Unfortunately, it’s now official. I have been ordering Social Security applications for several decades, and have found them especially valuable over the last decade for assisting with my Army cases. A few years ago, I noticed that they were starting to block out names of parents on the applications – which is very unfortunate since that’s the primary reason for ordering them. Still, the restriction seemed to pertain to applications for those born from 1940 or so on, and the explanation was that their parents could still be alive. So though I wasn’t keen on it, I could understand the logic.
But recently – without any announcement – the Administration extended the restriction to 100 years – that is, 100 years from the birth of the applicant, so you can now only obtain this record in an unaltered state for those born prior to 1912. This letter is in response to one I wrote where I explained how it would negatively impact the ability to locate soldiers’ family members and that the parents whose privacy was suddenly being protected would have to be somewhere on the order of 120 to 150 years old, if alive. I can apparently receive the full application if I can prove that the parents are deceased, but 1) that’s a catch-22 since that’s exactly why I usually ordered the document in the first place, and 2) many of my cases are for foreign-born soldiers who immigrated to the U.S. so I would have to seek death certificates from places ranging from Finland to the Philippines.
For similar reasons, this perplexingly long restriction will obviously also affect the 40% of Americans of Ellis Island heritage, which is also regrettable as this was the best tool for learning the names of the parents of immigrants so you could then extend your research overseas. I’m very disappointed in this decision and truly can’t grasp what has caused the Administration to put such a severe restriction in place – far in excess of that of most states that have limits on death certificate access – but I wanted to at least let the genealogical community know as it would be unfortunate for others to spend money needlessly. Because this policy was never announced, I have spent money on four requests ($27 or $29 each) for people born in the 19-teens, only to receive documents of no value to me. You might want to let your friends in the genealogical community know.
