Bare Bones – Clarise Fleck Soper
Normally when people start working on their family tree, they have older relatives to talk with and ask a lot of questions. I was not so lucky on my father’s side. Dad died when I was nineteen and my grandfather died when I was ten. Nanny (my grandmother) would happily answer questions, but she never gave me the same answer twice.
Imagine my excitement when I heard the announcement that the Social Security Death Index, 1937—1993 was available on CD ROM. Finally I had a way to trace deceased twentieth century ancestors that had not appeared on available census records. I eagerly paid the sixty dollars for the double CD-ROM, but my family teased me for days afterward. They couldn’t believe I was paying for disks full of information on dead people. My mother even told my husband she thought my hobby had gone a little too far.
When I got home from work on 30 October 1993 (yes, I remember the exact date), I discovered the CD-ROMs had finally arrived. I headed straight to my computer to install the software. My husband asked if I was going to cook dinner, but the thought hadn’t even crossed my mind. Excitedly, I printed the latest ancestor chart to start my search. The first person I looked for was my dad. Finding him, I looked for my grandfather, but he wasn’t listed.
I read the information included with the SSDI CDs for the first time. It states that although Social Security began in 1937, many deaths were not routinely entered into the system during the early years. Therefore, the majority of those listed would be from the 1970s to the present. Disappointed that my grandfather was not listed, I entered a name of a deceased female relative. Her name popped up on the list, but to my surprise my sister’s name was right underneath it. I double-checked her birth date, state of residence, and social security number. It was her all right, but she’s still alive!
I called her immediately, even though it was midnight her time. The phone rang a number of times before she picked up. "You are not going to believe what I have to tell you," I said.
Her sleepy reply was, "Who died?"
"You did!" I answered, giggling.
Needless to say she didn’t believe me; she made me promise I was not playing a Halloween joke. I told her to call Social Security in the morning. But the first two people she told her story to at Social Security hung up on her.
Living close to Baltimore, my sister drove down to the main office. She stood at the counter and again told her story, asking them to check their records. The highly skeptical woman behind the desk checked the records and returned shortly. She said, "Yes that person is dead, who are you?"
When she told the woman that she was the person they have listed as deceased, the Social Security worker replied, "Can you prove it?"
After being removed by an armed security officer, it took my sister five years to prove her identity to the Social Security Administration. Apparently the error occurred when my mother sent back my sister’s monthly social security check (based on my father’s death) when my sister enlisted in the Army in 1974. My sister had been deceased on government rolls for almost twenty years! Needless to say, my family didn’t pick on me anymore. They wanted me to check for their names next!
According to Social Security, my sister’s Social Security payments were deposited into her account until 1989 because the government allowed deceased individuals to have earned income until that time. Therefore, she could accumulate social security benefits for her retirement, even though she was deceased. In 1989 someone in the government decided dead people couldn’t possibly earn income so her Social Security payments were put into the general fund. No red lights or sirens went off in Social Security that someone could possibly be using a fraudulent or incorrect number.
When the SSDI was made available for free on the Internet, her information of course was on it. Ancestry.com was the only carrier willing to remove the information with only one request from her. All the others refused–until they got letters from the State Attorney’s office in Maryland threatening legal action.
Are you deceased? Are you sure? Check the latest Social Security Death Index on the Internet and prove it.
Clarise Fleck Soper, an avid family historian since 1977, is the editor of the Southern Mississippi Genealogical Society Newsletter, an Internet and genealogy lecturer, and a weekly columnist for the Hattiesburg American.
