New Brunswick roots · Documented diligent search

New Brunswick roots — unclaimed estates, missing heirs, and family history.

« Retrouver les racines du Nouveau-Brunswick. »

Salt Water Roots Genealogy is extending its Nova Scotia work into New Brunswick: banking the province’s unclaimed property name by name, and tracing the families and estates behind it in the records — documented, graded honestly, and reported in plain language.

Email an enquiry For law firms For families
Flat fees — never a percentage Every search logged, including negative results Searching & claiming on FundsFinderNB is always free

The New Brunswick Bank

32,571

records banked — the whole list, searched name by name.

The sweep is complete. We searched the province’s unclaimed-money registry the thorough way — the whole list, name by name, and not just name by name but spelling by spelling: Haché and Hache, Thériault and Theriault, Maillet and Mailett, Godin, Gaudin and Godwin — all 500 names on our dictionary list, under every variant form we could find. 32,571 records are banked — the first banking wave of 1,035 records across 22 surnames, complete, the full dictionary enumeration of 31,140 rows across all 500 names on our dictionary list, and 396 more records found when the 112 names that first came back empty were audited under every variant spelling: 500 of 500 names searched, and 34 of those 112 names turned out to be in the registry after all, under another spelling. Over $35 million in unclaimed money sits in New Brunswick, waiting for its owners.

Search FundsFinderNB — always free

Source: FundsFinderNB, the official unclaimed property registry of the Financial and Consumer Services Commission of New Brunswick, kept under the province’s Unclaimed Property Act; the $35 million figure is from the Unclaimed Property Program’s published county totals. A listing is a lead, not proof the money is still there or that it is yours — the official process decides every claim.

From the settlement record

New Brunswick Family of the Day

One long-settled New Brunswick family, every day — where they came from, where they put down roots, and the spellings their name has worn. A different family tomorrow.

Memramcook & the Petitcodiac valley, Westmorland CountyIllustration

Today

The LeBlanc Family

Acadian — Port-Royal; deported 1755, returned to Memramcook & the southeast

Daniel LeBlanc settled at Port-Royal around 1650, among Acadia’s founders, and his descendants became one of its largest families. Deported in 1755, LeBlancs scattered from Massachusetts to Louisiana — then made their way back, rebuilding on New Brunswick shores at Memramcook and across the southeast. In our New Brunswick bank, LeBlanc is the largest surname set of all: 916 records under the one name.

Name variants: Leblanc · Le Blanc · White (anglicized)

Your family has a story like this — and sometimes, something left behind. Salt Water Roots documents the search.

Have your family’s name searched — the Roots Deep Check · See the records we work

From our case files

One Woman, 130 Rows

In the FundsFinderNB registry, the name Laura Godwin of Saint John appears 130 times — decades of small, forgotten shareholdings reported by TSX Trust, quarter after quarter, from 1999 to 2022, nearly all of them in the $100–$499.99 band.

Who was she? We don’t know — the registry gives a name, a town, and dates, and nothing more. One person can fill 130 lines of a registry, and only document-level work could ever say more. A listing is a lead, not an identity.

This is the standard of research inside every Salt Water Roots search: every claim tied to a record, and every gap left honestly open where the records leave it.

Ask about a name

The New Brunswick Bank

Banking the whole list, name by name

Nova Scotia taught us the method: take the official registry, bank the whole list, and work it name by name until families and estates can be matched. We are doing the same work for New Brunswick.

The source is FundsFinderNB, the official registry of the Financial and Consumer Services Commission of New Brunswick. FundsFinderNB offers no bulk download, so the bank is built the careful way — systematic name-by-name banking, every record kept ready to be matched against the archival record.

A name appearing in the bank is a lead to be researched, never a conclusion. Whether money is owed, and to whom, is decided by the official process — not by a listing, and not by us.

Searching and claiming on the official FundsFinderNB site is always free — no one needs to pay anyone, including us, to look up a name or make a claim.

