Anyone know how I might be able to find out how many shares of AT&T stock my husbands grandmother held at her death in May 1983. They were left to her grandsons... but now that they have been sold, for tax purposes, we have to have a cost basis of what they were worth in May 1983 to when they were sold last year. We do have his grandmothers SSN... but not sure what good that will do us either... need some HELP!
Anyone?? Thanks so much

When your husband inherited the shares he should have kept a record of exactly what he got. If the executor of his grandmother's estate is still alive perhaps he or she has a record of exactly what was distributed to whom. Or perhaps your husband's siblings and/or cousins (who presuambly inherited some stock at the same time) have records.

You obviously know how many shares of AT&T you sold in 2008 - from that it should be possible to work out how many shares he inherited back in 1983. However, to do that would require understanding how he handled each of the many corporate changes that AT&T went through between May 1983 and today - AT&T and its descendants has been through many, many changes including spin-offs (Baby Bells, Lucent, NCR, etc) and ultimately was bought out by SBC to form the new AT&T. How did your husband handle all those transactions?

One last thought - you could contact AT&T's stockholder services department to see if they have records that would help. Here is the web page for investor stock information:

AT&T Stockholder Services

Click on "contacts" and you'll find the phone number for stockholder services.