Avoid the Excitement

With any “new” database (such as the recently released “Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007″), the temptation can be to search as quickly as possible for as many individuals as one can.

That makes it easy to overlook people, search inefficiently, and search the same way for the same people repeatedly.

Make a list of the people for whom you wish to search. Think about the life details on those people that you need to search.  If you try a variety of ways to search for the same person, keep track of the ways you search so that you don’t search the same way repeatedly and so that you can troubleshoot effectively.

And make certain you “clear all” when you start searching on a new person.