Research

• 1). Get the full name of the company off of the certificate. The Illinois Secretary of State also recommends finding the date that the shares were issued and the state in which the company incorporated.
  
  
• 2). Conduct an Internet search on the company's name, using LexisNexis or another news archive to look for articles about company mergers. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) also keeps archives about all traded companies and the Commission recommends searching their database as well.
  
  
• 3). Call the Secretary of State (SOS) for the state in which the issuing company was incorporated. All SOS offices have a business section that keeps track of all businesses in the state and archives business history. The SOS should have the company`s merger, name change and acquisition history.
  
  
• 4). Go to your local library and check out a copy of "Moody's Industrial Manual." The manual has histories and genealogies of most traded companies and is recommended by the SEC for old stock research.