Social Security Death Index

Date: After 1962
Location: USA

The Social Security Death Index (SSDI) is an index to the Social Security Administration Death Master File, which records most deaths in the United States since 1962.

Description

The SSA Death Master File is a record of deaths reported to the Social Security Administration. Its purpose is to identify the Social Security Numbers of deceased people so that they cannot be used after their deaths.

Most implementations provide the following fields, though not all will be used for every record:

• Name on the date of death, most frequently consisting of a first name, middle initial and surname.
• Social security number (SSN)
• Date of birth
• Date of death (sometimes only the month and year of death)
• An indication if the death has been verified (with a family member or someone acting on behalf of a family member) or proved (where the death certificate has been observed)
• Last city, county, and state of residence
• Last city, county, and state where a benefit was paid
• State where the SSN was originally issued

Although referred to as the index, there are actually multiple versions of the data. Each provider has their own extract of data from the Death Master File. Most of them provide similar results, but if a person cannot be found other providers might be tried.

Before being provided to end users, most of the data undergoes multiple transcriptions, though they are generally performed by computers and are relatively accurate. The birth, death, and name data is generally provided from the same informant as the person's death certificate, and suffers from the same data issues as death certificates. Although often used as a proxy for where the person died, the last residence might often be different from where the person died. However, it's a good starting point for looking for place of death.

Availability

The following sites online provide access to the Social Security Death Index:

• (free) Rootsweb SSDI. Provides Soundex searching on surnames, and date ranges for dates.
• (free) FamilySearch.org SSDI
• (free) SSDI at Fold3
• (reg) GenealogyBank SSDI
• (reg/$) Ancestry.com SSDI. Provides fuzzy matching on names, dates, and locations.

The following sites online provide partial access to the Social Security Death Index:

• (free) Social Security Death Index - Washington at the Washington State Digital Archives. This database contains the Social Security Death Index (SSDI) for those individuals who either had a Social Security card issued in Washington State, had their last residence in Washington state, or had their last benefit payment mailed to an address in Washington State just prior to their death. Provides Soundex name matching and date ranges for date of death.

Key to abbreviations:

• free means the source can be used without paying a fee.
• reg means the source can be used with a free registration.
• $ means the source requires a per search payment or a paid subscription.

Citation Example

<ref name='SSDI'>''[[Space:Social Security Death Index|Social Security Death Index]]''; U.S. Social Security Administration, ''Death Master File'', database (Alexandria, Virginia: National Technical Information Service, ongoing); additional info</ref>

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