HeirSearch
HeirSearch is a 1967-founded Canadian forensic genealogy firm that identifies, locates, and verifies missing heirs and beneficiaries for legal and trust professionals, delivering court-ready reports across 65+ countries on advance-quoted, non-percentage fees.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded1967
- HeadquartersVancouver, Canada
- Headcount11–50
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingServices
What HeirSearch does
HeirSearch (legally International Genealogical Search Inc.) is a Vancouver, Canada-based forensic genealogy firm founded in 1967 by C. Tim Rodenbush that identifies, locates, and verifies missing or unknown heirs and beneficiaries for legal and trust professionals. The firm operates project-based searches across estate, trust, notice, and property matters, producing court-ready reports with sworn affidavits suitable for probate proceedings; supporting specialized use cases in class action, pension plan, mass tort, wrongful death, mineral rights, and corporate shareholder matters. All work is conducted under authorized contractual engagement with non-percentage-based fees quoted in advance, in contrast to contingency-fee heir hunter models, with a guaranteed "Results or No Charge" structure on Standard Fee Searches.
The firm combines human-expert forensic genealogists trained across history, sociology, geography, private investigation, and archival management, with database access across 65+ countries and DNA testing integration where records are incomplete. HeirSearch reports a 97% average success rate across tens of thousands of searches since founding. Distribution is exclusively direct B2B professional services sales to attorneys, executors, trustees, fiduciaries, bank trust officers, and government agencies, supported by content marketing (Insights Hub, HeirMail), conference sponsorship (Heckerling Institute), and membership affiliations (NAEPC, ABA Gold). The firm is privately held with no disclosed institutional investment, M&A activity, or headcount expansion.
HeirSearch firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- HeirSearch
- Legal name
- International Genealogical Search Inc.
- Website
- https://heirsearch.com
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 1967
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 11–50 employees
- Short description
- HeirSearch is a 1967-founded Canadian forensic genealogy firm that identifies, locates, and verifies missing heirs and beneficiaries for legal and trust professionals, delivering court-ready reports across 65+ countries on advance-quoted, non-percentage fees.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
HeirSearch industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Forensic Genealogy and Heir Search Services
- NAICS
- Trust, Fiduciary, and Custody Activities (523991), Title Abstract and Settlement Offices (541191)
- SIC
- Services-Legal Services (8111)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Estate & Probate Administration Services (FSAEAKAD)
- akta.pro secondary industries
- Estate Administration & Probate Services (FSAAANAE), Family Office Trust & Fiduciary Services (FSAEAKAF)
Keywords
Where HeirSearch is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Vancouver
- HQ country
- Canada
- HQ region
- North America
Offices2 records
Markets served
HeirSearch business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Services
- Cost components
- Personnel, Operations, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure
Revenue model
- Forensic Genealogy Search Services: Project-based professional services where HeirSearch identifies, locates, and verifies missing heirs and beneficiaries for estate, trust, property, and shareholder matters. Fees are quoted in advance based on search type and requirements, never as a percentage of the inheritance. The company offers an unconditional guarantee of results or no charge for Standard Fee Searches.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| One time/ perpetual license | Pay-as-you-go | Non-percentage-based professional service fees quoted in advance |
| Outcome Based/ Performance | Pay-as-you-go | Standard Fee Search with Results or No Charge guarantee |
Go-to-market motion1 record
Distribution channels1 record
Marketing channels6 records
HeirSearch product offering
Product offeringCore offering
HeirSearch provides forensic genealogy services to legal and trust professionals, identifying, locating, proving, and reporting missing or unknown heirs and beneficiaries for estate, trust, notice, and property matters. Services are delivered through four primary search types (Estate, Trust, Notice, Property) plus specialized searches for class actions, pension plans, mass tort plaintiffs, wrongful death claims, mineral rights, and shareholder matters, producing court-ready reports and sworn affidavits.
