Ordering applications from the SSA
NOTE: This post is outdated. Please head over to Ordering the SS-5: 2020 style.
Yesterday’s blog post about what may and may not have been recorded in an application for a Social Security number — the SS-5 form — prompted a rash of questions about ordering the form, how to do it, and what the risks are. So today The Legal Genealogist repeats this post, originally posted in 20131 with a few extra caveats tossed in for good measure.
The original inquiry, in 2013, asked for guidance in exactly what to order from the Social Security Administration, how to order it — and “whether we will spend the money and get nothing.”
What to order
The form you want to order from the Social Security Administration is generally known as an Application for a Social Security Number — the Form SS-5.2 The example below is my grandfather’s SS-5 form from 19373:
Whether it’ll be worth it
From the very beginning of the Social Security system in 1935, the form required a number of key pieces of information, including:
• First, middle and last name
• Present mailing address
• Age at last birthday
• Date of birth
• Place of birth (including city, county and state)
• Father’s full name
• Mother’s full maiden name
• Race or color
• Date and signature
At various times, an applicant may have also had to specify his or her full name at birth, including maiden name if a married female, the name of the current employer and employer’s address, and other information.
Getting a copy of this form is almost always worth it. The information on the SS-5 form was usually provided by the applicant, and so is often the best source of information about what the applicant knew about his or her own birth and parentage.
The worst you’ll get is information supplied by an employer that filled out the form from its employees’ records and had them sign it — which adds another layer of possible human error, or the lie the applicant told for whatever reason. In my family, for example, a cousin of my father’s listed her grandparents as her parents to avoid having to admit that she’d been born out of wedlock. But even that information is worth having.
How to order it
To order a copy of an applicant’s SS-5, you need to make a formal request under the federal Freedom of Information Act using Form SSA-771. And you can do that in one of two ways: online and by mail. Which method you choose should depend entirely on when the applicant was born and died.
Here’s why:
First of all, you can only get a copy of an SS-5 form for a person who is deceased. The living all have a right of privacy that the government recognizes in the information supplied on the form. So you must be able to prove that the person is dead.
As of 2011, the Social Security Administration (SSA) changed its privacy policy and now declares that it “will not disclose information about any person in our records who is under 120 years old, except in those cases where we have acceptable proof of death (e.g., death certificate, obituary, newspaper article, or police report).”4
Generally speaking, the SSA has in the past accepted the fact that the person’s name appears on the Social Security Death Master File (what we know as the Social Security Death Index or SSDI) as proof that the person is deceased. But since 2011 not all deaths have been included in the public version of the SSDI — that’s when the SSA stopped including deaths from protected state death reports5 — and it’s just not clear anymore whether the SSA will look to its own records instead of the public version to determine whether someone is deceased.
So with newer deaths, deaths of younger persons, and as to anyone whose name you can’t find in the public SSDI, you may well need to supply proof of death and that can’t be done using the online system.
Second, under that 2011 privacy policy change, the SSA has made it harder to get the very information most useful from the SS-5 forms: the date and place of birth and the names of the parents. Here’s what the SSA says now: “under our current policy, we do not release the parents’ names on an SS-5 application unless the parents’ are proven deceased, have a birth date more than 120 years ago, or the number holder on the SS-5 is at least 100 years of age.”6
In a large number of cases, people who have ordered SS-5 forms since 2011 have found the copies they receive have had the names of the parents redacted (blacked out) and even on occasion the date and place of birth as well.
To avoid that, you need to provide evidence that the parents are deceased, or that they would have been born more than 120 years ago, unless the person whose SS-5 you’re ordering was born more than 100 years ago. And, again, there’s no way to attach that proof in the online system.
So even though the online ordering system is faster, the only time it really makes sense to use it any more is where (a) the person whose form you want was born more than 100 years ago and (b) you’re darned sure that there aren’t any Social Security records showing the parents were under age 20 when the person was born. If you’re sure about both of those facts, then it’s safe to make the request using the online SSA-771 form even if you don’t have an exact date of death or proof of death (for the person or the person’s parents).
