To: WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net
Date: Mon, 25 Dec 2006 21:02:48 -0500
Subject: [WSFA] slow genealogy
From: ronkean at juno.com
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

On Mon, 25 Dec 2006 12:09:17 -0500 (EST) "Keith F. Lynch"
<kfl at KeithLynch.net> writes:
> In a few months his birthdate will show up at
> http://ssdi.genealogy.rootsweb.com/.  I suggest we lay the issue to
> rest until then.
>
> That site bases their data on Social Security records, and that
> government agency tends to be pretty careful about people's ages,
> for obvious reasons.
>
> It's an amazing site.  But it does tend to run a few months behind.
> Since it's intended for genealogists, I guess there's no reason for
> it to be updated more often.
>

It is an amazing site.  I think that it is updated by the genealogy site,
from social security records, fairly often, i.e. about once a month.  The
largest part of the delay is probably usually accounted for by the time
it takes for next-of-kin or executors or others to get around to formally
reporting a death to the Social Security Administration, with the correct
documention.  Then the SSA must verify the report, which takes more time.

One thing that can be done using that site is to check the prevalence of
various names, either first names, or family names.  For example, one can
easily find  that there are 2,203,881 people with the first name 'John'
in the index.  There are 40,005 with the last name 'Lynch'.

Ron Kean

.