# Probate list skip tracing: whose name to upload

URL: https://skipmatch.com/probate-list-skip-tracing
Last updated: 2026-10-02

## Key facts

- Price: a flat $0.03 a record at any list size from 50 to 100,000 records.
- Unit: Priced per matched record.
- Minimum order: 50 records
- Minimum charge: Minimum charge $0.50 when any record matches.
- Single search: Single search: $0.10, charged only on a match, paid from prepaid credit ($10 minimum top-up).
- Prepaid credit: Prepaid credit expires 12 months after your last credit purchase, single search or credit-paid list, and unused credit is refundable on request within 90 days of purchase.
- Free tool: Check your list free at /tools/skip-trace-csv-checker. Check columns, split addresses and download a fixed CSV in your browser before tracing at $0.03 a record. No account needed.
- Subscription: None. A list order is paid for on its own by card or prepaid credit.
- Max per order: 100,000 rows or 50 MB per file
- Output: Up to 10 phones per owner, each with its line type (mobile, landline or VoIP), plus emails where found
- Sources: 3 core providers: idiCORE, Enformion and Delvepoint
- Not for: FCRA uses: credit, insurance, employment or tenant screening
- Prices last changed: 2026-10-02
- Last updated: 2026-10-02

Upload the personal representative or an heir, not the deceased, because the living people named in the probate filing are the ones who can discuss the property, and contact data under a deceased owner's name is likely stale. Pair each name with that person's own address. The trace returns phones and emails, not a list of heirs.

## Short answer: whose name to upload

Trace the personal representative first. That is the umbrella term for the executor a will names and the administrator a court appoints when there is no will, and it is the person who typically manages the estate, often including its real estate, while the case is open. Add each heir the filing names on a row of their own. Leave the deceased owner untraced, but keep their name and the case number in your file as extra columns so every result stays tied to its estate.

## What a probate list usually contains

A probate list is built from new estate filings at the county probate court. What it carries depends on the state, the county and whoever compiled it, but a row usually has:

- The case number, the county and the filing date.
- The deceased person's name and last known address.
- The personal representative's name, and often a mailing address.
- The attorney of record, where one has filed.
- Sometimes the heirs or devisees named in the petition, with or without addresses.
- Sometimes the estate's property, matched from the county's property records by the list's compiler.

What it rarely has is a phone number. Court filings are not a phone directory, which is why probate lists are skip traced before anyone calls.

## Which name and which address to upload

A skip trace looks up one person from a name and an address. On a probate list the living people are the live targets; the decedent's row is where the list starts, not who you trace.

| On the list | Trace this name? | Address to pair with it |
| --- | --- | --- |
| The deceased owner | No. Contact data filed under a person who has died is likely stale: numbers disconnected, or answered by whoever lives there now. | Keep the name and last address as extra columns for your records. They come back unchanged. |
| Personal representative (executor or administrator) | Yes, first. This is the person appointed, or asking to be appointed, to run the estate. | The representative's own address from the filing, mapped as the mailing address. |
| Heirs or devisees named in the filing | Yes, one row per person. | Each heir's own address, if the filing gives one. A row with no address is unlikely to match, so find one before you upload. |
| Attorney of record | No. A law office publishes its own number. | Not needed. |
| The estate property | Not a name; it is the reason for the call. | Leave it in a column you do not map, and it comes back unchanged. To use it as the property address, put it in the property address columns (street, city, state, ZIP) only on rows whose person lives there, and leave those cells blank on the others. |

### Setting up the file

- One person per row. A row holds one name. To trace the representative and two heirs of the same estate, make three rows and repeat the case number on each.
- A name and one complete address. The file needs name columns (first and last, or one full-name column) and one complete address block mapped: street, city, state and ZIP. Fill them on every row you want traced.
- Trace a person, not the estate. When a full-name column holds something like "Estate of Mary Jones", it is kept whole as an entity name rather than split into a first and last name. Put the representative's name on the row instead.
- Duplicates drop out. Rows whose mapped name and address fields are identical are removed before the price is worked out.
- Everything else comes back. Case number, filing date, decedent name and any other column you keep are returned unchanged beside the results.