Product overview
HeirSearch is a forensic genealogy service provider offering a unified suite of heir and beneficiary location services to the legal and trust professions. The core offering consists of four primary search service lines—Estate, Trust, Notice, and Property searches—which together address the full spectrum of probate and fiduciary requirements. Supporting these core services are specialized search offerings for class action suits, pension plans, mass tort plaintiffs, wrongful death claims, mineral rights ownership, and company shareholder searches. All services deliver documented, court-ready reports and affidavit documentation. The company operates on a non-percentage-based fee model and maintains a 97% success rate since 1967.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Products and services
- Estate Search Services
- Trust Search Services Forensic genealogy service that assists trustees, trust administrators, and their legal counsel in identifying and locating trust beneficiaries. Used for trust termination, notice requirements, and beneficiary identification for distribution.
- Notice Search Services Forensic genealogy service that helps clients satisfy their fiduciary duty to notify heirs by supplying current contact information or documented due diligence search results for estate or trust matters.
- Property Search Services Forensic genealogy service that identifies, locates, proves, and reports heirs, successors and assigns, or beneficiaries for Clear and Quiet Title Actions and Property Ownership matters, including heirs' property issues.
- Class Action Research Specialized forensic genealogy search service for class action suits to locate and identify relevant heirs and beneficiaries.
- Pension Plan Participant Searches Specialized forensic genealogy service that locates missing or unknown pension plan participants and beneficiaries.
- Mass Tort Plaintiff Searches Specialized forensic genealogy service that identifies and locates mass tort plaintiffs for legal proceedings.
- Wrongful Death Heir Searches Specialized forensic genealogy service that locates heirs of wrongful death claims for estate and legal purposes.
- Mineral Rights Ownership Search Specialized forensic genealogy service that locates mineral rights heirs and conducts thorough, confidential ownership research for clear and quiet title searches for energy company clients.
- Company Shareholder Searches Specialized forensic genealogy service that locates shareholders and their heirs to resolve unresponsive payees, deceased stockholders, and other complex corporate ownership issues.
- Affidavit of Heirship Court-ready sworn statement documenting heirship, prepared by forensic genealogists to ensure compliance with state-specific probate codes.
- Court-Ready Reports Final reports providing clear and convincing evidence suitable for exhibits in court proceedings, including supporting documentation in a concise, easy-to-read format with sworn affidavits.
Quantifiable outcome
- 97% average success rate across all heir searches since 1967
- +2 more outcomes
Companies that use HeirSearch
Customer profileNamed customers4 records
Segments4 records
Ideal customer profiles4 records
HeirSearch technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed No
API detail
- Has API
- No
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Feature5 records
HeirSearch partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Four partnerships are on record, tiered core and flagship.
- National Association of Estate Planning Councils (NAEPC)coreHeirSearch maintains an affiliation with NAEPC, a premier organization serving estate planning professionals. This partnership positions HeirSearch within the professional ecosystem of estate planners and trust advisors.
- American Bankers AssociationcoreGold Level Service Member of the American Bankers Association, indicating HeirSearch's standing as an approved vendor for ABA member banks requiring heir search and forensic genealogy services for trust administration and probate matters.
- The Financial Awareness FoundationcoreLongstanding partnership with The Financial Awareness Foundation supporting Estate & Gift Planning Awareness Month. HeirSearch joins annually in advocating for financial literacy that underpins meaningful estate plans. The partnership reinforces HeirSearch's commitment to the legal and trust professional community.
- Heckerling Institute on Estate PlanningflagshipHeirSearch was a proud sponsor of the 57th Heckerling Institute on Estate Planning conference in Orlando, FL. The Heckerling Conference is described as the premier conference for estate planning professionals in North America, running annually in January.
Scale indicators4 records
Recent moves6 records
Expansion highlights4 records
HeirSearch competitors and assessment
Company assessmentBroad incumbents
- Northern Trust: Northern Trust is a major global wealth and trust-services provider with large fiduciary practices that routinely require heir-identification services. As a broad incumbent in the same estate/trust ecosystem, it is a relevant benchmark and indirect partner ecosystem.
