About Social Security Death Index
The public Social Security Death Index from the United States Social Security Administration (SSA) currently contains over 89 million death records and is updated weekly. The index is created from records of deceased persons possessing U.S. Social Security numbers and whose deaths were reported to the Social Security Administration. Often this was done in connection with filing for death benefits by a family member, an attorney, a mortuary, etc.
GenealogyBank updates the SSDI database each week. The updates include corrections to old death records, as well as new names of the recently deceased. If a person is missing from the index, it may be that the SS death benefit was never requested, an error was made on the form requesting the benefit, or an error was made when entering the information into the SSDI.