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© copyright 1987-1998 Slovenian Genealogical Society, all rights
reserved Society website Our society has received quite a number of Parish dedication and Jubilee books in the past few months. Many are excellent compilations of Church memberships and we would like some volunteers to alphabetize every name indexes. If you send your name and address to us, we will mail you a booklet. This can be rather tedious work, but the results are useful. If you have access to any parish histories, please donate a copy to us We have al received a copy of Yugoslav Fatalities in Colorado Coal Mines 1884-1979 by Joseph Drasler from Mister Drasler. I have already compiled an every name index for this volume. I have also compiled an every name index to Slaves to No One, a history of the Holy Trinity Church in Indianapolis by James A. Devita. If you believe you may have a Colorado or Indianapolis connection, send $1.00 and a SASE and I will search the indexes for you. Father Rudolph Flanik donated a copy of the final 300 pages of Amerika Na Amerikanci by J. M. Trunk. This book was privately printed in 1912 and these final pages are of great genealogical value. This is a volume written by a Slovenian, about Slovenians in America, for Slovenians in Slovenia. We would like a copy of this book in English, so we are asking for as many translators as possible. If we can get 20 individuals to work on the project, it could be accomplished quite quickly. This might be a project friends or relatives in retirement or rest homes could spend some time on. If you have retained your gift of the Slovenian language, please help us. A Slovenian Letter Writing Guide that would be useful to individuals trying to write directly to Slovenia has been completed. It contains 4 form letters and a number of useful terms, phrases, and sentences in both English and Slovenian. Copies are $3.00. The University of Minnesota Immigration History Research Center has a large volume of information useful to Slovenian genealogists, including books, manuscripts, Church documents, ethnic newspapers, and magazines. The center is open to all scholars doing serious research, and while they do not have materials such as census records, naturalization papers, or ship passenger lists, they do have extensive holdings of fraternal records of the Slovenska Nardona Podorna Jednota and the Slovenska Svobodomislena Podporna Xveza. If you know that an ancestor was a member of these groups and can furnish as much information as possible, such as, dates, lodge locations, insurance identifiers, etc., they are willing to search and can sometimes locate useful information. Their address is: Immigration History Research Center, 826 Berry Street, Saint Paul, MN 55114. Our society has been contacted recently by Adam S. Etorovich. He is the president of the Croatian, Slovenian, and Serbian Genealogical Society. He welcomed our society to the genealogical fold and offered to send us as much information as possible. He will forward any additional genealogical requests to us so that he can concentrate on Croatian and Serbian genealogy. We are grateful for his help, and have every intention of cooperating with him in every way possible. It seems that time and space run out at a more rapid pace each newsletter. I would like to ask each member to real Marileas's article in this issue. I have found this source of information especially valuable. Please request all records for your family as quickly as possible because the records are destroyed a set interval after notification of an individuals death. However, even if the main file has been destroyed, some Form 5s have been microfilmed and you can, at least, get a copy of it. USING SOCIAL SECURITY RECORDS as a SOURCE of GENEALOGICAL INFORMATION Marilea Dixon Zajac For several years, I tried, unsuccessfully, to obtain the names of my husband's paternal grandparents. Even though I checked the usual sources, marriage and death certificates, obituaries, immigration papers, etc., I was not able to find the information I needed. After reading an article in the May-June 1985 issue of "The Genealogical Helper", pp. 110-111, I wrote to the Social Security Administration and obtained copies of my father-in-law's "Application for Account Number". He had, indeed, given the full names of his parents on that application. In addition, his home address and the name and address of his employer at that time were given. With this information, a serious researcher would be able to determine if the place of business still exists. If so, there may be records of former employees which could provide still additional information. I was happy to have been successful by using this source of information, and I urge others to use this procedure, also. This is what to do: 1. Determine the Social Security Number of the person whose information you are seeking. It is often given on the death certificate. If you cannot find the number, then you must take: a. a death certificate of the person b. proof of your relationship to that person; and c. a reason for wanting the information (genealogy, of course!) to your nearest Social Security Office. They will attempt to assist you in finding the number. 2. Write to the: Social Security Administration Office of Central Records Operations Baltimore, MD 21201 and request Form SSA-L997 ("Social Security Number Record, Third Party Request for Extract or Photocopy"). 3. Complete Form number SSA-L997 and attach a copy of the person's death certificate, and mail it back to the Baltimore address. In approximately 4 to 6 weeks you will receive a photocopy of the original application or an extract of the information contained on the application. The Social Security Act was passed in 1935. For persons who died before this date, social security information would not, of course, be available. However, for anyone who was living at that time, it is possible that an application was made, even though the person may never have received any benefits from it. USING YUGOSLAV CONSULATE SERVICES John C. Sullivan Beginning with my wife's grandparents, Franc SVETE, born 1 Jan 1868, and Marija MULH, born 16 October 1880, we have been successful in filling in the blanks in her lineage. Knowing that both her grandparents were born in Novo Mesta, Slovenia, we sent this information to the Consulate General of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Park Center, 1700 East 13th Street, Cleveland, OH 4414. Although it did take quite a bit of time, they were able to discover the names of both sets of her great-grandparents from the documentation supplied to us. Our total cost? Five dollars each. Remember, this was a few years back. Costs change, and it is always wise to ask for charges before any action is taken. An upper cost limit should always be included with any request for a genealogical search. Albert Peterlin |