Do family members have such control over a death certificate? If you had a weird sense of humor, could you just take a loved one's death certificate and pencil in "smallpox"? BOOM! You thought that stuff was extinct outside of laboratories didn't you?! Well, last week in Poughkeepsie ... smallpox!!!
Somehow, I think they let professionals keep control of the official certificates.
Interesting. I doubt if ANY of the government agencies “ask” us peons to do anything. If they want something done, no matter how unscrupulous or illegal, they’ll just go ahead and do it.