Social Security provides two sources of information for the genealogist. The Social Security Death Index (SSDI) lists those individuals who applied for social security and generally died after 1962. This index is available online at many locations, the most complete and easily searchable is at Rootsweb. This index is an ideal starting point for researching those cousins or other relatives that you don't know too much about. Get creative, search for a surname in a particular town, you may come up with previously unknown relatives. My favorite use of the index is to search for women that married but I don't know their married name. Using her first name (try variations also) and birth date, you can often narrow it down to a few individuals and sometimes the location will pinpoint the individual.

A second, lesser know use of the Social Security records is to obtain a copy of the individual's application. Rootsweb can automatically generate a letter to the Social Security Administration to request a copy of the application. This is probably the single most reliable source of an individual's parents names. The application asks for the full name of the applicant's father and mother. Since the applicant fills out the form themselves, there is much less of a chance of errors.

The SSDI at Rootsweb allows you to attach "post-em" notes to individuals. If you search for John Weitz of Wisconsin at Rootsweb, you will see that the John Weitz born in 1893 has a "post-em" note attached. Click on view "post-em" to see the message.

Other less reliable sources of parent's names are their marriage certificates and death certificates. Often marriage certificates are incomplete or have misspellings and many immigrants married before coming to the United States so they are unavailable. Death certificates are frequently incorrect, often the person giving the information does not know or guesses. This is especially true if a child is providing the death information, not a spouse.

Application for Social Security of John Weitz