Government Savings

From 1982 to 1996, my parents, my aunt and my uncle bought me savings bonds twice a year. They would be worth about $ 11,000 if they had not been stolen in a burglary in 1996. I guess they were gone for good, but a friend recently suggested that I can still redeem them with my social security number ... Is this true? My mother seems to think that social security numbers were not used in the purchase of government bonds in the 80s.

Here you go:

http://www.treasurydirect.gov/indiv/rese ...

You can redeem the bonds without having physically. I'm sure you've always had to provide the number of the registered owner of the social security.