In all other cases, you should probably download the SSA-771 form and send it in by mail with your supporting evidence. The address for mailing is:
Social Security Administration
OEO FOIA Workgroup
300 N. Greene Street
P.O. Box 33022
Baltimore, Maryland 21290-3022
There are lots of ways to prove your case that may carry the day with the SSA. I’ve personally used some combination of the following in a number of cases:
• An obituary of the person saying the parents predeceased the person
• Death records of the parents
• Tombstone photos
• A census record showing the ages of the parents
If you get a redacted record
Whenever you get a redacted version of the SS-5 anyway, whether from the online system or by mail, you don’t have to take no for an answer. You can appeal the decision to redact it and send in the additional evidence to the address provided in the letter that accompanies the redacted version.
There’s no formal process for an appeal: just write a letter explaining why you think the information should not have been redacted, and include every bit of evidence you can think of. Be nice, be professional — but don’t just accept the decision. It’s very common for an initial redaction decision to be overturned.
If you never get a record you paid for
This has happened more than once, and a fellow genealogist said just yesterday that it had happened to her: she’d sent in a request, the check had been cashed… and she never got anything from the SSA.
And that’s one thing you should never simply accept. Once a reasonable amount of time has passed since the check was cashed — 90 to 120 days — you need to do something.
First, write to the SSA again at that Baltimore address. Enclose a copy of the cancelled check or proof that the check was cashed (a print-out of your online bank info, for example). Give the SSA a reasonable time — say, 30 days — to provide the missing document and make it clear you will continue to press the issue.
If you don’t hear back at the end of that time period, write again, but this time write directly to the office of the Commissioner of the Social Security Administration. Right now, the acting Commissioner is Carolyn W. Colvin. I’d probably send it in care of the Office of Public Inquiries at:
1100 West High Rise
6401 Security Blvd.
Baltimore, MD 21235
And in that letter, I’d do the same “please respond within 30 days” and enclose all previous correspondence.
And after that time period, it’s time to go to your member of Congress. Every member of Congress has a constituent affairs officer — somebody whose job it is to keep the home voters happy. Write to your Congressional member (names and addresses can be found here — enter your zipcode and then click on the icon to go to that Congress member’s website for contact details).
Government officials tend to respond — quickly — when members of Congress get involved. Maybe the SSA types will ignore us — but it won’t ignore the people who authorize their paychecks.
SOURCES
- Judy G. Russell, “Ordering the SS-5,” The Legal Genealogist, posted 31 May 2013 (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : accessed 5 Jan 2016). ↩
- See generally Pamela Boyer Sayre, “The SS-5: Application for Social Security Number,” Social Security Sleuthing, About.com Genealogy (http://genealogy.about.com/ : accessed 5 Jan 2016). ↩
- Clay Rex Cottrell, SS no. (withheld for privacy), 22 June 1937, Application for Account Number (Form SS-5), Social Security Administration, Baltimore, Maryland. ↩
- “Make a FOIA Request,” Social Security Administration (http://www.ssa.gov/foia/request.html : accessed 5 Jan 2016). ↩
- See Kimberly Powell, “Access Restrictions to Social Security Death Index,” About.com Genealogy (http://genealogy.about.com/ : accessed 5 Jan 2016). ↩
- “Make a FOIA Request,” Social Security Administration (http://www.ssa.gov/foia/request.html : accessed 5 Jan 2016). ↩
I had the issue of having a check cashed and receiving nothing in return. I only waited as long as the website said it typically takes to get the documents (a few weeks at the time) and then called them. The woman told me that we just crossed wires and it went out the day before I called. Funny how when I received it a few days later, the letter was dated the day *after* I called. I’m kind of irritated that they lied to me about it when they clearly just didn’t do their jobs, but at least I got the document.
Sigh… at least you got it…
Wow, thank you so much for the wonderful article and very clear and concise information!
Time to order my husband’s grandfather’s SS-5!
Go get it, for sure!
