Thursday, April 30, 2020

MyHeritage Adds the U.S. Social Security Applications and Claims Collection, 1936-2007

Perusing the Collection Catalog on MyHeritage today, I noticed that they added the U.S. Social Security Applications and Claims, 1936-2007 record collection on 29 April 2020.  This is one of the most significant collections for 20th century research in the United States, in my humble opinion.

The MyHeritage description of this collection is:
"This collection contains records created by the Social Security Administration when individuals applied for a Social Security Number or when a claim was made for disability, retirement, or death benefits. The records include the applicant’s or claimant’s full name, date and place of birth, gender, and for application records, father’s full name, and mother’s full name - including the mother’s maiden name. The inclusion of birth place and parents’ names makes this collection an invaluable companion to the U.S. Social Security Death Index which does not include these important facts."
There are 240,604,242 records (presumably, indexed names) in this collection, which includes parents, spouses, or childrens names.

Here is the search page for this collection:

I entered my mother's name in the search fields, and clicked "Search" and saw 1,608 results (it was an inexact name search):


My mother's record was the fifth one on the list:

This record summary provides the following information:

*  Name:
*  Gender:
*  Race:
*  Record Type:
*  Birth date and place:
*  Entry date:
*  Father's name:
*  Mother's name:
*  Signed by:
*  Reference number:
*  Entry description:

There is no record image.  The Entry date is the date when she applied for a Social Security card.  January 1943 was six months after her marriage to my father.  The Reference number is not the Social Security number.  My mother used her maiden surname as her middle name on this record.

This is an excellent record for a person who lived in the 20th century.  It provides a birth date, a birth place, and sometimes the parents names (including the mother's maiden name). 

As many genealogists know, this record collection has been available on Ancestry.com for several years.  I am happy that MyHeritage has added it to their list of record collections.

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Disclosure:  I  receive a complimentary subscription from MyHeritage for publicizing MyHeritage events and products.  I have accepted financial considerations from MyHeritage and Legacy Family Tree in past years for services rendered and for conference luncheons.


Copyright (c) 2020, Randall J. Seaver

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