Section 3: Other services from the Social Security Adminstration

Q.3.0 ("Motivation question") Why does the Socail Security Adminstration have this a service to locate a missing person, and can I use this service for genealogical research?

A: Regulation No. 1 of the Social Security Act does not permit SSA to disclose information about the whereabouts of a missing person except as provided for the Parent Locator Service (service for locating a parent who has skipped out on child support payments). However, circumstances may arise when it would be proper to inform the missing person of information about which he would want to know. Where strongly compelling circumstances of this nature exist, SSA may forward a letter to him/her. The letter forwarding policy is restrictive because:

(1) the inquirer can be helped only if the addressee replies to the letter. It would serve little purpose to forward a letter to an individual unless it contains information that he/she could reasonably be expected to want to receive and which would cause him/her to reply. This excludes requests which are primarily for the benefit of the requester rather than the missing person.
(2) SSA does not want to burden employers. Most letters must be forwarded through the last employer of record. Some large employers have asked SSA not to send letters to the employees in care of the company.
(3) If all requests to forward letters were honored, the volume would significantly interfere with normal SSA operations.
(4) The addressee may consider receipt of the letter as an unwarranted invasion of his/her privacy.

A letter will not be forwarded unless the following conditions are met:
(1) There are strongly compelling reasons for wanting to get in touch with the missing person such as: a close relative of the missing person is seriously ill, is dying or has died; a child is left without parental care because of the death or incapacity of the remaining parent; a defendant in a felony case is seeking a defense witness; a parent wishes to locate a missing son or daughter; the consent of the missing person is needed in connection with an adoption proceeding for his/her child; the missing person is the beneficiary of an estate and the executor is trying to locate him; other instances where the missing person is due money or valuable property; a doctor or hospital wishes to contact a missing person for health reasons.

(2) The missing person would want to know about the contents of the letter.
(3) The missing person's disappearance occurred far enough in the past that SSA could reasonably expect to have a usable mailing address (wages are reported by employersnly once a year, so the most recent information SSA has will be at least a year old).
(4) All other possibilities for contacting the missing person have been exhausted.
[Forwarded by: Linda.Edwards@genesplicer.org, written by: Barbara Bennett]

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Q.3.1 Can the Social Security Adminstration tell you about living relatives?
A: No. The SSA is obliged to keep its records on living people confidential. However, there are provision in the SSA adminstrative manual that allow ordinary people to request help in contacting family members. A "Letter Forwarding Service" is one way.

This service allows anyone - provided they show a substantial need for the SSA to preform such a service - to request that a letter be forwarded to an adressee with whome contact has been lost. The letter may be sent to the adresee's last known employer or to their last known address. However, some employers, especially large companies, request that letters to their employees and former employees not be sent via their business address.

When you request a letter forwarding service from the SSA, a few points should be kept in mind: Does the recepient have any interest in receiving your letter and making contact with you? Will the recepient be embarrsed in any way if someone else opens your letter? Is there a compelling need for you to reach the recepient?

You will have to address these question in an open cover letter to the SSA. Along with it, enclose a stamped envelope with your return address. The stamped envelope should include the letter to the missing person (preferably, address to "whom it may concern"). The stamped envlope should NOT be sealed so the SSA personnel can inspect the content of the letter you are requesting to be forwarded.

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Q.3.2 Does Letter forwarding cost any money?
A: No. There is no charge for forwarding a letter for humanitarian purposes. The current charge for forwarding letters involving a monetary or valuable consideration is $25 (updated Aug. 2001) per letter. Contact your local SSA office if you want to have a letter forwarded to a missing person.
[Portion Forwarded by: Linda.Edwards@genesplicer.org, written by: Barbara Bennett]

As a genealogist you should know to keep your sources going. So, if your letter is forwarded to the right person and the desired contact is made, you should probably write a thank you note to the SSA. Although it may not reach the officer who handled your case (and she or he may notremember your request,) it may still show positive results to the organization as a whole.

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Q.3.2.3
What are the official rules of letter forwarding? The offical statement on letter forwarding by the Social Security Administration:

Social Security Letter Forwarding - PART 1
Disclosure/Confidentiality of Information

03308.001 General
While Regulation No. 1 does not permit SSA to disclose information about the whereabouts of a missing person except as provided for the Parent Locator Service, where public interest in disclosure outweights the individual's right to privacy, or where the disclosure is otherwise required by the FOIA (ed: Freedom of Information Act), circumstances may arise when it would be proper to inform the missing person of information about which he would want to know. Where strongly compelling circumstances of this nature exist, we may forward a letter to him/her. Where he/she is known to be deceased, see GN 03305.025 M. See GN 03308.035 below and GN 00311.005 for information when fees are charges ad the amount of the fees.