I have an unusual situation. I have a woman who has two entries in the SSDI. One in which the number was issued in 1951 and the second one which was issued in 1973, both in Oklahoma. The information is the same except for the Social Security number. She was born in 1882 and died in 1979. What is your advice as to which one to request? I need her parent’s names.
Thanks
In that case, I would always go for both. Otherwise you have no way of knowing if this is one woman, or two with remarkably similar information.
Renee may find that the earlier SSN was the husband’s, possibly with a letter suffix for her. Often the wife would have to apply for her own number when she became a widow. I have a relative’s SS-5 for a 2nd number and the notes describe exactly this situation. And I’ve seen death certificates for a wife reference the same number that was on the husband’s later SSDI entry.
Good thought, and entirely possible in this case.
Great guide. I’ve heard (but can’t quote anyone) that the Social Security Act as initially enacted did not apply to everyone – as to my research interests, specifically farmers. Do you have knowledge of these details?
For that, see Getting that SSN and More SSN info.
Thanks! It appears I may have been quoting you …
And if you haven’t been, you can in the future! 🙂
One issue to be aware of is that when Social Security first went into effect during the Great Depression of the 1930s, jobs were harder to come by and age discrimination even worse than now when senior citizens go mountain climbing and run marathons into their 70s. An unknown number of over-the-hill at twenty-somethings desperate for work apparently lied about their age in order to make prospective employers think they were young enough for the job, resulting in the year of birth recorded on their SSN applications being several years later than their actual year of birth. The extent of this practice only started to come to light 40 years later when HR departments started receiving calls from 65-70 year old workers who were ready to retire, but couldn’t because their records said they were too young.
That wouldn’t surprise me, but I’d love to see a source citation on this.
Judy, I can’t necessarily cite a source, except “personal interview.” My maternal grandmother said there was “an office” in South Chicago where people would go to get “a paper” stating their birth. She indicated that it wasn’t a government office – I’m guessing someplace that had a notary? I’m also guessing maybe the reverse was also true, that those steel mill jobs were quite attractive to the not-quite-old-enough employees, who would (for a fee) suddenly become a bit older than they truly were.
I suspect the younger-becoming-old-enough-to-work was very common indeed!
I have personal experience of at least one case. My father’s secretary made herself ill worrying about being sent to jail before finally confessing what she had done. When my dad asked HR if there was any way to straighten it out, they contacted Social Security and were told it was becoming a common problem. At about the same time there was an article in one of the NY newspapers about the number of similar cases that were suddenly popping up. This was in the late 1970s or early 1980s.
And being a good genealogist, I’m sure you can find that newspaper article to cite for this too!
I can’t cite but can support the fact this wasn’t unusual due to my time from 1976 – 1981 taking claims in suburban Chicago for SSA. Back then, the data had to be requested from Baltimore when a person filed a claim and when you were going over it, you’d call the person when you’d find a discrepancy in the record from their allegation. Especially if it were germane to either eligibility or what the payment might be, and that factor is age for sure. The thing I ran into most of all was women actually being older than what their earnings record said they were. They were 64 instead of 62. Since you’d get a higher benefit if you were older it was advantageous to try and provide primary proof of age to rebut the date of birth in file. But the paperwork on my end was more dense, given it meant more money so they made you really document the heck out of it. It was called a Date of Birth Determination and a supervisor had to sign off on it. In cases where the age on the earnings file was one thing but the proof made them younger, we used that without much more because it paid them less (so there was less of a chance someone was lying). So I can’t support this with anything in writing but since this was the process that got me interested in my own genealogy, I remember it well. (SSA could get census records from any year if needed to do a DOB determination and primary proof wasn’t available, we had manuals on what proofs existed in other countries and more. It was fun.)
Good info — and in my mother’s case the SSA examination went the other way. She’s always been told she was born in 1925 (home birth, no documentation). The SSA investigation (census, school and other records) said 1926.
Here’s my wife’s great-grandmother Sarah Levine (Werner) lying and saying she was born in Milwaukee, and equally unhelpfully saying her mother’s maiden name was “unknown.” She arrived in the US as an infant (but no ship manifest). Even on her naturalization petition it says place of birth “unknown”. http://www.geni.com/documents/view?doc_id=6000000029116116861&. Still haven’t figured out where she was from.
