I’m going through my father’s files and he has notes and stuff involving the death of his mother which occurred back in 2009.
Is it safe to assume there is no need for me to retain notes/documents involving the death of my grandmother from 12+ years ago? Stuff like POC to contain to cancel pensions
Any general rule of thumb on retaining stuff from relatives who have passed away?
Some stuff I can scan but I have no interest in scanning tons of stuff that isn’t needed.
Thanks
Rich
Keep all death certificates, they may be needed decades later.
Keep information relating to the inherited cost basis of inherited assets are still being held (family farm, home, stock).
Assuming the estate is fully distributed, and there are no open issues with heirs, taxes, anyone else, probably everything else can go.
I also kept information relating to the estate distribution, value of and distribution of assets.
Along the same lines, how long should birth certificates and marriage certificates be kept? Are they ever required after an estate is settled?
HHP
The other estates have been settled. We are going on week 6 waiting for a certificate. The latest issue is that the state flagged the cause of death and needs to speak with the doctor.
I know I have death certificates from my grandmother, not sure about my mother. Never thought about keeping them but will do so. I have enough other stuff to go through, shred or scan, etc.
Thank you.
At the very least, you should purchase a good scanner. Or even use your smartphone to digitize key old documents. The nice thing about it is once you do the work, the cost and space of storing the data is zero.
The latest issue is that the state flagged the cause of death and needs to speak with the doctor.
For now keep everything.
Along the same lines, how long should birth certificates and marriage certificates be kept? Are they ever required after an estate is settled?
We’ve had minor assets show up years after closing the estate. Or someone is listed as an heir to another person’s estate and the relationships needed documentation. Keeping an inch of paper is easy and may make other tasks easier. At worst your grandkids may like the documentation.
how long should birth certificates and marriage certificates be kept? Are they ever required after an estate is settled?
I’d keep these as you never know what uses outside the estate may require them, and it’s easier to have them than have to go find them somewhere.
I will give you an odd example. My niece lives in the UK, and apparently you can get some sort of European passport that allows easier travel within the European countries which would make her life a lot easier. So she needed my grandfather’s birth certificate to show that he had been born in Europe, then my father’s to show her lineage and her American citizenship, and my brother’s since he is her father. This gave her the entire string, and allowed her to get that document from Italy as well as her daughter who also lives over there. My grandfather had been born in 1900, so the documents were pretty old, but my aunt had it and we were able to send it over.
Given the amount of space these documents take, I’d just keep them.
I have FIL’s birth certificate, Navy discharge papers and death certificate. I also have some of that for his mother and a couple of aunts. I just keep it all with the important papers.
Birth, marriage, and death certificates are on file in the state involved. They can usually be replaced any time for a fee. Once the estate is settled, no need to keep them except as family heirlooms.
A few exceptions. Some states will only provide them to a family member (under privacy policies).
In Missouri they tell us the state began recording births only in about 1920. (Baptismal certificates or records in the family Bible were accepted instead.) But there was little need to register births until Social Security came along making it necessary to prove your age to collect benefits. Old timers tell of getting letters from midwives etc to create an equivalent document. Those doing family tree research might find those interesting.
Birth, marriage, and death certificates are on file in the state involved. They can usually be replaced any time for a fee.
Depends on how old the documents would be. In the case of my niece, my grandfather was born in Italy, and getting his birth certificate would have been challenging to say the least. I don’t even know the town he was born in, so having those documents handy was a lot easier than trying to hunt them down in a different country.
My 101-year-old Dad got Lis license renewed last year and got a RealID. To do that, he needed his birth certificate. Since he was o we 100, it had been archived and had to be retrieved which took a few days. Then it turned out that it needed to be Anglicized since, in those days, they were written in the parents’ native tongue. That took another few days.
When Dad goes, I will definitely file his birth certificate with his Navy discharge papers and death certificate.
If I have those documents, I’m going to keep them. I am not going to depend on remembering which town I need to visit in the case that any of these documents are needed.
Sorry for all those typos. I should learn not to write long responses from my phone.
If you choose to scan documents and save them in digital format, it’s also important to be sure you will be able to access it at a later date. While not a scan, I had an issue several years ago with a spreadsheet that was carefully saved on a floppy disc. Problem was that it was a Lotus 123 spreadsheet and saved on a 5 1/4 inch disk. Fortunately I had a hard copy and was able to recreate it. I hate to think what will happen to the documents scanned now when someone tries to access them 10 or 20 or 50 years from now when the media or program is no longer available.
Birth, marriage, and death certificates are on file in the state involved. They can usually be replaced any time for a fee.
True, for documents created in the last 50-75 years, if you know the country, state, city and the city hall wasn’t destroyed in some random fire, flood, riot, or war.
True, for documents created in the last 50-75 years, if you know the country, state, city and the city hall wasn’t destroyed in some random fire, flood, riot, or war.
We tried to get birth certificates in Canada for the late 1800’s. This was tried pre-digitalization of records, and the records at that time had copies in two different locations in case one was destroyed somehow. They were both destroyed by fire.
Hold on to those documents.
IP