http://www.genesearch.com/socialsecurity.html
While I'm sure that many of my fellow Morris County (third highest income per capita of any county in the United States) residents have stable families where all members are accounted for, indeed venerated and celebrated at family functions, gatherings and reunions, there is always one "black sheep" or "prodigal son" in every family.
Preferably, these members can be shipped a great distance away from Morris County in order to keep the per capita income figure at a comfortably high level for the rest of us (note: this is sarcasm...)
Every family has a member who "loves alcohol and/or illicit substances just a bit too much" or who "needs some space in order to investigate the modification of his girlfriend's mobile home into a meth lab" or who "slapped his wife around one too many times and finally broke her arm so you hired her a lawyer and hid her and the kids out in your basement until he came by and you had to call the police and buy a .44 for protection." The players always change but the stories remain the same.
Naturally, we all want to distance ourselves (and our imaginary children) from those who may wield such undue negative influence upon our nearest and dearest.
After the ninth intervention doesn't take and the fifth rehab fails to quash the user's addictive rages there remains only one alternative - walk away and close the door. It is also acceptable to hope that your loved one hits bottom and rescues himself from the stygian depths of hell because you obviously have no impact upon them whatsoever.
I know it sounds cruel, however, those of you who have some personal knowledge of the topic will nod your heads vigorously. There comes a time when the sanctity of your family is tested vs. the self-destructiveness of the addict and it is okay to pick your family first.
One of my imaginary relatives (Jane) lost her mother to Smirnoff and Absolut. Her father was awarded custody of her after a monumental court battle which involved the disbursement of half of her college fund to her father's attorneys and the other half to her mother as a bribe to leave her alone (this is not as mean as it sounds, the mother either vanished for weeks at a time or showed up at Jane's school completely plastered). After the pay-off, Jane's mother disappeared and was never heard from again. Rumor had it that she ended up in Los Angeles, but that is like a parent saying, "we gave away your old dog to this lovely farm upstate..."
Common wisdom would dictate a shabby death shortly after the divorce but this woman was a stellar example of the French paradox. Jane's mom had embalmed her internal organs to such a degree that she outlived all of Jane's other biological relatives.
While ironic, it was actually a bit of good news as Jane has had a baby at the age of 49 and is hoping to be able to attend at least his highschool, if not college, graduation if she can manage to live that long. After preparing a suitable estate plan in case the inevitable happens sooner than she hopes it does, she began to wonder about her mother's life span vis a vis her own. How old was her mother when she died and where had she died?
However, with no contact for 43 years, how do you find out if your missing relative is dead and at what age he/she passed away? Enter our friend, the internet.
The U.S. government was forced to implement the SSDI (Social Security Death Index) in the 80's as a result of an FOIA (Freedom of Information Act - lots of acronyms in our government) lawsuit. Although the federal government updates the database to ensure that government benefits aren't paid out to the deceased and credit card companies license it to ensure that the deceased aren't granted credit cards, it is not made available to the general public except through the genealogy sites that license it. These sites are also not always up to date and can be months behind so caveat emptor. i.e. Don't blame me if your relative dies in January but cannot be found until spring because Frankie in the Missouri Social Security office was on maternity leave and the database was not updated with the info until she returned because the temp was a lazy, useless ass.
Okay. If you are mentally ready to do this, take a few deep breaths and maybe find a loved one to be on the phone with or for some hand holding. Once again, think about this, do you really want to know? This can be painful. I found my father this way and it would have been rather more intelligent had I left the office BEFORE I did the internet search. My colleagues were not impressed by my wailing and I regretted not having a cognac nearby. Okay, ready? Here goes:
Copy and paste this into your web browser:
http://www.genesearch.com/socialsecurity.html
Use one of the "free" sites. I am not listing specific sites because one or more may be unresponsive. I liked the New England research site, but you can try them all. Some were updated more recently than others but it is all from the same database.
Type as much information as you know. You can type in social security number and/or last name if you know it. My father has an uncommon name so I only typed in that and found him. Jane's mother was researchable because her father and mother had received their cards at the same time and their digits were one apart from another. Jane was happy to discover that her alcoholic mother had died at the wizened old age of 85. With good behavior, Jane may be able to reach 100 and attend her son's fourth wedding!
Good luck in your search and please feel free to ask me questions via the moderated comments.
In my next post, I will relate the tale of how I had to dig my father up and how he is now safely in my basement until I figure out what to do with him...umm, I should probably add that he was professionally cremated, so please don't worry, he is not in my freezer or anything...
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