Order 10 to 12 certified copies. Almost every bank, insurer, brokerage and government office wants an original certified copy it can keep, not a photocopy, and ordering a second batch later costs more and takes weeks you will not want to spend.
Nearly every institution requires an original certified copy.
How: Order through the funeral home or the state vital-records office.
Applies in 41 of the 51 jurisdictions Settle covers.
10 jurisdictions handle this their own way:
How: Order through the funeral home or the county recorder / vital records office.
How: Order through the funeral home or the Florida Bureau of Vital Statistics.
How: Order through the funeral home or the Georgia Department of Public Health / county vital records.
How: Order through the funeral home or the Illinois Department of Public Health / county clerk.
How: Order through the funeral home or the Michigan Vital Records office.
How: Order through the funeral home or the New York State / NYC Department of Health.
How: Order through the funeral home or the NC Vital Records office.
How: Order through the funeral home or the Ohio Department of Health / local registrar.
How: Order through the funeral home or the Pennsylvania Division of Vital Records.
How: Order through the funeral home or the Texas Department of State Health Services / county vital records.
Settle builds this checklist into a plan you can actually work
The steps above, ordered for your situation in your state, with the deadlines on a calendar, your documents attached to the step that needs them, and an expense ledger for everything the estate owes you back. The plan itself is free.
This step is estate administration procedure, not a statutory deadline, so Settle's rule tables carry no statute citation for it and none is invented here. The answer above is the guidance the app itself gives, identical in every jurisdiction it covers.
The steps that are backed by statute — filing windows, creditor periods, inventory deadlines — carry their citation and last-checked date on the state guide and in Where the state information comes from. If something here does not match what the court or your attorney told you, please write to [email protected].
This is one step out of roughly two dozen. The full sequence for your state — with the statutory deadlines, the citations behind them and the date each was last checked — is in the state executor guides.