Act was signed into law in 1935, over 370 million Social Security (SS) cards have been issued. The original intent was for SS numbers to be used only within the SS Administration, but their value as unique identifiers have caused them to be used in a variety of ways. Knowing an ancestor's SS number can lead to death certificates, military service records (after 1967), pension files, funeral home records, life insurance claims, drivers license records, and of course, their SS-5's (Social Security application forms). As part of its enormous record-keeping process, the SS Administration began to keep track of individuals reported to them as deceased. This file began in electronic format in 1962, and is now what is commonly referred to as the Social Security Death Index (SSDI). The actual title is "Social Security Death Master File," and it contains over 50 million entries. The 1962 date is important to remember, as the vast majority (over 90%) of records in the SSDI are from individuals who died after 1962. Although there are occasional rumors that the SS Adminstration will add pre-1962 records, to date, there is no indication they are doing so. When searching for ancestors in the SSDI, it's important to know who was eligible and when. When SS cards were first issued in 1936-37, over 35 million working U.S. citizens received them. But not everyone was included. Notably, teachers, doctors, and lawyers were initially excluded, as were farmers, government employees, and everyone who was self-employed. Others, such as housewives and retirees, would have had no reason to enroll in SS, because they weren't working and/or weren't benefit-eligible. Over the years, though, the SS system has moved toward greater inclusion. Keeping the following dates in mind will aid in the search. In 1951, workers in U.S territories, including Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, were added. Self-employed farmers became eligible in 1955. Lawyers, dentists, and medical professionals (excluding doctors) became eligible in 1956, and self-employed doctors finally were added to the program in 1965. Medicare was signed into law in 1965, and many citizens over the age of 65 received SS cards for the first time. SS cards were required to be issued by law to any legally admitted alien beginning in 1972. In 1984, federal government employees and employees of non-profit organizations were admitted to the system. Since 1989, newborn infants whose births are registered with the state are automatically issued SS numbers. It's also important to remember that the SSDI is only an index of reported deaths. These means that only deaths directly reported to the Administration will appear in the Index. Because deaths are likely to be reported only if benefits are involved, many deaths of SS cardholders were never reported. A death was likely to be reported only if the decedent was receiving benefits that needed to be stopped, or if a survivor were to apply for survivor's benefits. Currently, many funeral homes will report deaths to the SS Administration as part of their service, but this has not always been the case. Certainly the deaths of many SS cardholders not yet benefit-eligible were never reported to the Administration, and thus won't appear in the SSDI. Of course, as with every electronic database, it's important to try alternate spellings of the name, and it's important to remember that the original information may have been recorded incorrectly. Many times the "Last Residence" column can seem incorrect, so it's valuable to know that that is the last address to which the benefit checks were mailed, not necessarily where the deceased lived. In fact, if a survivor collects/collected survivor benefits, the residence that appears will be where the checks are/were mailed to the survivor. The SSDI is available through Ancestry.com, to which the Newberry subscribes. If you visit us in Local and Family History, we'll help you apply these tips to your SSDI search. If you aren't able to visit us or to access Ancestry.com, free versions of the SSDI are offered by: Family Search and RootsWeb. Ellen Plourde http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~opindex/