Monthly Archives: July 2015

No Correct Town in Ancestry.com’ Dropdown for the SSA Database?

When searching the  “Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007″ at Ancestry.com, there is no entry for Tioga, Hancock County, Illinois in the location “database.” There are many locations that do not appear in the Ancestry.com location database.

notioga

One workaround is to use “Illinois, USA” as the location and use “tioga” as the keyword. This is not a totally guaranteed approach because some place names are not standardized in the SSA database, but it is better than nothing.

Court Cases in GoogleBooks

Many “state reporter” series of court cases appealed to various supreme and other appeals courts have been scanned and digitized on GoogleBooks. Consider searching for at least the following:

  • lastname
  • name of county
  • word “county”
  • name of state

You might be surprised at what you find–like this guardianship from the early 1920s that was appealed to the Illinois State Supreme Court.

what-war-1812

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Every week, I send out a blog update with a summary of postings to all my blogs, links to those postings, and some extra content not found on the blog, including:

  • photo scan with documentation
  • document citation example
  • “does it really say that?” Handwriting sample
  • Letter of the week

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Not All Married Names for Ladies in the SSA Applications and Claims Index

When searching “Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007″ at Ancestry.com for women, remember to use their last name at death. Some women with multiple marriages may not show up with all those married names in the database.

 

Eva M. Fluegel appears in “Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007″ under her maiden name of Eva M. Trask and her final married name of Eva M. Fluegel. She does not appear under Eva M. Johnson–the last name of her first husband, two whom she was married for thirty years and with whom she had all her children. ssa-women