Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Obtaining a death date from Social Security

One of the questions that arose at last week's CVGS Research Group meeting was "can Social Security Administration provide a death date for someone with a SS Number?" The situation was that this person was not in the Social Security Death Index (since he probably died before 1962 and may not have drawn benefits).

The Social Security web site at http://www.ssa.gov/foia/html/foia_guide.htm provides a list of services that SSA can provide. Included are the following:

** Search for Information about Death of an Individual, SSN Provided (SSA does not usually have place of death, burial, or cause of death) -- $16

** Search for Information about Death of an Individual, SSN Not Provided (SSA does not usually have place of death, burial, or cause of death) -- $18

Of course, I didn't find this web page until I had written them twice via email to ask the question. The first time I got an answer saying I could get the SS-5 application. The second time they emailed the info on this web page and did answer my question within one day.

I've passed this to my colleague who does know the SSN, so we'll see what she gets in response. She doesn't know John Robinson Hall's death date or place, but thinks it was probably in Philadelphia PA. If she can get a death date from SSA, then she can request an obituary lookup in the Philly newspapers from the Temple University library.


Did everybody know this? I sure didn't, but it is logical that SSA would have a death date recorded somewhere in an SSA file.

Now - what about the employment record? Will SSA have a list of Social Security taxes collected and the employment records by year for an individual?

2 comments:

sajosovic said...

See the following FAQ:

rechtman/ssafaq.html

sajosovic said...

http://members.aol.com/rechtman/ssafaq.html