A certified copy of the person seeking for benefits' civil or religious birth record, including the parents' names, is the greatest proof of relationship. A certified copy of the decree or order of adoption is the greatest proof when the relationship includes a legally adopted kid or the parent of a legally adopted child. If you cannot provide these documents, another form of identification that shows the relationship may be required. The Social Security Administration (SSA) also requires evidence of your relationship before it will pay your survivor's benefit to your spouse. The SSA looks at the following information to determine if it is enough to show your relationship: name and date of death of your married spouse; the year of marriage; and the year of death. As long as all of these years match up correctly with those on your survivor's application, the SSA will consider you to be married. If your spouse was not married for at least 10 years when he or she died, then the SSA will not recognize the marriage for purposes of paying out survivor's benefits. The SSA assumes that if your spouse didn't want anyone else to receive his or her benefits, he or she would have said so directly through his or her own application. Therefore, in this case, the SSA will not give any weight to anything other than the legal documentation proving your relationship. In addition to providing written proof, some states require you to appear in court together to prove your relationship.