The following article is from Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter and is copyright 2003 by Richard W. Eastman. It is re-published here with the permission of the author. Information about the newsletter is available at http://www.RootsForum.com. New SSDI Search Engine Another free Social Security Death Index online database has been announced. This might appear to be "ho-hum news" as there are already several such databases available. However, a closer examination shows that this one is different. Family Tree Legends is a genealogy program for Windows that I reviewed in the November 11, 2002 edition of this newsletter. You can read that article at: http://www.rootsforum.com/archives/news0245.htm. Cliff Shaw, one of the developers of Family Tree legends, has now announced the newest and most powerful SSDI search engine yet. It has all the features of every other SSDI search engine, plus 4 entirely unique ones: Name Prefix Search - Enter from 3 to 5 characters for the last name and select the Prefix option... it will search on that last name prefix. Year Range Searches - For both the Death Year and Birth Year, you can select to search a range of years instead of the year needing to be exactly right. Age at Death Search - You can enter the age at which the person died. This is really effective if you don't have any idea what year they were born or died but you do know their age at death. You can click on the places that are returned in the results and get latitude and longitude, region information, aerial photos, maps, and more. I tried the new database and can confirm that it works well. I really liked the feature that will automatically generate a letter to the Social Security Administration asking for a copy of the deceased person's Form SS-5, an application for a Social Security number. You can directly print the letter, stuff it into an envelope, along with a check, and mail it to the address indicated. In a few weeks you will receive the copy of the original SS-5. The Family Tree Legends Social Security Death Index will also automatically search the millions of records on GenCircles, looking for any records of the same individual. Cliff also states, "I want it to be known that this SSDI search engine will ALWAYS be free." That is an important statement in this day and age of formerly-free services disappearing into for-pay sites. You can access the free Family Tree Legends Social Security Death Index database at: http://www.familytreelegends.com/ssdi