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Posts Tagged ‘Alameda County Clerk Recorder’

How can I obtain the details of the death and cremation of someone in who died in California?

July 26th, 2011 6 comments

This person died in Oakland, Ca, in 2005. I have date of birth, death and full name and want to find the details of his death (by natural causes) and particularly the location of his ashes. I want to use public records and not a paid service.

You can write to the Alameda County Clerk-Recorder and buy an informational copy of his death certificate:
http://www.acgov.org/auditor/clerk/death3b.htm

"Public" doesn’t mean "free"; it just means "Available". By contrast, most adoption records and the details of some civil suits are "sealed". That means you cannot buy copies no matter what.

It is $14, something they hide on a different page,
http://www.acgov.org/auditor/clerk/vitalrecords.htm

for their own convenience. Government web designers don’t have to think of the public’s convenience.

Even then the death certificate may not reveal where his ashes are; they may have given them to the family, and the family may have scattered them somewhere illegally.

It is illegal to walk through a wilderness area, for instance, a place the deceased spent many a happy hour backpacking, and scatter his ashes here and there, paying particular attention to patches of lupine. My son has promised to do that for me, and fiddle dee dee to the USFS.