Archive for the ‘Databases’ Category

[Update, 1/29/2012: The Subcommittee on Social Security of the House Ways & Means Committee is meeting (February 2, 2012) and will address legislation that would restrict access to the SSDI. Read more at: Sounding a call to action to save our access to the SSDI.]

A change in Social Security Administration policy that went into effect November 1 has lead to the removal of the free online Social Security Death Index, also known as SSDI, from Rootsweb and other genealogy sites. But that’s not all. The Social Security Administration is going to remove 4 million current name records and cease reporting other data in new records. One popular fee-based data provider is going to stop displaying the Social Security number for anyone who has died in the last 10 years. This is a profound blow to genealogists and fraud investigators.

The SSA Public Death Master File aka Social Security Death Index has come under political assault as a source of Social Security numbers used to craft false identities. As Dick Eastman rightly argues in “Genealogists are Losing Access to SSDI, Mostly Due to Misinformation,” this is another case of misplaced concerns about the dissemination of personal information. The fallacy of the identity theft argument is detailed in “Are We Going to Lose the Social Security Death Index (SSDI)?”.

The background on the SSA’s explanation is cited at Steve’s Genealogy Blog, “Changes to the Public Death Master File (DMF) and the Social Security Death Index (SSDI)”.

What will be removed from the Death Master File that the SSA sells to every provider is the state verified data — which comes from the death certificate. That includes the last residence (town, county and zip code) and the location where benefits were sent. (This was confirmed in an email exchange I had with the government agency that distributes the SSA data.) How many times have you made use of that information to find beneficiaries to estates and pensions, connected separated family members, verified identity, researched a genealogy or located where a client’s family lived when a relative died? All the time.

Here’s what the Social Security Administration announced upon the release of the DVD version of the SSDI (in 2005):

The SSA Death Master File is used by leading government, financial, investigative, credit reporting, medical research and other industries to verify identity as well as to prevent fraud and comply with the USA Patriot Act.

The excitement has worn off. Fear prevails.

And there’s more. The largest genealogy data provider, Ancestry.com, announced (after political pressure was applied) that “…we have recently made a purposeful decision to not display Social Security numbers of any person that has passed away in the last 10 years.”

And more extensive restrictions are now in place for the release of information in the Social Security application — which has the parents’ names and place of birth of the applicant. Again, serious researchers will loose out.

Some free sources of the SSDI are still online but they aren’t as flexible as the Rootsweb interface and may have less data. I have links to these, other vital records at my directory of public records resources.

• The British Newspaper Archive

• Obtaining EDs and streets for the 1910-1940 Census in One Step

• California Death Index 1940-1997

• California Birth Index – Free

• SimilarPages.com – Find similar websites

• SimilarSiteSearch.com – Find Similar Websites

• Company Director Check – free UK company director search

• Craigslist Alerts at List-Alert.com

• Open Status Search – Search Facebook without logging in

• Kurrently – A real-time search engine for Facebook and Twitter.

• Wolfram|Alpha: Computational Knowledge Engine

• DuckDuckGo Search Engine

• Users Guide and Form Letter for The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)

The rest of my favorite links are here.

• National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors

  
  

• Military Installations – Facts and phone numbers

  
  

• Military Installations – APO FPO Addresses by Zip Code

  
  

• Links for Genealogy on the Internet

  
  

• Mocavo – Free Genealogy & Family Tree Search Engine

  
  

• Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs Acronym_Guide

  
  

• Reunion Planning: Family Reunions, Class Reunions, Military Reunion

  
  

• Data Mining: How Companies Know Your Personal Information

  
  

• Saferproducts.gov – Database of product recalls

  
  

• This Tract

The rest of my favorite links are here.

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Online Detainee Locator System is now active. This is a searchable database that enables you to locate a detainee who is currently in ICE custody. Search by name with country of birth or by A-Number. Returns full name and year of birth and whether they have been in ICE custody in the past 60 days.

Read more

A new feature has been introduced at the most popular social networking site, Facebook — which it’s calling Truescoop –, a name search that identifies people by their state of residence and date of birth and, for some, criminal record history. Get more tailored results by qualifying your name search with the person’s year of birth or full date of birth. Nothing at the site spells out the source of the data, but Facebook warns that this is an application merely for fun.

TrueScoop is for entertainment only. TrueScoop is not a substitute for a background check that you would pay money for.

TrueScoop should not be used to make any employment decisions. TrueScoop is not to be used for any reason covered by the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) or any state or Federal laws related to the FCRA.

TrueScoop is a criminal history check similar to that at Criminal Searches. Both aggregate criminal records index information that is available for free online from state and county government court sites. Each display their data differently so you might find one format more usable. The data varies between individual records on each site; sometimes only one site will list AKAs, but then the other site will do so for other records. Sometimes Facebook identifies the local court in which the charge was filed but not the court docket number, and Criminal Searches gives the court number but not the local jurisdiction, but it’s not consistent within or between the sites. Comprende? Mix and match, if you can! The best advise might be to head to the court Web site once you find a lead from either of these other applications. Locate courts and lots of other public records through a fee-based service, this free-trial site or at the free sites offered by BRB Publications or Online Searches.

TrueScoop also shows names that have been searched by others and the number of times. Select the name link to populate the search field and get record results. A name search may also return records of unclaimed money and sex offenders (with photos), in addition to the state locator showing date of birth.

A Facebook account is required to use TrueScoop, but this application is separate from Facebook and there’s no link between it and Facebook profiles.

Mashable writes, TrueScoop Offers Free Public Record Search on Facebook.

The governor of Alabama signed an executive order that creates an online database of all state government spending and legislators’ relationships with lobbyists. This will go online later this year, but many other states have already made available government spending, salary and revenue databases, often in a site dedicated to issues of transparency in government.

Review the Nevada state budget by general revenue, expenditures, departments or function at Nevada Open Government. Also, lookup vendors with state contracts.

Open Georgia includes a searchable database of state employees and their salaries.

South Carolina gathers together links to their various online databases including, state expenditures and salaries.

Similar sites have been assembled by Kentucky, Rhode Island (also see, Transparency Train) and South Dakota.

Transparency rankings and states with spending online are listed at Sunshine Review.

Track transparency in government spending issues reported by independent organizations in Colorado and Illinois.

Legislation, citizen activism and current news on state government transparency can be found at the Center for Fiscal Accountability.