03308.005 Policy on Forwarding Letters
A. Because of the wide variety of reasons for which one individual may wish to contact another, most of which would not meet the criteria set out in B., below, the letter forwarding policy must be restrictive. Ascertain why the inquirer wants to get in touch with the missing person and then make the appropriate determination under GN 03308.010 below.
B. The letter forwarding policy is restrictive because:

The inquirer can be helped only if the addressee replies to the letter. Thus it would serve little purpose to forward a letter to an individual unless it contains information that he/she could reasonably be expected to want to receive and which would cause him/her to reply. This excludes requests involving past-due bills, estrangement cases, business propositions, and other issues which are primarily for the beneift of the requester rather than the missing person.
SSA does not want to burder employers. Most letters must be forwarded through the last employer of record. (Several large employers have asked us not to send letters to their employees in care of the company.)
If all requests to forward letters were honored, the volume would significantly interfere with normal operations.

03308.010 When an Offer to Forward a Letter May be Made
A. Criteria for Forwarding a Letter.
Do not offer to forward a letter unless it is clear, based on the evidence presented by the inquier, that the following conditions are met:

There are strongly compelling reasons for wanting to get in touch with the missing person (see GN 03308.015 below);
The missing person would want to know about the contents of the letter;
The missing person's disappearance occurred far enough in the past that SSA could reasonably expect to have a usable mailing address (remember that annual reporting results in a lapse of several months before employer addresses can be extracted); and
All other possibilities for contacting the missing person have been exhausted.

B. DO/BO Procedures when Criteria are Met.

Review for Sufficient Information In order to forward a letter when a request meets the criteria listed above, SSA must have sufficient information to locate the missing person's record. The missing person's name and SSN are adequate for this purpose. The letter to be forwarded must be submitted in a plain unsealed, unstamped envelope bearing only the missing person's name and SSN. See a. and b. for special cases.
a. SSN not known If the SSN is not available, the inquirer must furnish enough identifying information to enable SSA to determine the correct SSN. SSA will need the following:
1. date and place of birth and
2. name of parents, or
3. name address of last known employer and
4. period in which such employment occured.
b. Missing Person has no SSN If the missing person is a beneficiary with no SSN of his/her own, sufficient information must be furnished to locate the claims folder.
Review for Language The letter must be reviewed to ensure that it:
- a. is not inflammatory or derogatory
- b. contains no obscene language
- c. will not cause embarrassment if opened by someone other than the addressee (i.e. when forwarded through an employer)
If the letter does not meet SSA standards, it should be returned for revision.
Insufficient Information Furnished In transmitting a request to OCRO, if the letter contains insufficient information to determine that the criteria are met, the DO/BO will enclose an RC indicating why it appears that the criteria are met.
Inform Requester of SSA Responsibility Tell the requester at the time an offer to forward is made that SSA cannot be sure that the letter will reach the missing person or that he/she will reply. Also indicate that if SSA attempts to forward a letter, SSA cannot inform him/her of the results of that attempt. Subsequent letter for the same purpose will not be forwarded.

C. Request to Forward Letter If the initial request asks that SSA forward a letter and the conditions in A. above are not met, inform the requester that our letter forwarding policy apples only in restricted circumstances and that the request does not meet the criteria. When the request is recieved by mail either in the DO/BO or reviewing office, and SSA cannot tell from the request or the letter to be forwarded what the writer's reason for contacting the missing person is, deny the request and explain under what circumstance SSA would forward a letter.
Pictures, documents, and items of value (cash, stamps, checks, jewelry, etc.) cannot be forwarded because SSA cannot assure that:

The missing person will receive the letter forwarded.
The item will be returned to the requester if the letter is undelivered.

PART II - Request to Forward a Letter.

03308.015 When Strongly Compelling Reasons May be Deemed to Exist.

A. A Strong Humanitarian Purpose Will Be Served. To be of any assistance to the inquirer in these cases, SSA must be reasonaly certain that the circumstances are of such a compelling nature that the addressee would reply to the letter. Thus, usually do not offer to forward in estrangement cases where one estranged spouse is trying to locate the other. In such cases, the missing person usually will be aware of the consequences normally resulting from his/her disappearance, such as the fact that the family needs money, minor children need/want his/her presence, or that the requester may wish to remarry. If a child under the age of 18 is in the household of the estranged spouse, do not offer to forward a letter from the child to the missing person. EXCEPTION: Cases where a child of the missing person is ill, dying, or without parental care. Also, if a child is 18 years of age or older, or an age and not in the household of the estranged spouse.

