Social Security Administration Death Index

Many senior citizens are interested in searching their ancestry on the internet and a popular information source is the Social Security Administration's death index, which contains records on about 65 million people who held Social Security cards at their deaths.

This information is available from SSA but it is costly. The full file with updates costs $6,000. A single file costs $1,750. There are, however, Web site operators who have purchased the file and make it available - usually free - on their sites. One of these we recommend is Ancestry.com.

Below is a notice you will find on the SSA Web site about their records and their disclaimer about others using the list.

H ow To Get Information About A Deceased Family Member from the Social Security Administration

INFORMATION THAT IS AVAILABLE ON CD-ROM/CARTRIDGE/MAGNETIC TAPE/OR ELECTRONIC DOWNLOAD

The Social Security Administration (SSA) maintains a Death Master File, which is a record of approximately 70 million deaths that were reported to SSA. Although this Death Master File is not available online from SSA, the Death Master File Extract of this information is available for sale [on either CD-ROM, 3480/3490 cartridge, magnetic tape, or electronic download] through our distributor, the United States Department of Commerce’s National Technical Information Service (NTIS). The NTIS address is 5285 Port Royal Road, Springfield, Virginia 22161, telephone (703)605-6060 or 1(800)363-2068, or through their Web site at www.ntis.gov/products/pages/ssa-death-master.asp.

Please note that other parties have purchased SSA’s Death Master File Extract through NTIS and then posted it on their own different web sites. Although these private parties call/refer to their own web sites as SSA’s death index or SSA’s Death Master File, these are not endorsed by SSA, nor can SSA confirm that these private web sites are kept up-to-date or accurate with SSA’s death data in any way.