By DONNA MURRAY ALLEN
Published September 11, 2003
The Social Security Act was passed in 1935 to provide financial assistance to the elderly and not as a resource for future genealogists. But dedicated rooters know that Social Security card applications may supply elusive data, like a mother's maiden name, and that the Social Security Administration will disclose a person's death date and where the last benefit check was mailed.
First a little history. The Social Security Act was signed on Aug. 14, 1935. The first Social Security Numbers SSN were issued in 1936. The government began collecting taxes in 1937. From 1937 to 1940, benefits were paid in a lump sum. (See www.socialsecurity.gov/history/hfaq.html and www.ssa.gov/foia/foia_guide.htm).
Originally, only the worker got benefits. That policy changed in 1939 when the SSA began awarding survivors' benefits to the spouses and children of workers who paid into Social Security. Since citizenship has never been a requirement to obtain a Social Security number, anyone who came to this country legally and had permission to work was eligible to apply for a card. There may be records for your immigrant ancestor.
Not all workers contributed to Social Security in the past, and some don't today, according to Andy Hardwick, a spokesperson at the agency's Baltimore press office. Federal workers hired before 1984 who chose to stay in the Civil Service Retirement System, and some state and local employees whose employers have their own pension plans, do not contribute to Social Security, Hardwick said. No SSA records exist for anyone who didn't contribute to the program.
Timelines and qualifications may not make the most titillating reading, but they are important for knowing what records are available. Under the Freedom of Information Act, you have a right to obtain copies of certain documents. While the SSA won't release information on living persons without their written consent, dead people have no privacy rights. Therefore the SSA will give you a copy of a deceased person's Social Security card application upon request.
Applications contain the person's name, date and place of birth and parents' names. Citizenship status was added in the 1970s, Hardwick said. (Applications for those born in 1910 or before generally do not include parents' names or the applicant's place of birth).
You'll pay $27 for a copy of the application if you know the individual's number. If not, it will cost you $29 and you must furnish the person's full name, date and place of birth and parents' full names, so that the record may be located.
The original application card was signed by the applicant. If having a copy of the person's signature isn't important to you, request a numident or extract instead. For $18 ($16 if you know the number), you get what is essentially a printout of the data appearing on the application.
Perhaps you're merely looking for a death date or want to know where the decedent lived when he or she collected the last payment. You can ask the SSA to conduct a search. Assuming the individualwas a Social Security recipient, the SSA can tell you when he or she died and where the last payment was sent. The cost is $16 or $18.
To request a copy of a person's Social Security card application, a numident or information about the death of an individual, write to: Social Security Administration, OEO FOIA Workgroup, 300 N Green St., P.O. Box 33022, Baltimore, MD, 21290. Include a check for the appropriate amount.
Genealogy class
Donna Murray Allen will teach a three-part genealogy course starting Saturday at St. Petersburg College, 6605 Fifth Ave. N, St. Petersburg. Classes meet from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. for three consecutive Saturdays. Cost is $35. Call 727 341-4451 for registration information or visit the Web site www.rootsdetective.com
- Read past Donna Murray Allen columns online at www.sptimes.com Type "Donna Murray Allen" in the search box at the top of the main page. You can write to Allen c/o Floridian, St. Petersburg Times, P.O. Box 1121, St. Petersburg, FL 33731, or e-mail her at rootscolumn@yahoo.com Her Web site: www.rootsdetective.com which includes information on classes and lectures. Allen welcomes your questions about genealogy and will respond to those of general interest in future columns. Sorry, she can't take phone calls.