- BNY Mellon Wealth Management: BNY Mellon operates one of the largest institutional trust-services platforms in the world, frequently retaining firms like HeirSearch to perform beneficiary-location work. It is comparable as a broad incumbent in the trust-and-fiduciary space whose referral relationships overlap with HeirSearch's customer base.
Emerging players
- MyHeritage: MyHeritage is a global genealogy platform offering DNA testing, family-tree tools, and historical records across more than 40 countries. Its international reach and DNA-matching capabilities make it a partial substitute and an emerging adjacent competitor to HeirSearch's standard search work.
- Ancestry.com: Ancestry operates the world's largest consumer genealogy platform combining billions of historical records with a 20M+ DNA database. While not a court-grade forensic genealogy firm, it increasingly competes for simpler heir-identification use cases and is a meaningful emerging adjacency to HeirSearch.
- 23andMe: 23andMe is a leading consumer DNA-testing company whose relative-matching database is increasingly leveraged by genealogists and probate professionals. It represents an emerging platform alternative for kinship verification that overlaps with HeirSearch's DNA-integration methodology.
Others
- Find A Grave: Find A Grave is the largest online cemetery-records database and is widely used by forensic genealogists as a starting point for decedent-to-heir research. It is a complementary ecosystem resource that HeirSearch-type engagements routinely rely on.
- LexisNexis: LexisNexis provides public-records, identity, and due-diligence data services to legal, financial, and government professionals. It is comparable as an upstream data and research infrastructure provider that HeirSearch workflows depend on, rather than a direct competitor.
- FamilySearch: FamilySearch is a free, large-scale genealogical archive maintained by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is a foundational record source that HeirSearch researchers rely on, making it a key ecosystem enabler rather than a commercial competitor.
Direct peers
- Providentia Group: Providentia Group is a U.S.-based forensic genealogy firm specializing in heir location, asset recovery, and beneficiary identification for estate and trust matters. It directly competes with HeirSearch on the same service lines (estate, trust, unclaimed property) for the same legal/trust client base.
- FindMyPast: FindMyPast is a UK-headquartered genealogy and family-history records platform with extensive international record holdings. It competes with HeirSearch for institutional and family-history research workloads and is comparable in its emphasis on cross-jurisdictional record aggregation.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses4 records
Competitive moat5 records
Key risks6 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
HeirSearch social profiles
Digital presenceHeirSearch financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
HeirSearch leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles1 record
HeirSearch funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds
Investors
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
HeirSearch M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about HeirSearch
What does HeirSearch do?
HeirSearch provides forensic genealogy services to legal and trust professionals, identifying, locating, proving, and reporting missing or unknown heirs and beneficiaries for estate, trust, notice, and property matters. Services are delivered through four primary search types (Estate, Trust, Notice, Property) plus specialized searches for class actions, pension plans, mass tort plaintiffs, wrongful death claims, mineral rights, and shareholder matters, producing court-ready reports and sworn affidavits.
Is HeirSearch a public or private company?
HeirSearch is a private company. It is classified as founder individual operated bootstrapped and is currently operating.
When was HeirSearch founded?
HeirSearch was founded in 1967. It employs 11 to 50 people.
Where is HeirSearch based?
HeirSearch is headquartered in Vancouver, Canada, in the North America region.
How does HeirSearch make money?
One revenue line is on record: forensic Genealogy Search Services.
Who are HeirSearch's main competitors?
Broad incumbents on record are Northern Trust and BNY Mellon Wealth Management. Emerging players are MyHeritage, Ancestry.com and 23andMe. Others are Find A Grave, LexisNexis and FamilySearch. Direct peers are Providentia Group and FindMyPast.
Does HeirSearch have an API?
No public API is recorded for HeirSearch.
What industry is HeirSearch in?
HeirSearch's product category is Forensic Genealogy and Heir Search Services. Its primary akta.pro industry code is FSAEAKAD, Estate & Probate Administration Services, with a secondary code of FSAAANAE, Estate Administration & Probate Services. Its NAICS code is 523991 and its SIC code is 8111.