Thursday, July 23, 2015

New Ancestry.com Database: U.S. Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007

Ancestry.com listed a new database today - the U.S. Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007.  


The description of this database is:

"This database picks up where the Social Security Death Index (SSDI) leaves off by providing more details than those included in the SSDI. It includes information filed with the Social Security Administration through the application or claims process, including valuable details such as birth date, birth place, and parents’ names. While you will not find everybody who is listed in the SSDI in this database, data has been extracted for more than 49 million people.
"Information you may find includes:
  • applicant's full name
  • SSN
  • date and place of birth
  • citizenship
  • sex
  • father's name
  • mother's maiden name
  • race/ethnic description (optional)
"You may also find details on changes made to the applicant's record, including name changes and life or death claims. You may also find some unusual abbreviations or truncated entries for county and other names and punctuation errors in the data. These are in the original; we have not altered the text."

There is more information on the database page.

I put my mother's name, Betty Seaver, in the search field on the screen above.  There were 357 results, but my mother was the 5th one on the list:



I clicked on her name on the results list, and saw the record summary for her Social Security Application:


Note that this is not the actual Social Security Application, just an extraction of some of the information on the Application.  In my mother's case, it provided her SSN (which I did not have before), gender, race, her birth date, birthplace, father's name, mother's maiden name, death date, the type of claim, and notes.

Other entries in this database don't include some or all of those items.

The database description says that there are 49 million persons in this database, or about half of the number in the Social Security Death Index database.

I looked for my father (not included), my maternal grandfather (not included), my maternal grandmother (not included), paternal grandfather (included), paternal grandmother (not included), my father's five siblings (two included, three not included), my father-in-law (included), my mother-in-law (not included), my great-grandparents (8 not included), etc.

The important items if you do find your relative in this database is in the complete name, the birth date and birth place, the death date, and the parents names.  I've already added several birth dates and mother's maiden names for Seaver people to my database.

The database information notes that the information in these records is the "extracted information" that you would pay $18 to the Social Security Administration to obtain.  An image of the full Social Security Application card can be obtained for $27 (if you know the SSN) from the Social Security Administration at  https://secure.ssa.gov/apps9/eFOIA-FEWeb/internet/main.jsp.  In addition to the extracted information in this database, the recipient would obtain employment information and a signature on the full SSA card.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2015/07/new-ancestrycom-database-us-social.html

Copyright (c) 2015, Randall J. Seaver

Please comment on this post on the website by clicking the URL above and then the "Comments" link at the bottom of each post.  Or contact me by email at randy.seaver@gmail.com.


2 comments:

Seeds to Tree said...

What a treasure trove of information! The more unusual the last name, the easier to find. I love that for women, (at the bottom) they give the name changes (ie marriages) and dates. Altho they may have changed their names at any time after their marriages, at least there is a clue!

Unknown said...

The index is not complete. I guess it is a work in progress.