Searching is free. Documentation isn’t.

Anyone can search the official registries at no cost. Our fee pays for the name-variant expertise, the thoroughness, and the written record — never a share of anything found.

A negative result is a completed search.

When nothing is found, you still receive the full record of what was searched, where, and when. For an estate file, that documented diligence is the deliverable.

A similar name is not proof.

A balance listed under a like-sounding name is a lead, not an entitlement. We report matches plainly, with the exact steps to verify and claim — and we never overstate them.

For law firms

Diligent Search · Proof Packet

When an estate beneficiary can’t be found, the file stalls — and “we looked” isn’t enough. Salt Water Roots performs the unclaimed-funds side of the search and returns a proof packet that shows exactly what was done.

What the search covers

  • Every spelling variant of the name — Mac/Mc swaps, maiden, married and adoptive names, historical and phonetic spellings, initials and reversals.
  • Registry by registry, across the official Canadian unclaimed-money and estate registries that apply to the file — FundsFinderNB first, for a New Brunswick file.
  • Each search logged with the name form used, the registry, the date, and the result — including negative results.

What you receive

  • A court-ready proof packet documenting every search, date, and result.
  • A declaration page ready for signing before a commissioner of oaths.
  • A clear statement of outcome — matches reported with balances as listed by the registry, or a documented negative result.
FileFee (CAD)Best for
Pilot — first file $995 Your firm’s first file with us, at the introductory rate. The full proof packet, exactly as standard — so you can judge the work before sending more.
Standard $1,495 One missing beneficiary: all name variants across the registries that apply, fully documented in the proof packet with declaration page.

Flat fees, agreed before work begins — never a percentage of any amount found. Invoiced on delivery, net 30. To open a file, email the beneficiary’s name and whatever clues the file holds to saltwaterrootsgenealogy@gmail.com.

For families

Roots Deep Check

A parent or grandparent passed, and you’ve always wondered whether something was left behind — an old bank account, an unclaimed estate balance. The Roots Deep Check searches properly, under every version of their name, and tells you plainly what it finds.

  • One person, every name variant — maiden and married names, Mac/Mc and spelling variants, the forms a name took a century ago.
  • The official registries and the archival record — FundsFinderNB and the New Brunswick records, searched one by one, each logged with its date and result.
  • A plain-language written report — what was found, what was ruled out, and how certain each conclusion is, with the evidence graded honestly: documented, reported, or lead.
  • If there are possible matches, the report lists them with the exact, free steps to verify and claim directly from the registry.

You can always search these registries yourself for free — and the report shows you how. The Deep Check is for when you want every variant covered and the whole search done and documented for you.

When the trail crosses a border

Province Extension

Family trails rarely stop at a provincial border. When a Roots Deep Check trail runs from Nova Scotia into New Brunswick — or the other way — the search can continue into the second province at one flat addition.

  • Quoted in advance, before any second-province work begins.
  • Run only on your written yes — never added on our own initiative.
  • The same standard — every variant, every search logged, the same plain-language report.
$29 CAD

One flat addition per additional province, to a maximum of two — on top of the $89 Roots Deep Check. No percentage, ever.

The records we work

Conclusions are only as good as the records under them

These are the New Brunswick sources every Salt Water Roots search is built on — cited in every report, with the evidence graded honestly.

Provincial Archives of New Brunswick — RS141

The province’s indexed birth, marriage and death records — the backbone of any New Brunswick identification, and the first check in every search.

The Royal Gazette

New Brunswick’s official gazette, where probate and estate notices are published — the paper trail an estate leaves when it is wound up.

FundsFinderNB

The Financial and Consumer Services Commission’s unclaimed property registry — the source of the New Brunswick Bank, banked name by name.

Daniel Johnson’s vital statistics abstracts

Births, marriages and deaths abstracted from historic New Brunswick newspapers, 1784–1896 — often the only surviving trace of an early family.

