Expert: Steven Taylor - 12/31/2011

Question
I have been contacted by a stock tracer who informed me that he has found some valuable stock owned by my deceased parents.  He will not tell me what the name of the stock is, but for a significant fee he will liquidate the stock for me.  This would most likely be stock purchased in Quebec in the 70s and 80s.  I would like to know how to go about finding it myself,(lots of personal papers were destroyed, so no certificates). I have benefited from finding old stock in the past, the company had changed names several times, but in that case I was contacted by the company transfer agent and only paid a modest fee to transfer title to the estate account.

Answer
Dolores, in order to track down the old stock, you will need some clues. Since lots of personal papers were destroyed, you may no longer have the information you need to track down the shares in question.

One approach you might take is to search the missing property departments of every State or Province in which you parents lived and see if there is shares being held in safekeeping, or dividends in their name from shares they may have had. You can search many of them online for free at www.missingmoney.com and www.naupa.org. If there is some assets there, it might give you a lead on finding others.