Have you checked out the new U.S. Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007, that Ancestry added to its databases? Not too many new databases get me excited anymore because, after so many years, I am down to looking for obscure people, dates and places. This database, however, appeared to be a promising source of new information.

I started entering a number of different names of family members, but hardly any hits came up. Except for my Aunt Barbara, I had to dig quite deeply into the family names to find anyone.

Here is the screen shot for Barbara:

Barbara Anne Adams

Barbara never married and had no children. There wasn’t much here about her, either, except her name is recorded as “Barbara Anne.” I happen to know from personal knowledge (being told by my grandmother, who named her) that Barbara’s name was legally “Annie Barbara” and she was named for her paternal grandmother, Annie Maude Stuart Adams.

The second hit that came up was for a (very) distant cousin by marriage, Anna Tidik. My grandmother’s sister, Maria, married Stephen Tidik. This Anna Tidik was Stephen Tidik’s aunt. I had her baptismal date in my family records, but no further information. I didn’t know that she emigrated to the United States, but it isn’t really a surprise because many of my extended Slovak relatives settled here in the late 1800’s.

Anna Tidik Kuczko

Anna’s birth date is not correct in the Social Security records. I am guessing that she didn’t know her date of birth. She was actually born 15 December 1865, but her birth place of Ujak and parents’ names – Michael Tidik and Mary Hrinya – are correct. Ujak is a very small village with only about 600 residents in it.

Her married name was apparently Kuczko, which is not a common surname. Tidik is quite rare, too. Although I didn’t find a marriage record for Anna in Slovakia or the United States, I did find a baptismal record for a child of Gyorgi (George) and Anna (Tidik) Kuczko in Vel’ky Saris, near Presov, Slovakia, born on 27 July 1889. Baby Anna was baptized the following day. Vel’ky Saris is only about 30 miles from Ujak (today, Udol.)

I haven’t found any records for George or Anna (Tidik) Kuczko in the United States except for this Social Security database entry. Anna may have first applied for a S.S. number in June 1937. I am wondering if she died in December 1939, which triggered a second entry in the notes.

I don’t find any Kuczkos in the 1930 or 1940 U.S. census records and a wild card search only brought up John Kuczko in Pennsylvania. However, this is a name that could easily be mangled.

I did find one little gem in this new database. I was hoping for more. I wonder if it will be updated since it is obviously incomplete even for people who died between 1980 and 2000. I’ll have to check back in a few months.

Have you searched for your family in this database? I’d love to hear whether or not you found many family members. Leave a comment, please.