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May 24, 2005

Rootsweb Plus! Steve Morse's New SSDI Search Tool

If any of you have done extensive lookups in the social security death index (SSDI), you'll know that there are several SSDI websites and each one has a different set of
limitations. Several years ago Steve Morse made it easy for us by developing a single search form that could search any SSDI site that you specify. That way you could go back and forth between the different sites without having to reenter
you data on a new form.

Steve has now come up with a single search method that combines all the desirable features of the various sites. He did so by using the rootsweb site as his starting point and then wrote code to get rid of the following limitations in rootsweb:

Rootsweb requires at least three characters for partial names
Rootsweb does not allow you to search on a range of years
Rootsweb does not allow you to search on age
Rootsweb does not allow you to search on a foreign last residence
Rootsweb does not allow you to specify day of month for death

Steve calls his search method "RootsWeb Plus" and it is now the default choice on his SSDI search form. If you'd like to try it, go to Steve's site at http://www.stevemorse.org and
select "Social Security Death Records" in his "Births and Deaths" section.