Yep, we all have examples of that sort of thing — sigh…
Yee haw, Judy, this may have just answered a question I’ve been trying to figure out how to resolve – the address my family lived at when I myself was born!
I know the block, and within a couple of buildings, but not the exact address, and everyone who would have had a clue is long dead. And we definitely weren’t there in any census year, so it’s never, ever going to come up that way.
I just sent in the electronic FOIA request, which is what the SSA main number people told me to do. Seems weird since I didn’t think I’d hit my 120th birthday yet, but… 🙂
Don’t forget phone books and city directories as possible sources of information.
I have requested so many of these over the years. My paternal grandparents and great grandparents. They revealed valuable info about where they worked and in one case what one great grandparent’s middle name was which allowed me to amend marriage records then the death cert to list the full name. This blog has been a valuable source of info. I spent two years in law school and am an three time elected genealogist for the Sons of the American Revolution. I just ordered another one of these for a recently deceased great uncle that died last year. I sent in two obituaries from two sep sources, and his parent’s death certs with the app and money order. I hope I get the SS-5 soon. The whole family is very curious what it says.
You’re not likely to get this for “a recently deceased great uncle that died last year.” The reason is a change in the law at the end of 2013 that limits access to SSDI information for three full calendar years after the death of the individual. See SSDI access now limited.
I ordered this, my grandmother died in 1960. I got a confirmation email, along with a tracking id and agency id number. Neither have a link to check the tracking. I received the email on January 14. How do I check where it is? How long does this process normally take?
Thank you in advance.
Unfortunately, the time can be quite extreme — months — and there isn’t any place you can check the status.
Through researching on Ancestry.com, I discovered a digitized version of my deceased mother’s application for a social security. It included her parent’s names, but I did not recognize the father’s name. I’ve always known my grandmother, but I didn’t know my biological grandfather. I requested the original SS-5 form and received it with the names of her parents blocked out, the very information that I was trying to corroborate! My appeal was turned down. Is there another way to get this information? I don’t even know this man, so I have no way of knowing if he is alive or dead! Seems like my siblings and I have a right to know the identity of our maternal grandfather.
The SSA has taken the position that it will not provide certain information due to privacy. If you’ve appealed through the SSA and still been turned down, your only options are (a) see if your Congressional representative will intervene to try to help convince the SSA that it is wrongly applying the federal Freedom of Information Act in your case or (b) file suit.
Thank you so much for this post – I am going to try and see if I can order my great grandfather’s now!
Hi Judy, My deceased father does not appear in the SSDI. My mother received benefits after his death. As a genealogist and curious person I want to know why he is missing from the index. I have his death certificate and social security card. My younger siblings say he told them his name on his original birth certificate was Wilson Joseph Hackett instead of Joseph Wilson Hackett. He was born in 1916. I do not have his original birth certificate from New York State. I have a copy dated 20 June 1934. I have tried searching for his record using his SS# and every possible name possible. Because of the possible name change, I am wondering if getting his SS-5 will explain it. Can you think of any other way of figuring this out? Thank you.
I don’t have any good explanation of why your father isn’t in the SSDI. There are others who died the same day in the same county who are in the index, so it’s not simply a reporting issue (that is, not a matter of a whole county or state not being included). I did a search of a couple of versions of the database using just birth and death dates (no names at all) and it should have worked. You have his SSN, and you have proof of death, however, so you certainly can order his SS-5 to see what it says. But I suspect the reason why he’s not in the index will be more data entry than anything else.
Being persistent and polite really does help when authorities redact info on SSA record. Your advice is spot on! I appealed twice, including obituaries and census data, to prove the death dates. It took 5 months but eventually I received the unredacted version and it helped me solve a mystery and connected me to cousins who, we confirmed, are definitely related. The story is at http://climbingmyfamilytree.blogspot.com/2016/08/mystery-monday-more-pieces-of-markell.html
Glad you succeeded, Marian! Yes, indeed, persistence and politeness BOTH are needed.