Your own money
Own-name claims are the simple ones — until the account remembers a person who lived at an address from 2004 under a name you no longer use. Then the state asks the question this guide answers: prove that person was you. The address chain and the name bridge, document by document.
The state knows the account's owner as a name plus an address of record — often an address from decades ago. Your claim must connect today's you to that record. Two bridges do the work: the address chain (documents placing you at the address of record, then walking you forward) and the name bridge (the paper that turns a maiden name, a pre-divorce name, or a misspelling into your current legal name).
Search first — every state you lived in, every name you've held, at MissingMoney.com and the state sites; the property ID on the hit tells the state which record to match. Then gather the bridge for that record before filing: a claim filed with the bridge attached processes once; a claim filed bare comes back with a deficiency letter asking for exactly the bridge. The kit's address-chain module is the worksheet version of this page.
Run your own claim. The free checker takes your state, your relationship, and your amount — and returns the probate-skip verdict, your document chain in order, the signatures you'll need, and the finder fee you'd avoid. Run the checker →
The pages above are the map. The kit is the paperwork: the per-state checklists, the Table of Heirs worksheet, the letters that line up every heir's signature, and the chapter for the state's reply.
One payment, yours to keep. We never file for you and never touch your money — you file everything yourself, with the state. See everything inside the kit →