[franciscop]

This happened in a 50k people town where my father is from in 1982 with a BIG flood that destroyed the town land registry documents (among a lot of the town). Since he's a lawyer, had first hand experience and I was always curious I asked many things about this a while back. Basically, what happened is that they rebuilt it from proof of ownership and testimonies of the people. You can never get to 100% recovery like that, but everyone knows who their neighbor is, at least in a town that is small like this.

So they rebuilt it first from first hand proof, then by testimonies, with a period of counter claims available IIRC. For sure there were some false claims, but given the magnitude of the disaster, this is the best solution within that context.

[alexpotato]

> Basically, what happened is that they rebuilt it from proof of ownership and testimonies of the people

In a similar vein, I was once curious how you would prove your identity if ALL of your relevant documents (passport, driver's license, birth certificate etc) were lost in some kind of cataclysm e.g. a house fire pre-digital etc

Turns out there is actually a mechanism for this:

- get multiple people to sign sworn affidavits that you are who you say you are

- that begins the "paper trail" of evidence that allows you to start getting the rest of the document chain

- you rebuild from there.

If you're married, there is already a similar process for when a spouse takes the last name of the other spouse. The marriage certificate is the first step and then it goes from there for driver's license, passport, credit cards and so on.

[giancarlostoro]

Fun fact, if you're unlucky enough to replace your Social Security card 10 times, they will no longer issue them to you anymore. It is a lifetime limit, and they fan it out to 3 per year.

Oddly enough, if you legally change your name, they will send you a new one regardless of the limit.

[ButlerianJihad]

The circumstances in which you actually need to physically present your Social Security card are quite rare indeed. In fact, that is the first thing I was told by the ssa dot gov site, when I applied to receive a new card.

It is very unlikely that you will be asked, even by a prospective employer, for your actual card, because let's face it: it doesn't even have a photo, or anything but that unique number on it. Anyone trying to authenticate your number should be satisfied if you can give them the correct number.

And just for review: SSNs are not a "national ID" and you're typically not required to divulge it to private parties, and they can make up some other unique ID for you in their database. It's usually just a shortcut for them to do a background or credit check on you. And that's not something for which they would need your physical card.

That being said, I've replaced my card about 3 times now, and it was comparatively difficult this time around. The first time, I did it all through the mail (the process of building up from no ID to get birth certificate from out-of-state, to the SSA card, to the in-state driver license.) and the second time it arrived by mail, no hassle.

But this time around, even though I applied online, I was directed to make an appointment at the field office and physically walk in there, to prove my humanity. I had never been to an SSA Field Office in my life! The experience was very chill, and there were a dozen windows serving people, while about 4 of us waited in the lobby, and I was in-and-out half an hour early. The civil servant was a lady in good spirits who was a military veteran. Big props to them!

[ilamont]

> The circumstances in which you actually need to physically present your Social Security card are quite rare indeed.

In my state, it's one of the allowed document types for proof of social security number, required to get a real ID drivers license.

https://www.mass.gov/doc/ma-real-id-documents-checklist/down...

[Dylan16807]

To get one, but not to renew it, so that's still pretty rare.

[ghaff]

In MA, there are a number of documents you can use. I don't have a Social Security card and haven't had in decades and got my REALID.

[reaperducer]

But this time around, even though I applied online, I was directed to make an appointment at the field office and physically walk in there, to prove my humanity.

I'm curious when this happened. The phrase "but this time around" makes it sound fairly recent. However, my wife had this very procedure required back in the 1990's.

She also had the same experience as you: Very friendly civil servants eager to help, and things were cleared up quickly once she understood the process.

[leoc]

Here's a pretty good video about a somewhat similar challenge, that of proving your citizenship in ancient Rome: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTt0qwncDXI .

[tomthe]

I thought you were referring to this slightly humorous video about the same topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dO9Lm_CXz0

[ghaff]

I no longer have an SS card--which was in a wallet stolen years ago--or, perhaps, a birth certificate which I looked for recently but couldn't find. I do have a passport.

[irjustin]

> SSNs are not a "national ID"

That's not what they are, but that's what they've defacto become. I hate it.

[reaperducer]

Is that still true?

Except for certain industries where the government has a direct interest (banking, healthcare, real estate), I don't think anyone has asked for my SSN in at least a decade. It's not like the old days when you'd fork over your SSN to rent videos at Blockbuster.

[tracerbulletx]

oh ok so just for money body and property related issues. phew.

