And would it surprise you to know that there are 406 guys whose first names are "Goerge" <g> in the SSDI"? You are right that there is a character limitation and names longer than the limit are truncated and are the devil to find. Somewhere on the Internet there is an article that helps you around some of the other errors made in entering data, as for Goerge above, but a brief search failed to run it up. Among things I remember from it are entries where a person was perhaps names something like A. George Brown and he would be indexed as Ageorge Brown. Or try searching for ichard instead of Richard (first letter missed in keypunching). Date transpositions are also fairly common. There are thousands of people in the SSDI whose dates of death are given prior to 1937, the first year benefits were paid. Look at this one I plucked at random: Peggy Ilgofsky, born 19 Aug 1827 died - Aug 1927, SS# 112-18-5514. Obviously, if Peggy died in 1927, she wouldn't have a Social Security number. And most likely she didn't die right at age 100. I'll bet two glazed donuts that she was both born and died in August of 1972 (which is after the time when we were supposed to get SS numbers for all children. Other letter and date transpositions are present throughout the database. You know that Uncle Harry died in 1982, but the SSDI might give it as 1928. And remember - if all of your attempts to find someone in the SSDI fail, that's because they probably aren't there! was/is no specific criteria for placing a name in the database. Generally, three things (besides death) had to happen - the person had to have a SS#, the person's death had to be reported to SSA and the entry had to be correctly made. Lots of people didn't used to have Social Security numbers - children, government workers, self-employed, farmers, etc. And the SSA didn't start computeritizing its Death Master File (which is the real name for the SSDI) until October of 1962, so only a relatively few deaths before 1962 are in the index. And remember not to make the most common mistake of all: The places in the SSDI are NOT the place where the person died. The first address is the person's address with the SSA and the second is where a final death benefit (about $260) was sent (paid only to surviving spouses or other specified dependents after 1989). There is one more anomaly about the address. The Death Master File contains the ZIP code as of the date of death. When Ancestry or RootsWeb or FamilySearch puts this information on line it matches the ZIP to a current list. A lot of ZIPs have changed in the last 40-plus years. So if you think Grandpa died in one town and the SSDI says another it could be the result of a change in ZIPs not a difference of opinion as to where he died. Good searching. Richard ----- Original Message ----- From: "Cheryl Rothwell" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, May 15, 2005 7:54 PM Subject: [ILLOGAN] Social Security Death Index > I have discovered a couple things about the Social Security Death Index that > are worth sharing. > > First there is apparently a limit on the number of characters. I was > searching for Schaffenacker which is a most uncommon name in the US. When I > finally found it there were 16 in the whole US. But it too forever to find > it because they have it as Schaffenacke - no r. Possibly there is a 12 > character limit since they were all spelled that way. > > Second, when you can't find George R. Jones try G. R. Jones or even G. > Jones. Why some of them are like that I don't know because in my case the > person went by his full name. It seems simple but I didn't think of when I > was tearing my hair looking for someone. > > Cheryl Rothwell

Richard Pence: Thanks for all the helpful hints on the SSDI. I expect there are others who will also appreciate that you have shared your expertise. Right now, I am embedded in tracing family during the 1700s and 1800s, and looking at County land deed transfer records for farmers. But I could not miss the opportunity to learn something about the more recent data from Social Security. From my experience in Federal service, database development is always a compromise between the content users would like and the cost others insist you do not exceed! But sloppy data entry sure is not very helpful to either point of view. George