I want to find out how to go about finding my old 401ks

Your current and past fiduciaries/ adminitrators-Vanguard, T Rowe Price, Fidelity etc. are required to send you annual statements. Do they have your current address?

Remember your account assets are with the plan administrator, not your old employer, so the goal here is to find out who that is. This is most likely a mutual fund company, or an insurance company, or a bank that your old employer contracted with to administer the plan for them. Ever since you enrolled in the 401(k) plan at work the administrator has been sending you quarterly statements about your account, so you can simply look up the contact information on any of the old statements. You should also have a copy of your original plan enrollment documents – so look for them in your records as well.

If you moved and failed to notify the administrator of your new address, and if you don't have any of your old statements, then you need to become a bit of a detective to find out who the administrator is. Unfortunately there is no national data base of all 401(k) plans. So the simplest way to proceed is to call the HR department at your old job, or your old boss, or any other employees you may still be in touch with, and ask if they can tell you how to contact the plan administrator.

If that doesn't work, you can try the National Registry of Unclaimed Retirement Benefits (NRURB). They are responsible with keeping over 50,000 individual retirement accounts for individuals who have forgotten 401(k), profit sharing and other company sponsored plan balances that have been abandoned: https://www.unclaimedretirementbenefits.com/

An additional suggestion is to go on-line and search for abandoned property in the state you lived in at the time. If you have not been receiving statements from the 401(k) plan administrator they may now consider you lost, and by law they would have turned your assets over to the state. Every state has a program to try to reunite people with their lost assets. Here is a free web site that lets you search your state's database of abandoned assets: MissingMoney.com Unclaimed Property FREE SEARCH - Officially endorsed By The States, Provinces and Naupa . It's a good idea to do a search on every state you ever lived in to see if there are abandoned assets in your name.