[irjustin]

> Except for certain industries where the government has a direct interest (banking, healthcare, real estate)

That's still a massive dependance on "ID" for SS...? Blockbuster tho.. phew it's been a while.

[Tangurena2]

Afterwards, you have to make an appointment to see them in person. Until then, you can order them online or via snailmail.

[Lerc]

I tend towards being cautious with my information which has led to beauricracies doubting my existence.

I got my first passport at a formative period of my life (international travel does that). I looked nothing like the photo within aa year. It served as a passport until it expired but only created skeptisism as a photo ID.

I don't know how to drive, so do not possess a driver's licence. I am in a 35+ year relationship, but unmarried.

The only purchase I have made on finance was a bed that I immediately paid off because the the only reason I did it was to establish a record. This was surprisingly difficult to do because they were reluctant to let me have the bed on finance because I had no credit record.

I finally had to renew my passport when I bought a house. It was the only way I could meet the id requirements.

Prior to that I was leveraging non-photo id that could only be acquired with photo-id. It seen that will be accepted in lieu in many instances and allows you to get more similar forms of non-photo ID. All you need to get started is to find a staff member fed up with the ridiculous rules enough to click the checkbox to say that they saw a photo ID. It helps that many of the staff in these positions are more aware of security theater than the general public.

Being a land owner means a lot of those days are peassed, I can't really prove I am the person who is recorded as owning the land, but mostly organisatipns are happy that I am claiming to be someone they know exists.

Linkedin has stopped asking. I'm not sure if that means they think I am a lost cause or that anyone not on their books by now doesn't actually exist.

[skipkey]

So for many years I only paid cash for everything, but I hit a point at which I wanted to start establishing credit. What I did was to open a secured credit card at my bank. They actually had me put it in a CD which was used to secure it. After I think 2 years of paying on time they removed the security requirement. I don’t know if that’s still a viable method but I used it in the early 2000s.

[SoftTalker]

Yeah it's actually not that bad, because for example the BMV will likely upon request send you a duplicate driver's license to your address of record. Same for getting replacement credit cards. If you had utility services at that address in your name that's additional documentation. Also historical tax returns, bank accounts, etc.

[halJordan]

"why's he asking for a new dl? "

"Oh volcano exploded, his home is under 5 ft of ash."

"Gotcha, mail him the copy"

[reaperducer]

Fun fact: If your house is under 5 ft of ash, it's not covered by volcano insurance. That only covers you if your home is destroyed by the actual eruption/explosion.

What you need is "pyroclastic event" insurance to cover you for ash and lahar.

/ It cost something like $15/year when I lived in Seattle.

// The macOS spell checker doesn't know "lahar."

[6LLvveMx2koXfwn]

This basically covers the financial model of the whole insurance industry;

    - get insurance to cover you for X
    - get hit by X
    - realise you actually got hit by Y after reading the policy small print (or you really did get hit by X, but your policy only covers you for Y)

Getting something like Volcano Insurance requires some specific foresight, I would be slapping myself on the back if my house was covered in volcanic ash right up to the point when I got on the phone to my insurance company to make a claim.

[kijin]

Brb, gotta camp on top of the ash at the same lat/long coordinates to catch the mailman.

[amiheines]

If you're married and Jewish, the wife's mother keeps the marriage document, so even if there is a house fire and all documents are lost, your mother in law usually lives in another house, so you can pick it up from there.

[dghlsakjg]

I’m married and Jewish. It would be pretty surprising to me if my wife’s mother had even seen our marriage paperwork let alone possessed it. This also isn’t a tradition I’ve ever heard of in my family.

Or did a joke about overbearing mother in laws just go right over my head.

[amiheines]

Ask your mother in law. At least in Israel, during the ceremony, the Rabi gives the ktuba to the bride's mother for safe keeping.

[dghlsakjg]

Many might not believe this but Israel and their customs do not represent all Jewry. Israel is the country with the highest proportion of people claiming Jewish roots, but not the country with the most Jews.

I know where my documents are kept. They are not with my mother in law.

[throw4925753]

You are overreacting to a claim about customs made by one person on the Internet.

The Ketubah is traditionally transferred from groom to bride as it contains his promise to protect her rights.

Under the Chuppah the bride usually wants her hands free for other things and not worry about misplacing the Ketubah at the wedding, so it’s often passed along to her mother, who’s standing close to her, to put it somewhere safe for the evening.

[ponector]

At least you can restore it. Imagine all your devices are lost in a massive fire, is there a way to get back your apple account?

