When Hermann Broch said “No one’s death comes to pass without making some impression…,” he was probably referring to something less mundane than the Social Security Death Index (SSDI), but it works just as well. Commonly referred to as the SSN death index, the SSDI is a records database taken from the Death Master File of the Social Security Administration (SSA). It sounds morbid, but the SSN death index is actually a very useful information source of SSN database for a variety of reasons to find people by SSN and last name.
For example, you are having a grand reunion of all your relatives on your maternal side, and you have the bright idea of making a family tree as part of the celebrations. However, the farthest anyone can remember is two generations back, so that would make more of a bonsai than a regular tree to search people by SSN. You can access the SSN death index, which is available online, for information of your maternal grandmother, a schoolteacher who died in 1983. Since the SSN death index was automated for all deaths occurring from 1962, the chances are good that her death was included in the records. Among the information that may be available include the full name, Social Security Number (SSN), state where the SSN was issued, date of birth, death date, last listed address, and death benefit payment details, if any.
Now, by itself the SSN death index will not be of much help, but armed with the SSN of your grandmother and her SSN death index listing, you can order a copy of the original Form SS-5, which is the application form for the SSN card from the SSA. It will cost about $27. This will yield information such as the mother’s full maiden name and father’s name, important stuff if you are trying to trace your roots. With this information, you can got to an investigative company such as GovernmentRegistry.com to trace the line as far back as it can go using other information other than the SSN.
The SSN death index is far from infallible, however. There are times that a person whom you know is dead (because you went to the funeral in your best clothes) has no listing in the SSN death index. This can be due to several things, chief of which is that your Aunt Lucy never had an SSN to begin with. Another reason may be that she died before 1962, which means her records are lost somewhere in hard-copy land, musty and fading in some archive. Or maybe she just died two months ago, and the SSN death index was in-between updating.
Much more devastating than not being on the SSN death index, however, is being on it and being very much alive. There have been instances when a person was listed on the SSN death index by mistake, and a whale of trouble that can mean! In a shocking audit of the SSA recently, it was reported that about 23,000 people who were still alive and kicking were listed as dead over a two-year period.
Just for fun, try checking online if you appear on the SSN death index. If you are, good luck on proving you are not dead to government agencies. In one case, a woman in Nashville spent 8 years trying to get herself reinstated in the land of the living income tax payers!