What happens to birth certificates and social security accounts of people who disappear? Do they have expiration dates?

If there's a body, the body is declared dead by a doctor. (This week in my town the body of a person missing for a month or two was discovered in a lake under the ice. It was in the newspaper that they cut the ice, pulled the body out, and declared him dead.)

A "death certificate" is the official paperwork that is used to close someone's social security number and process insurance, inheritance, pass on assets, and bank accounts. People like coroners at the city/county level issue them. This is where they ask family to come in and identify a body to double check. What they really want is a body part or bone to be able to identify it as the person to be sure. With 9/11 many people are still missing. For some people all that was ever found was a fragment of a bone that was genetically tested with family members to confirm an identity.

If a person disappears and no body is found after a certain amount of time, like seven years, a judge can declare someone legally dead. They make sure there has been no activity with their bank accounts, credit cards, social security number, etc.; no signs of life. This generates a death certificate like normal. If the person is probably dead and they just haven't found physical proof they speed up the process, like with passengers on a crashed plane or some other disaster that might have destroyed all the remains.

As far as I know, they don't recycle social security numbers. They're only through half the possible total numbers. There are social security number databases that dead people are added to. It's useful in genealogy. Really all the social security number is officially used for is your income is tagged with your number at the IRS for income tax payment and then Social Security program when you retire. For living people it gets tied up with acquiring credit and loans but that's not involved with the government.

Birth certificates and death certificates are permanent county records. You can always go back to the county you were born in and get your birth certificate. Eventually your descendents will be able to get your death certificate to fill out their family trees. Ha ha!

/r/answers Thread