For those of you who would like to protest the increases in rates copy this letter I sent to Sec. Tommy Thompson and sign your name to it.Maybe with enough protest we can get something done. Secretary Tommy G. Thompson U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 200 Independence Avenue, SW, Room 639-G Washington, DC 20201 Dear Mr. Thompson, As an avid Genealogist it has come to the attention of my self and hundreds of thousand of others that we have literally been struck down by the increase in the price of the SS-5 form. This has been one of the most valuable lower priced tools we have had. They have been $7.00 up until July 1,2001. Now the cost is $27.00 for just less than a half of a page of information. We usually have the correct SS number written on the letter that is generated from the Ancestry.com web site. So it is not hard for them to be found. Most people like me doing research are disabled and on fixed incomes. So the raise in fees puts us out of reach on this. A lot of us cannot travel to look up records so we have to depend on volunteers,archives and on line records. With these SS-5 records we can find missing birth dates, parents names and ect. that may not be available elsewhere. Isn't there something that can be done to get this fee lowered to a reasonable level? Cordially,

It seems to me that it would have been much more to the point to ask Mr. Thompson to give us an honest and straight forward explanation for why his department found it necessary to raise the fees for these services. It's possible you know that due to the increased number of people involved in the genealogy process that the demands upon his office for this information justifies the fee increases. If it's possible for him to explain these increases I believe that he might be more than justified in charging more money for this service. I would hope that those of us that depend upon this information would be more than willing to pay a fair price for this service rather than poor mouth the government on the basis that most of us are disabled, or on fixed incomes and have to depend on the government for another handout. I personally don't like being included in a category that says most of us are in this position and that these increases put these services out of our reach. I don't think this is true and I believe it mars our collective position. If Mr. Davis wants to make this plea on the basis of his own position then that's fine but don't put us all in that class. I believe when one takes this position with one of our appointed officials the result is that we are all painted with an unjustified negative position and we do more harm than good. Art Morgan ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bobbye Davis" <bobbye@microsped.com> To: <MISSISSIPPI-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Wednesday, August 15, 2001 9:13 AM Subject: [MISSISSIPPI] Letter to Tommy Thompson on SS-5 > For those of you who would like to protest the increases in rates copy this > letter I sent to Sec. Tommy Thompson and sign your name to it.Maybe with > enough protest we can get something done. > Secretary Tommy G. Thompson > U.S. Department of Health and Human Services > 200 Independence Avenue, SW, Room 639-G > Washington, DC 20201 > > > > Dear Mr. Thompson, > > As an avid Genealogist it has come to the attention of my self and hundreds > of thousand of others that we have literally been struck down by the > increase in the price of the SS-5 form. > This has been one of the most valuable lower priced tools we have had. They > have been $7.00 up until July 1,2001. Now the cost is $27.00 for just less > than a half of a page of information. We usually have the correct SS number > written on the letter that is generated from the Ancestry.com web site. So > it is not hard for them to be found. > Most people like me doing research are disabled and on fixed incomes. So > the raise in fees puts us out of reach on this. A lot of us cannot travel > to look up records so we have to depend on volunteers,archives and on line > records. With these SS-5 records we can find missing birth dates, parents > names and ect. that may not be available elsewhere. > Isn't there something that can be done to get this fee lowered to a > reasonable level? > > Cordially, > > > > > ==== MISSISSIPPI Mailing List ==== > Visit the Mississippi-L Website at http://www.rootsweb.com/~mississi > where you can both SUBSCRIBE and UNSUBSCRIBE with a click of the mouse. > > ============================== > Create a FREE family website at MyFamily.com! > http://www.myfamily.com/banner.asp?ID=RWLIST2 >