{"id":2017,"date":"2016-02-03T14:17:18","date_gmt":"2016-02-03T14:17:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/?p=2017"},"modified":"2016-02-03T14:17:18","modified_gmt":"2016-02-03T14:17:18","slug":"tell-familysearch-that-ive-not-had-my-birthday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/?p=2017","title":{"rendered":"Tell FamilySearch That I&#8217;ve Not Had My Birthday"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The devil is, as they say, in the details. There&#8217;s an apparent\u00a0bit of coding detail that&#8217;s not quite right at\u00a0<em>FamilySearch<\/em> as far as the\u00a0&#8220;United Social Security Death Index&#8221; is concerned. At least that&#8217;s how it appears from my informal study.<\/p>\n<p>Three entries are\u00a0anecdotal and most certainly not a random sample, but there&#8217;s an apparent problem here. The &#8220;United Social Security Death Index&#8221; entries for three of my relatives has\u00a0the wrong ages at their date of death.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Ida Neill&#8211;born 1 September 1910, died 21 July 1994. She was 83 when she died. She would have been 84 if she had lived until her birthday.\u00a0<em>FamilySearch<\/em>&#8216;s entry indicated she was 84.<\/li>\n<li>Luella Barnett&#8211;born 19 December 1900, died September of 1980. She was 79 when she died. She would have been 80 if she had lived until her birthday.\u00a0<em>FamilySearch<\/em>&#8216;s entry indicated she was 80.<\/li>\n<li>Mimka Habben&#8211;born 11 November\u00a01881, died February of 1969. He was 87 when he died. He would have been 88 if he had lived until his birthday later that year.\u00a0<em>FamilySearch&#8217;<\/em>s entry indicated he was 88.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/ssdi-ida-neill.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-2018\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-2018 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/ssdi-ida-neill.jpg\" alt=\"ssdi-ida-neill\" width=\"681\" height=\"542\" srcset=\"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/ssdi-ida-neill.jpg 681w, https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/ssdi-ida-neill-300x239.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 681px) 100vw, 681px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/ssdi-luella-barnett.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-2019\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-2019\" src=\"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/ssdi-luella-barnett.jpg\" alt=\"ssdi-luella-barnett\" width=\"688\" height=\"559\" srcset=\"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/ssdi-luella-barnett.jpg 688w, https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/ssdi-luella-barnett-300x244.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 688px) 100vw, 688px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/ssdi-mimka-habben.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-2020\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-2020\" src=\"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/ssdi-mimka-habben.jpg\" alt=\"ssdi-mimka-habben\" width=\"678\" height=\"567\" srcset=\"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/ssdi-mimka-habben.jpg 678w, https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/ssdi-mimka-habben-300x251.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 678px) 100vw, 678px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s always a chance that I just happened to pick three people where the age was calculated incorrectly. I&#8217;m leery of making that conclusion as the age calculation is probably programmed into the system.<\/p>\n<p>I was really doubtful that the age itself was one of the pieces of information as a separate data field in the Social Security Administration&#8217;s\u00a0<em>Death Master File <\/em>(this is the raw database used to create the various &#8220;SSDI&#8221; databases floating around online). Entries at\u00a0<em>GenealogyBank\u00a0<\/em>for these same three people suggest that the age is not provided in the <em>Death Master File. <\/em>The ages shown at\u00a0<em>GenealogyBank <\/em>for these individuals\u00a0are different than those ages shown at\u00a0<em>FamilySearch<\/em>. It&#8217;s also apparent that the ages are calculated correctly at <em>GenealogyBank<\/em>. Note that the calculation is only as precise as the dates given.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/ssdi-genealogybank.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-2021\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-2021\" src=\"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/ssdi-genealogybank.jpg\" alt=\"ssdi-genealogybank\" width=\"624\" height=\"733\" srcset=\"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/ssdi-genealogybank.jpg 624w, https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/ssdi-genealogybank-255x300.jpg 255w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 624px) 100vw, 624px\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nIs it the end of the genealogical world? I suppose not. However, I do wish that:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Database providers would <em>only include information that was in the original database<\/em>. I can do my reckoning myself. I realize age calculation is a minor thing, but how does the user know where information given in the original database ends and information calculated or inferred from the database begins?<\/li>\n<li>Calculations, if they must be made, need to be made correctly.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If there&#8217;s cause for an update to this post, we&#8217;ll post one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The devil is, as they say, in the details. There&#8217;s an apparent\u00a0bit of coding detail that&#8217;s not quite right at\u00a0FamilySearch as far as the\u00a0&#8220;United Social Security Death Index&#8221; is concerned. At least that&#8217;s how it appears from my informal study. Three entries are\u00a0anecdotal and most certainly not a random sample, but there&#8217;s an apparent problem [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[92],"class_list":["post-2017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ssdi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2017\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}