The sister operation

Proven in Nova Scotia first

New Brunswick is the second province, not the first experiment. In Nova Scotia, Salt Water Roots has already banked and researched the province’s unclaimed estates end to end — the same registry-first method, the same graded evidence, the same plain-language reporting now being built here.

359
Unclaimed estates banked & researched in Nova Scotia
$5.2 million+
In Nova Scotia estates tracked

Visit the Nova Scotia home of Salt Water Roots: salt-water-roots.com

The process

How it works

1

Send the names & clues

Email the person’s name, other names they used, dates, and places — whatever you have. Gaps are normal; variants are the point.

2

Every variant, every registry

We build the full list of name forms and search each one, registry by registry, across the official sources that apply.

3

Each search is logged

Name form, registry, date, result — recorded as it happens, including the searches that find nothing.

4

You receive the record

Law firms get the proof packet with declaration page; families get the plain-language report with next steps for any match.

Why Salt Water Roots

It started with my own family.

My family’s roots run to Stoney Island, in Shelburne County, Nova Scotia — fishing country, where a surname can be spelled three ways in the same church register and nobody thought twice about it.

Salt Water Roots began with a search of my own — not for money, but for people. Working through the records, I learned how easily a person disappears from them — not because nothing exists, but because their name sits under a spelling nobody tried. A Mac that became a Mc. A maiden name nobody wrote down. A name recorded a hundred years ago, waiting for someone to ask for it the right way.

That search became this business. I help families — and the lawyers working to settle their estates — run the search properly: every variant, every registry, every result written down. Nova Scotia came first; New Brunswick, where so many of those same families’ trails lead, is the second province. Whether the answer is a found balance or a documented negative, it is an answer you can rely on, and file.

Salt Water Roots Genealogy Founder

Questions

Frequently asked

Do you take a percentage of what’s found?

Never. Every service is a flat fee, agreed before work begins — $89 for a Roots Deep Check, $29 per additional province when a trail crosses a border, and $995–$1,495 for a law-firm proof packet depending on the file. If a search turns up a balance, it is entirely yours or the estate’s.

Can’t I just search these registries myself?

Yes — searching and claiming on the official registries, FundsFinderNB included, is always free, and we encourage it. What the fee buys is the variant work (building every spelling and name form), the thoroughness of searching them all, and the documentation: a written record of every search, date, and result that a family can keep or a law firm can file.

What if nothing is found?

Then you receive the full documented record of the search — every name variant, every registry, every date, and the negative result of each. For a law firm, that documented diligence is what an estate file needs to move forward. A documented negative result is a completed search, not a failed one.

Does a match under a similar name mean the money is ours?

No. A listed balance under a similar name is a lead, not proof of entitlement — the registry decides claims, and it will ask for its own documentation. Our reports list possible matches plainly, with the exact free steps to verify and claim, and never present a match as a certainty.

How long does it take?

A Roots Deep Check report is delivered in 3–5 business days. For law-firm proof packets, the delivery date is agreed in writing when the file is opened, based on its scope — before any work begins, so the file’s timeline is never a surprise.

What should I never send you?

Never send SIN numbers, bank or CRA login details, or copies of ID — by email or any other way. We never ask for them, and the search doesn’t need them. Names, approximate dates, and places are all we require. If anyone claiming to be us asks for those things, it isn’t us.

Who can order a search?

Law firms acting on an estate file, executors, and family members searching for a deceased relative’s possible unclaimed funds. We do not search for living people, and we do not run searches concerning anyone under 19. Adoption-disclosure and find-a-person requests are outside what we do — for those, we’ll point you to the proper provincial channels.

How does payment work?

The Roots Deep Check is prepaid by Interac e-Transfer once your enquiry is confirmed. Law-firm proof packets are invoiced on delivery, net 30. There are no other charges, and no fee is ever calculated from an amount found.