Anna Apgar was born 8 March 1913 in Chicago, Illinois. Her Application for Social Security and Tax Account Number application (commonly called the SS-5) form was the first record on her that listed her father as William Apgar. It is one of the few documents where she provided her father’s name. That’s in contrast to her death certificate, obituary, and family information which was provided by others and which gave a different name for her father.
There’s no guarantee what is on the application is 100% correct. It’s only as reliable as the informant and only as accurate as their knowledge. But the application form can be a great source of information. Make certain you obtain a duplicate of the actual card and not a computerized summary and transcription of the information. It can be easy on some of the older cards to transcribe things incorrectly. These are federal records and can be obtained if the individual is deceased by anyone–no relationship to the deceased is necessary.
There is more information on obtaining these applications on Judy Russell’s blog post–so we won’t recopy that information here.
One response
SS-5’s are one of my favorite record types! For one thing, most of them are filled out by the subject (as opposed to a government official) so you get a copy of the persons handwriting.