Blogger Exonerates SSDI

Kevin Poulsen at Threat Level reports on a case where someone used the SSDI to steal identities.

Tracy June Kirkland, 42, allegedly used Rootsweb.com to find the names, Social Security numbers and dates-of-birth of people who, shall we say, had no further need for their consumer credit lines. She then "would randomly call various credit card companies to determine if the deceased individual had an … account," according to the 15-count indictment (.pdf) filed in federal court in Los Angeles Tuesday.

She'd then persuade the issuer to change the mailing address for the dead victim to one of her many rented mail drops in Orange and Riverside counties, and in some cases she'd add her own name as an authorized user of the card, prosecutors say.

At least 100 of the dearly departed were allegedly used in the scheme, which prosecutors say began in October, 2005 and continued until last month.

Poulsen went to the trouble of actually asking folks at the SSA and Rootsweb how the SSDI works—unlike the MSM journalists I wrote about here, here, and here. He found that the fault in the Kirkland case lies not with the SSDI itself, but with the lenders who didn't use it correctly. In the words of Rootsweb spokesman Mike Ward, "The reason the Social Security Administration has it out there is to prevent fraud, and when it's used to perpetrate fraud it's because not all the checks and balances were in place on the financial institution's end."

That's a Long Time to Be a Woman

Kathryn Larcher spotted this in the World Wide Words newsletter of March 8th:

On visiting the Daily Telegraph Web site Ian Harrison encountered this sentence in a report dated 5 March: "Historians have been kept guessing over claims Dr James Barry, Inspector General of Military Hospitals, was in fact a woman for more than 140 years." I can see the slogan already, "Transvestism: keeps you living longer".

Getting past the hard-to-parse lede, this is actually a pretty interesting article. Evidence suggests that James Barry was in fact Margaret Ann Bulkley.

Key evidence came from around two dozen letters, some written by Margaret as a teenager and others by Barry the student doctor.

Alison Reboul, a document analysis expert with the Forensic Science Service, has concluded they were written by the same person. Another newly-discovered letter was written by Barry to the family solicitor Daniel Reardon on "his" arrival in Edinburgh to study medicine in 1809.

Although the letter was signed 'James Barry', Reardon had written on the outside 'Miss Bulkley, 14th December’. "Reardon was a meticulous man," said du Preez.

"On the outside of all the letters he received he wrote the date and the name of the sender. You can't get much more conclusive than that."

That Date Doesn't Make Census

The ABC15 Investigators of Phoenix, Arizona, did a hard-hitting exposé on genealogy "rip-offs and scams," and offered this piece of advice:

Smith recommends starting with the U.S. Census to find your roots, which keeps records after 1906. [Link]

I think they confused the United States with Canada's Northwest Provinces. A common mistake.

Something Doesn't Add Up

It took me a few minutes to figure this out:

By the time you have found your x5 great grandparents (around 150 years ago) you will potentially have a list of 148 ancestors – and of course it doubles up with every further generation! [Link]

OK, barring incestuous liasons between cousins, each of us has 128 "x5 great grandparents." Adding in all the intervening generations gives us 254 ancestors. Subtract the 106 ancestors whose prison records and gambling debts make us ashamed and we arrive at ... 148!

Don't Tell Mrs. Hoover

This item appeared Wednesday in a Florida newspaper:

Daisy Garlock, a direct descendant of President Herbert Hoover, was joined by relatives, friends and fellow Bay Village residents in a gala celebration of her 103rd birthday.

She was born Jan. 8, 1905, in Birmingham, Ala. into a family with four brothers and four sisters. In 1926 she graduated from Howard College (now Stanford University) with degrees in English and botany. [Link]

Hmm... According to every source I can find, Herbert Hoover had two sons (born 1903 and 1907) and no daughters. I don't think Daisy's even an indirect descendant of the guy.

And, by the way, Howard College is now Samford University—not Stanford, from which university (ironically) Herbert Hoover graduated in 1895.

The War on Error

Regret the Error has posted a list of notable media errors and corrections of 2007, including these:

Most Delayed Correction
The New York Times:

A caption on June 8, 1944, with a photograph of Army officers at mess on the Pacific front, misspelled the given name of the first officer seated at the left side of the table. He was Col. Girard B. Troland of New London, Conn. – not Gerand. The error was called to the attention of the editors by his grandson yesterday.

