In "Along Those Lines . . . " this week, I want to discuss several ways you can use the SSDI in your research. If you have never used the SSDI, you are in for a treat. However, even if you are an old hand at using this resource, please take this opportunity to review how you use it.

What is the SSDI?
The SSDI is a compilation of information about deceased persons who filed for and received Social Security numbers, who were paid Social Security benefits at some point in their lives, and whose death was reported to the Social Security Administration (SSA). There are several very key points you should understand and bear in mind.

1) Usually, a person whose name appears in the SSDI was employed, paid money into Social Security and, at some time, applied for benefits of some sort. The two most typical benefits paid were old age pension or disability benefits. If the person paid into Social Security but never collected benefits, you will not find him or her in the file.

2) The spouse of someone who paid into Social Security, but who never worked and contributed to Social Security, will not be included in the file unless he or she received their spouse's benefits after the spouse's death, and even this is not a 100 percent certainty.

3) Persons who worked for the railroad exclusively and did not work in another public sector will not be included in the SSDI. Those persons, instead, contributed to Railroad Retirement, a separate retirement security fund specifically for railroad workers, and collected benefits from that organization. Only if the person also worked for a company not affiliated with the railroad will they appear in the SSDI, and they will appear with their unique number assigned to railroad numbers (beginning with a 7).

4) If a person collected benefits at one time and his or her death was not reported to Social Security, that person will not be included in the SSDI.

The SSDI contains almost 63 million records at the time of this writing (the number of records increases every month), and the information in it is, for the most part, reliable and accurate. Remember, though, that information concerning addresses and date of death may be incomplete or inaccurate owing to information supplied by the person who reported the death.

Contents of the SSDI
As I mentioned before, there are multiple places on the Web where you can find recent SSDI information. For purposes of this discussion, let's use the SSDI at the Ancestry.com website. As an example, I entered the name of a friend's father, Carl Johansson, who I know lived in Chicago, IL. The SSDI on Ancestry.com allows me to enter as much or as little data as possible and search for matches. The search results are displayed and contain the following fields of information:

Name -This column usually contains the name by which the individual was registered under Social Security and under which the benefit was issued. (The SSDI record for my aunt, whose married name was Nita Elizabeth FRANK but who was always known as "Beth" is listed as Nita Frank. Had I not known her first name, it might be very difficult to locate the SSDI record for her.)

Born -This is the birth date confirmed to the SSA at the time the application was filed to collect benefits. This date may disagree with other information you may have seen elsewhere. However, the applicant was required to present several legal documents or sworn affidavits to prove his or her birth date. In a pinch, I would place heavy emphasis on this being an accurate birth date and go looking for evidence to corroborate this date.

Died -This is the date the person was reported to have died. In many cases, this will be shown as month and year. The SSA is only concerned with the last month for which benefits were paid, and they terminated benefits based on the reported date of death. This date may or may not be 100 percent accurate, based on what information they received from a reporting person or agency. However, this will get you into the ballpark.

Residence -This column shows the zip code, city and county that the SSA had on file as of the date of the last correspondence with the person. In other words, this was the person's official mailing address in the SSA file. If the person moved and did not notify the SSA, this information may be inaccurate.

Last Benefit -This is the last address to which a benefit payment was made. This column is often empty, not because the person did not collect a benefit, but for other reasons. These include:

1) The benefit check was direct-deposited into a financial institution, or
2) The address was identical with the Residence address.

SSN -This column contains the Social Security number of the individual under which contributions were made to SSA and under which benefits were paid.

Issued -This column indicates where the SSN was issued and when. The location is usually a state abbreviation but, as in the case of Carl JOHANSSON, the code RR appears. This indicates that the number was issued by the Railroad Retirement Board. The date shown will often be stated as "Before 1951." After that date, the year in which the SSN was issued is shown.

Write Letter -In the Ancestry.com SSDI database, there is a facility provided to allow you to automatically generate a letter to the SSA requesting a copy of the SS-5, the application for a SSN completed by the individual whose record you are viewing.

Ways to Use the SSDI
As you can see, there are a lot of components to the SSDI record. Let me suggest some ways to use the SSDI information in your research.

Write Letters for SS-5 Form -The most obvious activity is to use the letter-generation facility and send off for the SS-5 form. In "Using Social Security Number Application Forms for Genealogy," I discussed in detail the vast amount of information available from the SS-5, including the site where the application was made, parents' names, date and place of birth, employer, occupation, and other great details that may point you in other directions.

Locating Lost Relatives -I have had success locating lost branches of the family and information about them by using the SSDI. For example, I found a letter from my grandmother's brother from the 1940s in which he said he was moving his family to Dayton, OH. A search of his name and Dayton, OH, located a number of records and, by checking the birth date, I was able to confirm his presence there and his date of death.

Confirming Dates -I have often used the SSDI to search for a person of whose name and place of residence I was certain. When you locate their record, you can then check the birth date for the person and compare it against what, if anything, you already have. You can also check death date. If you need corroboration, you can write to the SSA for the SS-5 and/or write to the vital records agency in the Residence location's county and seek a copy of a death certificate.

Dates of Birth and Death -You can use these dates to search for birth certificates, death records, obituaries and other materials. Using the Residence and Last Benefit (if any listed) will help you home in on specific locations.

Residence -I have often used the SSDI to locate the last residence of a specific relative, especially if I knew his or her date of birth. I simply enter the surname and given name, along with date or year of birth, and execute a search. This usually provides me with records to help me isolate the last residence address in the SSA's files. If not, I broaden the search. (TIP: If you don't get a match the first time, there may be a given name problem where the person may have gone by a middle name. Leave the given name blank and try again. Likewise, try alternate spellings of surnames. JOHANSSON may have been spelled as JOHANSON or JOHANNSON or some other way. Be persistent!)

In addition, the Residence information may point you to other materials in a specific geographic area, such as land records, tax rolls, voter registration rolls, licenses, court records, newspapers, school records, church records, employment records, probate records, obituaries and a variety of other record types.

Place Issued -The state shown in the SSDI as the one in which the SSN was issued may be a surprise to you. A check of the person's SS-5 form will confirm the place where the application was made and the SSN was issued. I have one ancestor whose Issued location was shown in the SSDI as PA when I expected it to have been NC. On receipt of his SS-5, I found that he was working in PA in the late 1930s at the time he was required to obtain a SSN. This provided me with more details about his movements and employment history, and pointed me toward research in another geographical area I would never have known to check.

Summing Up
As you can see, there are many ways to use the SSDI to expand your research and to corroborate or verify facts already in evidence. I hope you will learn to use the SSDI as another important Internet tool.

Happy Hunting!

George