II started my 401k plan in 1999 at Parks Farms but that company has since been sold to another company by the name of case farms and now I do not know just what has happed to my plan. I have asked this company but they do not know what might have happened to it .

Several things might have happened. I gather you no longer work there, so you need to determine what might have happened when you lft:

1. If the vested amount in your account was above a certain mimumum most plans will simply continue to hold the 401(k) for the ex-employee until told what to do with it. Many plans set the minimum amount at $5K, but plans vary.

2. If the vested amount was less than the minimum they probably automatically distributed the amount to you and terminated your account. For these small accounts most plans give you 90 days or so after leaving employment to either roll the money into another tax-deferred plan (like an IRA) or take the money. Are you sure that they didn't do this when you left?

If your account stayed active after you left then when Parks Farms was bought out your account would have either been rolled into the new plan or distributed to you - it all depends on the rules for the new plan regarding ex-Parks Farms employees.

At this point I would (1) ask CaseFarms HR what the policy was for ex Pars Farms employee accounts, and (2) call the administrator of the original Parks Farms 401(k) plan - contact info should be on the quarterly and/or annual statemenst you received when you were an employee, and if you maintained a current mailing address with them you would have continued to receive these statements. If you kep these old statements yoy shouldn't have any problems tracking it down.