How do you find a death certificate on an American soldier that died in France during ww1?

Answer 1

You will not find such a document. Death certificates are filed in the US in the county where the person died. Since the soldier died overseas there would be no death certificate recorded in the records of his county back home.

If you know the soldier's name you can contact the National Archives for a copy of his service record (nara.gov). Some service records were destroyed in a fire in the 1970s, but if you persist they may "reconstruct" the record for you.

Many times when a local boy died in the war it would have been reported in the local newspaper. Perhaps your local public library has the relevant newspapers on microfilm, if you are living in the same area. This is easier if you have some idea when he died. Most US combat deaths were in the last five or six months of the war (June-November 1918) but men were dying in large numbers from the Spanish Flu for a few months before that time period.

If the soldier is still buried overseas he might very well be in the database of the American Battle Monuments Commission, which runs the overseas American military cemeteries. (abmc.gov)