Sunday, October 24, 2010

SS-5 and the Grandparents

Let's complete the collection of SS-5 images by looking at the ones for my 4 grandparents.  3 of them were easy to obtain, because three of my grandparents were originally listed in the SSDI.

The 4th, belonging to my paternal grandfather William Henry Smith, required me to use his death certificate as the way to document his death (and thereby obtain his SS-5).  Here is his SS-5: 


Notes based upon other knowledge: His father's name was Charles Henry Smith, his mother's name was Mary Ann Bannon.  (The Bannon surname was sometimes spelled "Bonnon".)  

Next up is the SS-5 for my paternal grandmother, the most interesting (in my opinion) of all of the SS-5s:

Notes: In the early 70s (on a visit to my brother, who was living near DC at the time), I learned that Grandmother Smith had converted from Judaism to Catholicism in order to marry Grandfather Smith.   So she had taken the name "Elizabeth".  I had known her only as "Elizabeth C. Smith", without any idea as to what the "C" stood for, although if I had been asked to guess, I would have assumed another typical Catholic name, such as "Catherine".  Imagine my surprise to read "Conceptia".  Her birth name was "Rachel", but she was frequently called "Rae".  Also surprisingly, she was not born in the NY/Northern NJ area, but instead, in England, Arkansas.  And she fails to give her mother's maiden name, which I learned from other sources was "Grodowitz".

Now, my maternal grandparents, beginning with my maternal grandfather:

Note: His mother appears as "Jane" in most records, and with the surname spelled "Bodie".

Finally, to complete the set, the SS-5 for my maternal grandmother:


Notes: In nearly all records, she appears as "Lizzie", but she appears as "Elizabeth" in the 1930 census.

2 comments:

  1. Drew, I'm going through pod-cast withdrawal so I've been going through your blog and your older Ancestry columns. I enjoy your perspective and advice. I'm still new at genealogy research, and so much of what we need to know is common sense, but we just don't think of it until after we've done it wrong the first few times! (Was it Oscar Wilde who said "common sense" is rarely that common?) It's nice to have guides like you to help us newbies avoid some of these mistakes.

    Anyway, is there any chance the SSA (Social Security Administration) will ever put the SS-5 files for deceased individuals online? It would make things SO much easier!

    Tim Jones
    Milwaukee, WI

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  2. Tim, unfortunately, I have near zero expectation that the SSA will ever put the SS-5s online. So long as they are covering their expenses for sending copies to those who request them, I don't think they would have any incentive to digitize and put them online (a very expensive process). I suppose there's a very slim chance that some commercial entity could offer to do it for them, but I still think that's a long shot.

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