Pictures, documents, and items of value (cash, stamps, checks, jewelry, etc.) cannot be forwarded because SSA cannot assure that:

The missing person will receive the letter forwarded.
The item will be returned to the requester if the letter is undelivered.

Following are examples of circumstances where a strong humanitarian purpose will be served:

A close relative of the missing person is seriously ill, is dying, or has died.
A child is left without parental care because the parent who had the child in his care has become incapable of caring for the child subsequent to the missing parent's disappearance.
A defendamt in a felony case is seeking a defense witness.
A parent wishes to locate a missing son or daughter. (Where a son, daughter, brother, or sister of a missing person wishes to establish contact with such missing relatives, see GN 03308.030 below for special procedures to follow.)
The consent of the missing person is needed in connection with an adoption proceeding for his/her child. The letter to be forwarded should say only that the cooperation of the missing person is needed in connection with an adoption proceeding. It should not specify that the missing person's child is involved.

If situations not falling within the above caegories arise, and the DO/BO believes the reasons for making contact to be so compelling as to render denial of the request unreasonable, prepare an RC outlining the reasons why an exception should be made and refer the matter to the ARC, Programs servicing the DO/BO for further consideration. The DO/BO should make no commitment to forward a letter because the ARC will respond to the individual. If the decision is to comply, the ARC will obtain the mailing address from a DO/BO or OCRO, as appropriate.

If the situations fall within the above categories, and the DO/BO has a useable mailing address for the missing person, the DO/BO should forward the letter. If the DO/BO does not have an address, refer the request to OCRO.

B. A Monetary or Other Consideration is Involved.
A strongly compelling reason to forward a letter may be deemed to exist if monetary or other valuable considerations are involved and, in accordance with the rules in GH 03308.020 below, it seems reasonable to assume that the missing person does not know of it. The follwoing are examples of typical situations falling in this category:

The missing person is the beneficiary of an estate and the executor or administrator is trying to locate him.

Q.3.2.5
What information should I give to the Letter Forwarding Service?
A: In order to forward a letter, SSA must have sufficient information to locate the missing person's record. The name, date of birth, Place of birth, father's name, mother's maiden name and SSN are needed for this. If not known, the date of birth and full name are minimal requirements. The letter to be forwarded must be submitted in a plain unsealed, unstamped envelope bearing only the missing person's name and SSN. If the SSN is unknown, you must furnish as much identifying information as possible. The letter will be reviewed by SSA personnel to ensure that it is not inflammatory or derogatory, contains no obscene language, and will not cause embarrassment if opened by someone other that the addressee. SSA cannot be sure that the letter will reach the missing person or that he/she will reply. If SSA attempts to forward a letter, SSA cannot inform you of the results of that attempt. Subsequent letters for the same purpose will not be forwarded.
[Forwarded by: Linda.Edwards@genesplicer.org, written by: Barbara Bennett]

Detailed below is an extract of SSA form No. SSA-963 (for more information look t Q.3.2.3):

About our Letter Forwarding Service:

We can not forward all letters because this would interfere with our regular work which is to make Social Security Payments.

We ususally send letters for missing persons to their home address or in care of their employers

We read all letters to the missing person to see if they meet our standard for forwarding. We will forward letters only when the letter has important information that we feel the missing person does not know and she/he would want to know the information. We will not forward letters that contain business offers.

We will:

Try to find an address for the missing person in our records
Forward your letter if we find an address and we approve the reason for your request. We do charge a $25 fee to forward letters about money matters. We do not charge for forwarding letters which have a humanitarian purpose.
Tell you if we can not forward your requests.
Tell you if our records show that the missing person has died if it can be disclosed.
Tell you if we do not have a Social Security number for the person

We will not:

Keep letter forwarding requests we have processed
Follow up on letters we forward
Tell you if we were able to forward the letter or if we found an address
Forward photographs, documents or any other personal items.

What you should do

Fill in all items [SSN, DOB, Place of Birth, Father Name, Mother's maiden name], relationship to person, reason for request etc.]
Put a one page in an unsleaed and unstamped enevelope. Nothing in it should be embarrasing to the missing person if read by a third party.
Write the missing person's name and social security number on the envelope
Mail your request to us at the address shown above

If you have any questions:
Please write us at:
Attn. Mod 12 Et Unit RM. 264.
1150 East Mountain Drive
Wilkes-Barre PA 18702-7997

You can call 1-800-772-1213 to get the address and phone of the nearest office. ...

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Q.3.3.1 Will I hear from the SSA once my letter is received?
Q.3.3.2 I have requested a letter forwarding service from the SSA, and have not heard from them. How long should I wait?
A: Don't wait. The SSA can neither confirm nor deny the results of your request. Adminstrativly speaking, the Letter Forwarding Service is defined as a 'black hole': the SSA is not supposed to confirm to you, in any way, the results of your request. Practically, the SSA is probably not set to do such a job, in terms of follow up and correspondance. Therefor, you should not expect any reply from the SSA. Sometimes, however, when there is no compelling evidence that your request should be even considered by the SSA, your letter and materials will be returned to you.

