OCTOBER 9. 2001
DEAR JAWALLACE:
Congratulations on your good luck in finding out some beneficial information during your genealogical research! I'll bet it was quite surprising.
First thing you should do is to visit the county courthouse in Maryland where your uncle's probate file is kept to look at the probate file (which will contain the will and other documents related to the estate). There will be lots of information in it about financial matters etc. that will inform you of how the estate was handled. Even though trusts are set up to be confidential and do not have to be handled through the probate courts, there might be a brief mention in the file about the existence and/or name of the trust, and what bank it may be held at. You would also want to get the name and address of the estate executor from the probate file, and also there may be a mention of the name of the trustee and/or the bank where the trust account is held.
Even though 35 years have passed, it is possible that the executor may still be alive (and still practicing law), or retired, or even deceased. Let's hope for your sake he is still living and able to be contacted at the same business address or at his home address (city/state). If you need me to help you locate him, send me an e-mail message to the address shown below. It would be the wisest thing for you to contact the executor to find out from him/her exactly what bank the trust is held at and what the status of the trust is now, but obviously you wouldn't need to contact him/her if you are able to find out the information on your own. Whoever was the trustee back then may still be the trustee now, or they could have been replaced by someone else or perhaps someone on the bank's trust department staff is managing the trust now.
In fairness to the executor, he/she may have made an honest effort to find you, but perhaps was unsuccessful. Maybe they didn't know that they could hire a private investigator for about $100 to locate your current address, but may have had complications if your name is a common one that many people in the US have and therefore didn't know how to find you exactly. I would think that they should have contacted someone in the family who possibly might have known how to reach you. But also there is the possibility that they might not have made much of an effort to reach you if they wanted to "steal" your money and do something else with it (but I don't want to make unfounded allegations until you have at least investigated the probate file to see what happened). It is also possible that there might not have been enough money left in the estate (after debts, funeral bills and taxes were paid) to pay you your specified sum of money, but for now I am going to assume that the trusts are still operating and that your money is still available (trust funds should have gained lots of interest over this period of time if they were managed properly).
If you have a street address for the Equitable Trust Co, I would appreciate your sending it to me. But here is the history I was able to uncover about Equitable's subsequent takeovers:
1972---renamed as Equitable Bancorp.
1980---renamed as MNC Financial
1993---renamed as Nationsbank Corp.
1998---renamed as Bankamerica Corp.--registered in Delaware
1999---renamed as Bank of America Corp.
Check the Baltimore phone directory to find out the Baltimore number for Bank of America and contact someone in the Trust Department, to see if they can perhaps provide more information for you (but first you would need to know the decedent's name and month/year of death and his wife's name). If I were you, I would do this only AFTER checking the probate file. You should first try to get information from the executor, but if that leads nowhere, then you can contact Bank of America.
I can certainly understand your concern about not wanting to contact the wife directly. If you have an attorney or will be getting one in the future, perhaps he/she could be your representative and could discreetly contact the wife on your behalf by using a certified letter. If at all possible, however, you should do this only as a last resort if you are unsuccessful in getting information anywhere else, since naturally this would be a very sensitive matter for her.
But of course, you have every right to find out what financial benefits, if any, you have coming to you.
Good luck to you with your research, and I have the feeling that you are going to have a good outcome, but you must exhibit a little bit of patience along the way on your journey of discovery!
SINCERELY,
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