The skip trace CSV checker shows how your columns will map before you upload.

## What a bulk trace returns, and what it does not

For each row, the result file carries:

- Up to 10 phone numbers for the person, ranked, each labelled mobile, landline or VoIP.
- Email addresses where they exist.
- A flag on every row: HIT when at least one phone or email came back, MISS when none did.
- Every column you uploaded, unchanged and in its original order.

A bulk trace returns contact data, not heirs. It looks up the names you give it. It does not work out who inherited a property, build a family tree, confirm who the court appointed, or say whether the estate can sell. Skipmatch has no relatives search, and the result file has no relatives columns. If the filing does not name the heirs, finding them is research in the court file, the deed and tax records and the obituaries; the guide to finding the heirs of a deceased property owner walks through it. Then trace the people it turns up.

Not every row comes back with a phone or an email; the flag shows which did. See a full result on the sample file page.

## Contacting families respectfully

The people on a probate list have lost someone, and many are settling an estate for the first time. A representative may be a grieving spouse or an adult child, and heirs may not know yet that they have inherited anything.

- Say who you are and why you are reaching out in the first sentence.
- Take a no as final, and stop as soon as anyone asks you to.
- Scrub every number against the federal and state do-not-call registries and your own list before you call or text. A phone number in a result file is not consent to be contacted.
- Keep the list to the purpose you traced it for, and delete it when that purpose ends.

Every Skipmatch account accepts the permissible-use terms before its first order, and they apply to probate lists as they do to any other. This is general information, not legal advice.

## Price at list sizes

Skipmatch prices per matched record, and every person you trace is one row. 250 estates with a representative and two heirs each is 250 × 3 = 750 rows, at most $22.50. That is under 5 cents a record on every list.

| List | Rows | Per record | At most |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Smallest order | 50 | $0.03 | $1.50 |
| 250 estates, representative only | 250 | $0.03 | $7.50 |
| 250 estates, representative and two heirs | 750 | $0.03 | $22.50 |
| A multi-county list | 2,500 | $0.03 | $75.00 |
| A high-volume list | 12,000 | $0.03 | $360.00 |

- Find heirs
- CSV checker
- Skipmatch pricing
- Sample result
- Permissible use
- For investors

## Questions

Q: Whose name do I skip trace on a probate list?
A: The personal representative's first, then each heir the filing names, one person per row. Not the deceased owner: contact data filed under a person who has died is likely out of date. Pair each name with that person's own address, and keep the decedent's name and the case number as extra columns; they come back unchanged beside the results.

Q: How do I find the personal representative's phone number?
A: Start with the probate filing: it names the executor or administrator and often gives a mailing address. Put that name and address on one row of a CSV and skip trace it. Skipmatch returns up to 10 ranked phone numbers per person, each labelled mobile, landline or VoIP, plus emails where they exist. Some rows come back with none.

Q: Where do probate leads come from?
A: From probate court filings. The petition to open an estate names the person who died and the person asking to be appointed. Investors read new filings at the county probate court or clerk's office (online in some counties), buy compiled probate lists, or follow the notices to creditors that many states require to be published. These sources rarely include a phone number.

Q: Can a skip trace find heirs?
A: No. A skip trace returns contact data for a name you supply; it does not work out who inherited a property or build a family tree, and Skipmatch has no relatives search. Identify the heirs first from the will, the court file, the deed and tax records and obituaries, then trace each named heir. Skipmatch's guide to finding the heirs of a deceased property owner walks through those steps.

Q: How much does it cost to skip trace a probate list?
A: Skipmatch prices per matched record: a flat $0.03 a record at any list size from 50 to 100,000 records. Each person you trace is one row, so 250 estates with a representative and two heirs each is 750 rows, at most $22.50. Orders start at 50 records. Minimum charge $0.50 when any record matches.