[cortesoft]

I have a 'bootstrap' system... I have recovery codes and a backup for critical things encrypted and stored in a public git repo I push to both gitlab and github. If I lose everything, I can use those recovery codes to access the things I need to recover my digital identity.

[brookst]

Phone number and email access, if you can regain access to them.

It is definitely a good idea to plan in advance and set up a recovery contact: https://support.apple.com/en-us/102641

[ponector]

But email access is protected by MFA based on your destroyed device. Recovery codes are also stored in the same destroyed building.

[brookst]

I said “if” for email, which I at least have recovery codes stored with someone trusted.

And that link is to recovery contacts, not codes. If you’re willing to trust one person you can get back into your Apple account after a disaster.

[kijin]

You can get back your phone number once you have a photo ID and buy a new phone. Then you should hope that your service providers aren't secure enough to have disabled SMS-based account recovery.

[jandrewrogers]

It depends on the country. The US has the ability to do the equivalent of deep "duck typing" with almost no documentation even if you've been off the grid in the developing world for a long time. This is a case where the intelligence apparatus works in your favor. They can know you are a US citizen with high probability absent obvious evidence of such.

Of course, if you fall into a crack that is beyond their reach you will almost certainly have a more difficult time. For a variety of historical reasons, there has been relatively little reliable documentation of American citizenship so the system adapted to that reality.

[johanvts]

In my country (and I think by now most non-US developed countries do something similar) everybody has a CPR(CentralPersonRegistry) number that identifies you, you need it to do almost everything so you aren't likely to forget (its your birthday + 4 digits). You get it at birth or if you come to the country for more than 3 months, it legally mandatory and it's also legally required to inform the government if you change your address. Also, if you (ever) had a modern passport there is already a database with your fingerprints, face and iris scan in it.

[lazyasciiart]

I can’t think of any British or Australian or French personal ID number like this?

[iepathos]

Do the people who sign sworn affidavits already have to have proven identities? If so, then they're unable to recover from a situation where they lost everyone's identity.

[rcbdev]

In Austria, there is the concept of "Amtsbekanntheit", meaning if the government officer knows you, that's also valid proof of identity.

[olau]

You start with the queen. Everyone knows who she is.

[greycol]

While in jest, It does remind me of the time Dolly Parton entered a Dolly Parton look alike contest and lost.

[dghlsakjg]

In fairness, she isn’t a Dolly Parton look-alike.

[OJFord]

Yes exactly, I'm the queen, and so's my wife.

[locao]

Sort of the plot of Banana Joe.

Everytime I get stuck with some kind of circular bureaucracy I shout "it's Banana Joe all over again!" and no one understands.

[pseudohadamard]

Hadn't heard of that one before. It's a Bud Spencer film!

And now I also know that he has a law degree, has several registered patents, and was a certified airline pilot. Pretty impressive.

[danielam]

There is little alternative.

A great-great grandfather of mine was mayor of a town through which the front passed twice during WWI. All that survived were basements. Your father's account more or less describes the process by which the land was reparceled.

[bombcar]

This is where "possession is 9/10ths of the law" comes from.

[franciscop]

I actually think our discussion came from there! Or at least, there was a previous/later discussion about this exactly related to that.

[bombcar]

It's one of those "programmer misconceptions" - we want to make reality fit our neat and tidy list of rules/laws/code; but it's the other way around most of the time.

[SoftTalker]

There are also physical markers in the ground at the corners of most properties. So if you had to, you could send a surveyor out to recertify boundaries. That would get very expensive quickly, however.

[judemelancon]

This is not true anywhere I've lived, and I'm curious where it is true.

[singleshot_]

Generally, those markers are placed by the person who did the previous survey. They’re not really official designations of anything. However, if you look around, you will find things called survey monuments. Sometimes they’re embedded in the sidewalk, or the middle of the road. Out in the boonies sometimes there’s a little concrete pedestal that has the marker on it. Anytime you look at a recorded deed you will see a legal description of the land and generally that description will start from one of those monuments.

[brabel]

Here in Sweden it seems to be true. Both houses I owned had the markers. I had an issue where the online map disagreed with the markers and found out they made a nice film to explain how to resolve problems regarding lot borders: https://www.lantmateriet.se/sv/kartor/vara-karttjanster/Visa...

They even show how they did historically which is super interesting!

Unfortunately changing the borders is super expensive and time consuming though so I didn’t do anything.

