The recent thread on the SSDI betrayed a lack on information on what the SSDI was and what kind of access is available. So for for those who might be interested... The SSDI is a set of digital data, updated about every six months by the Social Security Administration. It includes anyone who has ever had a Social Security Number (or Tax Identification Number to the IRS) and has passed away. Since the first Social Security Numbers were issued in 1937, almost all people who have been gainfully employed since that year have been assigned one (I don't know off the top of my head the month the numbers were first issued). The SSDI is sold and/or distributed in CD form by several genalogy publishers, and they also give them away as a loss leader to people who buy a more profitable product, like a genealogy data base. But the data is also available on-line at at least two sites of which I am aware. One is Everton's at the following URL http://rro.everton.com/ssmdi.html Everton states that deaths as recent as December 1994 can be found there. Ancestry offers the SSDI at the following URL... http://www.ancestry.com/ssdi/advanced.htm Ancestry's data is more current. At least I found some deaths listed in it from 1997 and I believe they state somewhere on their web site that they update the data when the Social Security Administration releases new data. So, if Jerilyn Johnson wants to offer lookups in her SSDI CD and is willing to do them, that's fine. But, if one has access to web (in other words doesn't use a free email service without web access) then you can also go directly to either of the sites listed above and do your own search. Both sites are easily to use but present the data is different ways with some variations in speed. One's preference between the two is at best a personal choice. There is also a strong possibility that other genealogy publishers have posted the SSDI data on line, since it's cheap to do (it's free) and very useful. Go looking. You may find a third site. Good hunting, Kelvin Kean Elverson, Pennsylvania