Most of the time when we receive a report of someone being deceased, the information is very accurate. Unless you are holding an obituary, it is always a good idea to verify these reports. In the case of telefund soliciting, there have been instances of false reports in the past. This helps to prevent inaccurate deceasing and having to “resurrect” records that aren’t truly deceased.
Below are some useful resources when trying to research a possibly deceased person.
Researching the Internet
The Social Security Death Index (SSDI) will allow you to search for
a deceased person by name or SSN. The SSN will give you the best
results. There is also a Soundex feature available if you are not
sure of spelling. Search results will include the person’s name,
SSN, birthdate, state in which the SSN was issued, and the city and state
of the last known
address. You can go directly to the Index at:
***Some caveats about this method:
• If the person was very recently deceased, his/her name will probably not be on the Index.
• If the death was not reported to the Social Security Administration, the person will not appear on the index.
• If the person was born in some state other than the one we have him/her living in, your search may be much more difficult. It is possible to search all states at once, but unless the name is unusual, your search will probably yield too many results to take the time to wade through them all.
Researching by Equifax
If you cannot find the person on the Social Security Death Index, or you are unsure you have the correct person, the next step is to request an Equifax for the person. Equifax is a credit reporting agency which provides to us address reports for people based on SSN at a slight fee.
To request an Equifax, you must know the person’s SSN. If you do not have a SSN for the person, you will not be able to run Equifax. If you find a couple of people on Ancestry.com who you think might be the person you are looking for, you can use the SSN’s provided on that site. You can request Equifax by sending a GroupWise message to the Equifax group.
The Equifax report returns as a single sheet of paper.
If the person is alive, the current name, an address history, the person’s age, and any former names should be listed. If you look carefully at the address history, after each address is the date of that address change in this format: mm/yy. If the date of the last address change is after the reported death date, then you can safely assume the report is false.
If the person is deceased, no name or address history will appear. Instead, the Equifax will indicate that the person is deceased and give the state which reported the death and the date.
***Some caveats about this method:
• Again, if the death has not been reported to the Social Security Administration, the person will not show as deceased even if they are.
• If the person was very recently deceased, Equifax may not have obtained this information yet, and they may not apppear as deceased even if they are.
• You must have a SSN for the person to use this method.Unconfirmed Death (No luck in researching)
If you don't have any luck in your research, you should go ahead and
follow the deceasing procedures. An example of the DEC screen
is shown below with an explanation in the DEC screen.
After following the deceasing procedures, you will need to put up an unconfirmed death SRK. The SRK type should be UDEATH. An example of an uncomfirmed death SRK is as follows:
Unconfirmed Deaths will be researched periodically throughout the year
for a validation by the gift/bio entry unit.
Making Decisions
Each individual situation is different and therefore requires different handling. Listed are a few possible situations and ways to handle them.
Scenario #1: You find the person on the Social Security Death Index. The biographical information on the SSDI is the same bio information that we have on Benefactor.
This one is easy. You have verified that you have the right person.
Follow the deceasing procedures for ADAM.
Scenario #2: You find two people on the SSDI that you think might possibly be the person you are looking for. There is no SSN available in Benefactor to cross-reference.
Request equifax for both people using the SSDI’s SSN. Compare the address histories on the equifax reports to what is in Benefactor to find the correct person.
If you find the right person, the equifax will show you the status of that individual.
If the person shows up alive, check the date of the last address change on the equifax report. If it is after the reported date of death, or if you do not have a date of death but it is very recent (within the last month), you should probably consider the reported death to be a false report. For a false death report, you should put up an SRK explaining what was reported and what you have found (see procedures for putting up an SRK) and leave the record active.
If the date of the last address change is prior to the reported date of death, you may choose to either decease the record, or you may want to hold onto it for a month or two and run equifax again, especially if the reported date of death is very recent.
Scenario #3: You cannot find the person or any possible matches on the Social Security Death Index and there is no SSN available on Benefactor.
In this situation, you will need to decease the person.
If the person’s address in Benefactor is a local address, you may try asking your coworkers to see if anyone knows the person.
If you feel the report is false, you may want to state in your unconfirmed death SRK explaining what was reported and that you were not able to find any evidence either to substantiate or to disprove the report and leave the record active. The unconfirmed deaths will be periodically researched within the gift/bio entry unit.
Last update: 10/14/04