[SoftTalker]

It's usually a piece of steel rebar/round stock or pipe, maybe with a yellow plastic cap, or maybe not. Usually buried or not very visible, I'd guess the surveyors find them with a metal detector.

[foobarian]

We have some in northeastern US. However they don't necessarily sit on plot boundaries; I get the impression that surveyors put them wherever it is most convenient for them to better triangulate the land. We found one in our front lawn somewhere near the road, it was a small concrete square that turned out to be a pillar sunk deep into the ground.

[ghaff]

Not on my property in New England certainly. In fact, just went through an (expensive) process with a neighbor who wanted to get property lines squared away after they were botched on the initial property subdivision. We were fine with a handshake but both of us knew they really needed to be legalized with easements and such or any sale could become a nightmare.

[bluGill]

Most of the us has it like that. Some of the early states still do 'nw to the stump', a stump that rotted away before 1800... The newer states learned that lesson and land is to something more likely to last and hard to move. Metal stakes are most common. Though most people are not aware of the stake since there is no reason to look for it.

[pixl97]

They are commonly found by lawn mowers after some erosion.

[zrobotics]

I'm not aware of corner markers being the standard, at least in the central and western US. For rural and undeveloped land, oftentimes you can pay the surveyor extra to put up corner markers though, which is a good investment if you plan on fencing the property

[tim-tday]

This is true most places in the us. Have you looked? You often have to dig up the stake. It helps to have an idea of where it should be before you start digging.

[markdown]

In my country, titles are always issued in duplicate. The land registry gets one of these originals, and the landowner the other. Just about every landowner has their original on their person, or held by a bank if it's mortgaged.

So all is not lost if the registry goes up in flames.

[SteveGerencser]

Not saying that this is the only reason, but it is a big reason why we have a land survey of our property on hand on paper and stored online. If something ever happened to the registry, we could at least establish our claim to our land.

[markdown]

Don't you have a land title, which of course is more evidence than a survey which anyone can pay for and get?

[dghlsakjg]

The title proves ownership (kinda), but does not define the outline of the property itself.

If the you need to know if the fence is on your property or the neighbor’s, a title or deed won’t help you find that line.

So if the official survey is lost and you need to know where the land you own is, you will need a survey.

[singleshot_]

Recorded deed will more or less universally contain a legal description of the land. This does, in fact, defined the illegal outline of the parcel.

A survey is little more than marching out into the field and putting at the location where you believe the boundaries to be based on your review of the legal description.

Of course that’s not the end of the discussion as to boundaries for reasons like adverse possession or busted titles but on his own a surveyor is going to tell you basically nothing.

[dghlsakjg]

Very place dependent and not so universal in my experience. Where I live the title/deed just has street address. A completely separate agency holds the plot map that links addresses to physical measurements.

[singleshot_]

“plat map”

[SteveGerencser]

Surveys, at least here and I assume everywhere, also contain parcel numbers, the neighbor's parcel numbers, and the legal owner of each parcel's name right on the survey. Along with the date of the survey. I live in a pretty rural area where 20 acres is a small lot, so having proof of where the property lines are tends to be just as important as the title.

[kefabean]

I always wonder how things would be reconciled if something similar happened to a bank. What would be the simplest way to ‘download’ one’s balance whilst proving that the downloaded files were signed by the bank?

[amarant]

I'm good with starting from 0 if the bank is (my mortgage is a lot bigger than my balance)

[iso1631]

Sods law would be the only bank not affected would be those I owe money to

[superb_dev]

Your best chance would probably be mailed statements

[xyzelement]

Your balance is at a bank. If the bank is gone your balance at it doesn't matter.

[londons_explore]

Wouldn't work in a city like NYC where nobody knows their neighbours and a chunk of houses are empty and only owned by shady shell companies as investments...

[kijin]

Shady shell companies do an excellent job of proving ownership -- it's the only reason they exist! So if NYC is hit by an asteroid, you'll find backups of all the important papers neatly filed away in Delaware.

[pseudohadamard]

Happened here about 30 years ago with a fire in a council planning office. All building plans and records were lost. It was enormously useful because there was no way to prove that that house addition there wasn't approved or in any plans. Fans of Yes Minister will know the appropriate quote from Sir Humphrey.

[fakedang]

Definitely only works in high trust societies. Heck, even in normal times in India there's a rampant land mafia of which many politicians are a part. Forged provenance, illegal squatting and forced seizure, extraction and evictions are the norm.

[timcobb]

And this is why we need title insurance :(