Recently while working on another genealogical case, I realized that I had gone all these years without ordering a crucial record for my ancestor José Avilés – his SS-5 file. Like many novice genealogists, I probably overlooked this resource when I first started my genealogical journey and then as time went on, I forgot that this even existed.
So today I want to write about the SS-5, how it can be useful in genealogy, and what it helped me discover – or in my case, confirm!
What is an SS-5?
The SS-5 can be an important record, especially for Puerto Rican genealogists, as this record was the application from the Social Security Administration. As we will see below, the record can include a lot of important pieces of information. In my case, I wanted to see if José Avilés (my 2nd great-grandfather) listed who his father was since he did have a father listed on his birth record.
The SS-5 can be an important piece of information given that the Catholic church was who controlled who and what was entered into a baptism before the creation of the Civil Registry in 1885. Therefore, if your ancestors were not married by the church, it is possible that a father’s name might not be included in a birth record – as it was with my 2nd great-grandfather.
The SS-5 files date back to 1935 seeing as how this is when the Social Security Act was passed – the Social Security system in the United States is not even 100 years old! This is something we take for granted and once we are born we are issued a Social Security Number; however, back in the days, you had to apply for on if born prior to 1935. Seeing as how José Avilés was born in 1891, he would have been in his 40s when the act was passed. This is did not mean that José applied that same year for his Social Security Number and many Puerto Ricans likely died never having applied for one. This is something to keep in mind if you decide to try and find an ancestor’s SS-5 file. A death record is a good indication if a social security number was issued prior to your ancestor’s death and will be an important piece when requesting the SS-5.
Ordering the SS-5
To order the SS-5 a few things are necessary, amongst them are the full name, death date, and the social security number of your ancestor. Other details such as the parents’ names, ancestor’s date of birth, etc. can also be key in finding your ancestor’s SS-5 file.
A helpful website when it came to understanding the Social Security Administration’s PAL/FOIA website and how to order this record was The Legal Genealogist’s post “Ordering the SS-5: 2024 style“. This post broke down how to create an account, request the file, make the payment, and keep track of your order.
It is also important to note that not every SS-5 can be ordered. There are a few requirements one needs to meet in order to request this file such as: if living, we need written consent from said person to request their file; if deceased, we need to be able to prove their death; and/or if the person was born over 120 years ago. I was able to prove points 2 and 3 for my ancestor so I was very hopeful!
I submitted my ancestor’s name, his death death, birth date, mother’s name, his Social Security Number, and a copy of his death certificate (just to be on the safe side!). And of course, do not forget the payment which was $30 to request the SS-5!
Getting the SS-5
There are always “average” wait times when requesting a government document and sometimes this can either be more or less than the estimated time. At the time that The Legal Genealogist posted in January 2024 about the SS-5, the average wait time was six weeks. Here is my timeline below:
Ordered: 9 May 2024
Received: 6 July 2024
This means that I only had to wait eight weeks to receive the SS-5 record; however, another SS-5 I had ordered the same day took longer to receive so wait times might be getting a bit longer. Or simply, that request could have also been harder to find. This is something to keep in mind when ordering the file.
When it arrived, I was excited, and nervous, about seeing the SS-5 file. Mostly because my 2nd great-grandfather’s father has always been fairly elusive. I had pretty good evidence that Damián Magraner Morell was José Avilés father, but no document while José was living pointed to Damián being his father. If this SS-5 had Damián’s name written down as “father”, then this would be fairly compelling evidence of all the work I have been doing the last 20 years.
Even though José’s death record mentioned Damián’s name, José would have not filled out this record himself seeing as how he was already deceased. Finding a record where José himself would have filled out Damián’s name as his father would be pretty damning evidence!
When I opened up the file I was excited to see Damián Magraner’s name written down in the slot for father. Something interesting to note is that my ancestor never used “Juan” in his name but somehow it appears here. He was not born with it and in no other records (that I know of) does use Juan, so I was surprised to see it appear here and see that he also signed with that name. Even though his birthdate is slightly off, this was fairly common for people who were not literate back in the days. Seeing as how this is the Social Security Number he would use for the rest of his life, there are small odds that this is someone else.
Similarly, the combination of Río Prieto, Lares, Puerto Rico and the names Damián Magraner and Inocencia Avilés (names that are not very common in Puerto Rico) make this very strong evidence that this is my same José Avilés. Another piece of evidence is José Avilés’ signature here which is fairly similar to his WWII Draft Card Registration in 1942. 16 years would separate the two signatures.
His WWII Draft Registration Card is provided below. Here he appears as José (Cheo) Avilés, Cheo being a common nickname for men name José.
Conclusions
Even though this piece of evidence is very compelling, in isolation it is not the be-all and end-all to my genealogical question: Who was José Avilés’ father? We must look at evidence in combination with other pieces of information we discover about our ancestors in order to answer important questions about their lives and who they were. Damián Magraner Morell has always been the greatest contender to being José Avilés father. The evidence so far is stacking up to be in my favor with records such as family lore, a local Lares, Puerto Rico census, DNA matches, other correlating evidence, and now an SS-5 file to boot!
This mystery is what got me started in genealogy and it feels a bit weird to say “the book is closed” when it comes to answering this question. However, it is important to note that sometimes what we think is a “case closed” type of situation might reopen itself when new evidence is presented. Therefore, even though I feel like I have a definitive answer, it is important to always re-evaluate every so often the information you have and what new evidence is out there.
Have you ever used the SS-5 for genealogy?
Cover image: “Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Public Access Link (PAL),” Social Security Administration (https://foia.ssa.gov/app/Home.aspx: accessed 6 August 2024).
1st time I heard of SS-5 for genealogy. Thanks for sharing the information. Great article!