Family Tree Magazine, online, had an article about this. RootsWeb Removes its Free SSDI Database Posted by Diane One of the free resources we've recommended for years to search the online Social Security Death Index (SSDI) has been taken offline. RootsWeb's SSDI database is no longer available, with a message that Due to sensitivities around the information in this database, the Social Security Death Index collection is not available on our free Rootsweb service but is accessible to search on Ancestry.com. The SSDI is a database of deaths reported to the Social Security Administration, for the most part since 1962. A subscription is required to use Ancestry.com's version of the SSDI, and genealogists including Randy Seaver and Sheri Fenley report that Social Security numbers aren't provided for deaths within the past 10 years. You might think genealogists wouldn't be concerned with such a recent death, but someone who died in 2002 might've been born in 1920, and his or her application for an SSN (called an SS-5) could name parents born in the 1800s. Plus, the SSDI is useful for tracing family lines forward in time to find distant cousins. Randy lists other sources of the SSDI, which include the free FamilySearch site. If you don't have a deceased person's SSN, you still can request his or her SS-5. You'll need to provide a birth date, any other names the person used, and the parents' names, and pay $29 instead of $27. You now can request an SS-5 online. The "sensitivities" RootsWeb refers to are likely related to a recent news story about criminals using SSNs of deceased individuals to commit tax fraud. (Couldn't the IRS prevent this by comparing SSNs on tax forms to numbers in the SSDI?) Read more on recent SSDI changes, which include a reduction in the number of new deaths that'll be included in this database, here. ************************************ That one does not exist, and the old one at ssdi.rootsweb.ancestry.com has changed. On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 12:20 PM, Barbara Lynch <onecrazychick@comcast.net>wrote: > have you tried www.rootsweb.com/ssdi? are there other sites that are free > by chance? > > Barbara > > -----Original Message----- > From: Vincent E. Summers > Sent: Monday, December 19, 2011 12:06 PM > To: philly-roots@rootsweb.com > Subject: [Phly-Rts] SSDI > > I've been deeply involved in a number of things for about a year or two > that has taken me away from genealogy for the most part. > > However, I've been trying to get back into it again--particularly my > Philadelphia genealogical connections--when I came to discover something > screwy has happened to the old SSDI index I found so helpful. Figures that > anything good has to go, or at least be tampered with. > > Is there anywhere on line that this informative database remains intact > without having to join this or pay for that? > > Thanks, > Vince Summers > >