What to have ready when you call.

1. About your loved one — for the death certificate

Texas asks for a specific set of identity details on every death certificate. We file it with the State on your behalf, so gathering these saves your family a second round of questions later:

• Full legal name, exactly as it should appear on the record
• Date of birth and Social Security number
• Place of birth (city and state, or country)
• Parents' names, including mother's maiden name
• Home address
• Usual occupation and highest level of education
• Marital status and, if married, the surviving spouse's name

2. Where they are resting, and who is caring for them

These details let us coordinate the transfer directly with the people already caring for your loved one, so you do not have to relay messages:

• The place of passing — home, hospital, hospice facility, nursing facility, or medical examiner's office
• Facility name and room number, if applicable
• The name of a nurse or staff member we can coordinate with
• The hospice company and its on-call number, if your loved one was under hospice care
• The attending physician's name — the doctor who will sign the death certificate

3. Papers to gather in the days that follow

None of these are needed for the first call. Set them aside as you find them, and bring what you have to the arrangement conference:

• A government-issued photo ID for the person authorizing arrangements
• Life insurance policy details — the company name and policy number if known; we file the assignment directly with the carrier
• Military discharge papers (DD-214) if your loved one was a veteran — needed for the VA burial allowance and national-cemetery honors
• A cemetery deed, if the family already owns a plot
• Any written wishes, instructions, or plans your loved one left behind

4. Choices that can wait

Families sometimes feel they must decide everything before calling. You do not. All of the following are decided later, with your advisor's help and at your family's pace:

• Clothing for your loved one — chosen later, and we can pick it up from your home if that is easier
• A photograph and a few notes about their life, for the obituary
• Urn or casket selection — you may also provide your own, at no additional charge
• How many certified death certificates to order — most families need 6 to 10, and we help you count
• Who will speak, officiate, or carry — and whether there will be a service at all

If you are helping someone else

Often the person reading this page is not the next of kin — a neighbor, a friend from church, an adult grandchild, or a hospice social worker gathering details on a family's behalf. You are welcome to make the first call for them. Tell us who you are, who you are calling for, and what you know so far; we will take it from there and speak with the next of kin only when the family is ready. A practical way to help is to print this page, fill in whatever the family can answer without strain, and keep it near the phone.

A note on the questions themselves: the Social Security number, parents' names, and occupation are not ours — they are what the State of Texas requires on every death certificate, and the certificate is what banks, insurers, and the Social Security Administration will ask the family for in the weeks ahead. Gathering these details once, gently, spares the family from being asked again at a harder moment. Anything on this page you share with us stays confidential and is used only to prepare the official record and the arrangements the family approves.

For the full picture of what happens after you call — transfer, arrangement conference, service, and aftercare — see how it works, start to finish.