First of all, don't worry about case.  The Unclaimed Property search is case-insensitive.  That means that typing in "Bennett T", "bennett t", and "BENNETT T " will all produce the same results.  Neat how that works...

You can also ignore special characters like periods and commas; these are usually not keyed into the database, so they just get in the way.  Looking for "R.J. Reynolds" means you want to type "R.J." without the periods, e.g., "R J".

The Unclaimed Property Site shows you records based on a last name. But did you know you can narrow things down a bit? It helps a lot if you're searching under a name like "Smith", where you could potentially get thousands of results back. All you have to know is the last name and part of the first.

For example, let's say you're looking for John Smith.  Instead of just typing "Smith" in the blank, you could type "Smith John".  That's the last name, a space, then the first name.  The Unclaimed Property Search engine will give you any John Smiths and skip all the rest of the Smiths (let them search for themselves - you've got better things to do).

Still, what if you get more than 100 John Smiths?  Then you can whittle it down even further if you know a middle initial:  typing "Smith John W" would bring you even fewer.

So what if you need to go in the other direction?  Let's say you have a rough idea of what the Unclaimed Property might be listed under, and you want to catch all the possible results.

If I want to find "Debbie Wilson", and I know that just "Wilson" will give me more results than I want to handle, I'll have a rough time.  After all, I know that "Debbie"could just as easily be "Deborah", "D" (as in a 'first initial, last name' listing), or even "DeeDee", the secret name her siblings used to taunt her with.  I could do a search on each of these names, but why go back to the search page over and over again?  In this case, take a look at the name, and try to figure out what would definitely be common to all the possibilities.

In this example, I know that "Deborah", "DeeDee", and "Debbie" all begin with the letter "D ".  Therefore, if I type in "Wilson D", I will get all possible variations.

This rule of thumb also comes in really handy if you're just certain there's an Unclaimed Property record out there with your name on it and you're not sure if it's going to have your full first name in it or just the initial.  People like "W.H. Smith" would want to try "Smith W", just in case the Unclaimed Property record is listed under their first name of "Walter", or just simply "W. H."  Just don't forget to drop the punctuation; periods and commas are unnecessary, and just get in the way.

And remember: if at first you don't succeed, try, try again!  Keep checking back because our Unclaimed Property database is updated on a daily basis.

That said, let's go back to the search page.  Good luck!