[WikiEN-l] Looking up death dates in government death records: original research?

[Newyorkbrad (Wikipedia)]

I can't agree with this. The other day, I created a biography article
for an individual whose full name (including MI), date and place of
death, and age at death I had. I used the SSDI to obtain the date of
birth rather than leave a blank in the article, as I couldn't find it
elsewhere. No rational policy would preclude using the records for
something like this.

Newyorkbrad

On 4/30/07, Sam Blacketer <sam.blacketer at googlemail.com> wrote:
> On 4/30/07, Matthew Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > 2) Are such lookups in SSDI legitimate sourcing for articles, or are
> > they original research?  I incline towards the latter, since there is
> > a leap between getting a name and making the decision that it is the
> > same person that feels like more of one than we should be making
> > without support from a source.
>
> I would have thought that it is original research. The SSDI is by
> definition a primary source; the fact that it happens to be fairly
> easily available does not make it a 'published' source. Identifying
> someone in the index by reference to their name and other known facts
> (eg residence and birth date) is going into the primary sources to do
> your own research.
>
> Put it like this - if someone in there is notable, then their death
> would have been noticed (from the SSDI at the very least) by some
> proper secondary source.
>
> --
> Sam Blacketer
> London E15
>
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