Green Light (meaning “good”!):  I don’t know how I missed this one, but you can now order SS-5′s online from the Government using a credit card!  Go to the Social Security Administration’s “Electronic Freedom of Information Act” page at:

https://secure.ssa.gov/apps9/eFOIA-FEWeb/internet/main.jsp

The records requested will be mailed in hard copy to you.  This is a step in the right direction!

Yellow Light (caution):  When I was digging around the RootsWeb site tonight, I found a  search box that said, “GenealogyArchives:  Type in your name and get your entire family tree instantly.”  When you do so, you get a search page that claims to have been generated by “GenealogyArchives,” but looks suspiciously like the hundreds of mutations of “person searches.”   The results page seems to have been designed to evoke the image of the bad offspring of Ancestry.com and Intelius. I’m not saying these companies are involved in this, but somebody wants you to feel like you’re with an old and trusted (more or less) friend.

Be careful out there!