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Q.3.3.3 I know that when someone applies for SSN, they have to provide documents as proofs. Do any of these documents remain with the SSA?
Q.3.3.4 Could these documents (3.3.1) be obtained for genealogical purposes?
A:Yes. See Q.1.5 for more details.

For Q.3.3.2 : This is still an untested method. Any results from such at attempt will be greatly appreciated if shared.
However, lately we have receievd this report from Anita H.
Generally when you get an SS-5, a letter comes with it stating that if the individual died more than 5 years ago the file was probably destroyed, and they'll charge you the search money whether they find anything or not. Naturally, I was reluctant to throw away $14 dollars. But I decided it was worth a shot for my grandfather's file, who had died only 4 years previously. What they sent me was worth the price. I received a copy of his death certificate, his application for Social Security Benefits, and his Naturalization Certificate, complete with photo.

Older applications for benefits (filed over 5 years old ago) will have supporting documents in them to establish age, citizenship, relationship, etc. Social Security Administration is now mostly electronic which means documents are no longer retained in most files - a claims representatives certifies that a document was seen but no document is retained in the file. 95% of the time anymore, a file will have an application only completed. Documents have never been retained with the application for a social security card. [The above parargaph was received from: jatkisso@mail.coin.missouri.edu (Judy Atkisson)]

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Q.3.4.1 REQUEST FOR SOCIAL SECURITY EARNINGS INFORMATION - What and how can I use it for genealogical purposes?
Q.3.4.2 Can I get employment information from the Social Security?

A: Contact your local Social Security office and request form SSA-7050. Yearly totals of earnings will be provided free of charge. However, for genealogical purposes, you will want detailed earnings information. Detailed earnings information includes periods of employment or self-employment and the names and addresses of employers. A fee is charged for the detailed earnings information because you want it for purposes NOT directly related to Social Security. The fee chart is included on the form and varies, depending on the number of years for which you request information. The minimum fee is $15 for 1 year, and the maximum fee is $92 for 52 years. The fee can be waived if you show that giving the information to you will benefit the general public. You must attach an explanation of why the fee should be waived to the form. (If you are requesting your own earnings information, there is no fee if you have reason to believe that your record contains incorrect information. If this is the case, please contact your local office and discuss your problem with them. They will help you resolve any discrepancies in your earnings record.)

You can request earnings information from the record of a deceased person if you are the legal representative of the estate, a survivor (spouse, parent, child), or an individual with a material interest who is an heir at law, next of kin, beneficiary under the will or donee of property of the decedent.Proof of death must be included with your request. Proof of appointment as representative or proof of your relationship to the deceased must also be included.

You may have to wait a while for the information. Once the employer identification numbers and years worked have been obtained from the master earnings file, someone will have to sit at a microfilm reader looking at employers' quarterly and annual wage reports to find the individual.
[Forwarded by: Linda.Edwards@genesplicer.org, written by: Barbara Bennett]

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Q.3.5. I called the Social Security Office and they didn't know what I am talking about, what should I do?

A: Please be aware that the situations described in these messages are not run of the mill requests that offices deal with all the time. The person you talk to may not be aware that disclosure of the information is allowed or may not be familiar with the procedures involved. If the employees at the SSA office refuse to give you the information, saying it isn't allowed, ask them to look it up in the manual. If all else fails, as a last resort, you can write to your congressman, describing your contacts with the local SSA office, andinclude a copy of your request. Congressional inquiries get special treatment, but the local offices don't like them.

Anytime you have questions about Social Security issues, or need help with a Social Security matter, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE call your local office. You will get the best information from them. Please don't waste time speculating or asking neighbors or friends (unless they work for SSA). I can still remember being on the receiving end of "but my Uncle Joe says" or "so-and-so told me thus-and-so and he ought to know because" and not being able to convince them that Uncle Joe and so-and-so didn't know what they were talking about. The Social Security Law is quite complicated andencompasses much more than just retirement benefits. No one can know it all, but your local office is the place to get official information. That's what they are there for. End of sermon.

Each office should have a copy of the Social Security Laws and Regulations and the POMS manual (operational instructions to implement the laws & regs). These manuals, except for portions related to security procedures, should be available for you to use at the local office. I would think that all law libraries would also have copies of the law and regs and possibly the operations manuals.

[Forwarded by: Linda.Edwards@genesplicer.org, written by: Barbara Bennett]

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