The Trouble at Home Award
The Daily Miner and News (Kenora, Ontario):

Last week’s editorial had a major error in it that I must correct. I referred to my new granddaughter as three and one-half YEARS old. It should have read MONTHS old. Boy am I in trouble.

A Boy Not Named Sue

This correction appeared in Thursday's Los Angeles Times:

The obituary of Doolittle Raider Nolan A. Herndon in Monday's California section gave his nickname as Sue. In fact, he was known only as Nolan Anderson Herndon. In addition, his sons were listed as Nolan A. "Sue" Herndon Jr. and James M. "Debbie" Herndon. Neither son goes by those nicknames; Sue and Debbie are the names of their wives. [Link, via LA Observed]

Former Princess Not a Pauper

Fellow blogger Demetrius Clark of Your Brother Kings noticed an error in an article about his relatives published in the Port Huron, Michigan, Times Herald. His correction appeared in Sunday's edition.

Eber Brock Ward's daughter, Clara, became something of a celebrity after her 1890 marriage to a Belgian prince. In my article, I repeated the often-told story that Clara died penniless after squandering her father's immense fortune.

Not so, Clark assures me.

"This was initially reported after her death, but turned out to merely be the end some people thought she had coming, given the life she led," he wrote. "According to a New York Times article from Dec. 23, 1916, she left an estate of well over a million dollars. It was, perhaps, only a portion of what she started out with, but she was far from poor, especially in those times." [Link]

And what a life she led.

SSN Nonsense

Here's another journalist who believes that the SSDI could be useful to identity thieves.

I was doing a little genealogical research and found my father’s Social Security number in three seconds on Google. (SSNs of dead people are most coveted by thieves.) So one must say the horses already are out of the pasture. These security rules create a false sense of security where there is none. [Link]

If the writer is referring to the SSDI, those dead horses are very much still in the pasture. As I've noted before, the SSDI (or "Death Master File") is used to prevent identity theft by letting financial institutions know which SSNs are no longer in service. Valid SSNs are distributed to thieves by an entirely different government agency.

Of Ancestors and Antonyms

Rob Kyff of the Hartford Courant notices an error often committed by his colleagues:

Can someone please tell me why so many writers are confusing the words "ancestor" and "descendant"?

A recent newspaper caption under a color photo of a mother and son read, "Karen Duplessis and her son, Patrick, are Patrick Henry's ancestors." Now if this stylish mom and curly haired kid in a red polo shirt are ancestors of Patrick Henry, I know a lot less about pre-1700 fashion and the history of photography than I thought I did. [Link]

Time to Fill In the Blanks

It appears that the genealogist we've known and loved as Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak is changing her name to "Diane Blank." As with most name changes, it's being done against her will by the Mainstream Media.

They Smell a Pulitzer

The folks at 10News in San Diego are patting themselves on the back for blowing the whistle on the SSDI.

Obituary identity thieves [are] gleaning names of the dead from obituaries, and matching them up with Social Security numbers posted on the Internet, on privately run genealogy sites and on the site run by the Social Security Administration, the Master Death Index.

10News took concerns about identity theft to the Social Security Administration, asking them to consider taking the Master Death Index off its Web site. [Link]

Apparently they didn't read my previous post explaining why they are a bunch of sun-baked nitwits. Until I hear of a single case that proves me wrong, I'll continue to maintain that no one has ever used data from the SSDI to steal someone else's identity. It's dead people not listed in the index who are vulnerable to identity theft. Once they're listed, the credit companies know that their SSNs are not valid.

By the way, asking the SSA to take the index off their website was a bold move, but I doubt they'll comply. The SSDI isn't on their website.

[tagged: genealogy, family tree, ancestry]

The Truth is So Boring

10News in San Diego reported yesterday on culprits stealing the identities of the recently departed.

Thieves cull private information from newspaper obituaries and from the Internet -- mainly genealogy sites that post the Social Security numbers of the deceased taken directly from the Social Security Administration's "master death index." [Link]

But don't worry—we won't be losing the SSDI anytime soon. In truth, the role of the index is exactly the opposite of what was reported: it prevents identity theft. Here's how an SSA commissioner explained it to Congress in 2002:

SSA receives reports of deaths from a number of sources, and from computer matches with death data from Federal and State agencies. This information is critical to the administration of our program and is made available to facilitate the prevention of identify theft of the SSN's of deceased persons. Many of the private sector companies purchasing this information are credit card companies and financial institutions. [Link]

[tagged: genealogy, family tree, ancestry]