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Today, our heir hunters cross the water and travel to foreign shores. | 0:00:02 | 0:00:05 | |
So this is what I've got so far. | 0:00:05 | 0:00:07 | |
This is from the information that we've been given. | 0:00:07 | 0:00:10 | |
The first case is riddled with unanswered questions. | 0:00:10 | 0:00:14 | |
Has anything in your searches so far indicated the name Shearer? | 0:00:14 | 0:00:17 | |
-I didn't find one. -OK. | 0:00:17 | 0:00:19 | |
And the second sees a transatlantic race to trace heirs. | 0:00:19 | 0:00:24 | |
Suddenly, this had become an international competition | 0:00:24 | 0:00:27 | |
that had moved from the west coast of the United States | 0:00:27 | 0:00:29 | |
to the north-west coast of England. | 0:00:29 | 0:00:31 | |
It's all about getting to the root of the problem for the heir hunters. | 0:00:31 | 0:00:35 | |
We'll have to work on this and unravel the whole mystery behind it. | 0:00:35 | 0:00:39 | |
Sometimes, a case comes in that takes an heir hunt overseas | 0:00:51 | 0:00:54 | |
in search of crucial records that can only be discovered in person. | 0:00:54 | 0:00:58 | |
Today, Daniel Curran, MD of London-based heir-hunting firm Finders | 0:01:01 | 0:01:06 | |
has travelled to Guernsey on the trail of the case | 0:01:06 | 0:01:09 | |
of retired clerk Joan Mary Wootton. | 0:01:09 | 0:01:11 | |
Joan was born on the Channel island on the 18th of February, 1927, | 0:01:14 | 0:01:18 | |
and died aged 88 of lung disease in the spring of 2015 in Norfolk. | 0:01:18 | 0:01:24 | |
She was a really nice lady, very quiet and she liked company | 0:01:25 | 0:01:31 | |
and she liked to chat and we always used to stop and speak to her. | 0:01:31 | 0:01:35 | |
Leaving no will | 0:01:35 | 0:01:37 | |
and featuring a few weeks previously on the Government's Bona Vacantia, | 0:01:37 | 0:01:41 | |
or unclaimed estate list, | 0:01:41 | 0:01:43 | |
Daniel has limited information regarding Joan's life. | 0:01:43 | 0:01:46 | |
Our first stop is really to try and identify her birth record. | 0:01:47 | 0:01:51 | |
The records for Guernsey are not online, | 0:01:51 | 0:01:54 | |
they're only held locally in Guernsey, so we have to get in touch | 0:01:54 | 0:01:57 | |
with our researcher here and then try and work on the family tree from there. | 0:01:57 | 0:02:01 | |
Research is still done the old-fashioned way on the island, | 0:02:01 | 0:02:05 | |
which means thumbing through birth, marriage, and death records. | 0:02:05 | 0:02:08 | |
Daniel's on his way to meet Susan Illey, | 0:02:08 | 0:02:11 | |
a local researcher, who's working on Joan's case for him. | 0:02:11 | 0:02:15 | |
It's not going to be an easy one to crack. | 0:02:15 | 0:02:17 | |
In London, senior case manager Ryan Gregory has also been | 0:02:19 | 0:02:23 | |
looking into the case. | 0:02:23 | 0:02:25 | |
Can you help me with the... Just one stem. | 0:02:25 | 0:02:27 | |
So I've got the advert from the Bona Vacantia list | 0:02:27 | 0:02:30 | |
from the day that we opened the case. | 0:02:30 | 0:02:32 | |
Now, there was quite a bit more information there | 0:02:32 | 0:02:35 | |
than there usually is in a lot of the cases they advertise. | 0:02:35 | 0:02:38 | |
She was a widow, so obviously we knew we were looking for | 0:02:38 | 0:02:41 | |
a different surname other than Wootton | 0:02:41 | 0:02:43 | |
for any records going further back. | 0:02:43 | 0:02:45 | |
Ryan hoped that Joan's maiden name might provide clues | 0:02:45 | 0:02:49 | |
to her life story and lead to her heirs. | 0:02:49 | 0:02:52 | |
On the advert we were told that the deceased's maiden name was Le Tissier-Shearer. | 0:02:52 | 0:02:56 | |
Now, when that sort of information comes in to us in the office, | 0:02:56 | 0:02:59 | |
we're wondering, is this an hyphenated surname? | 0:02:59 | 0:03:02 | |
Where has the actual surname come from? | 0:03:02 | 0:03:04 | |
With the heir hunters' search covering so much ground, | 0:03:07 | 0:03:09 | |
it makes sense to kick things off on the island where Joan was born | 0:03:09 | 0:03:13 | |
to learn about her early life. | 0:03:13 | 0:03:15 | |
Daniel's arrived at the Greffe, the central records office | 0:03:16 | 0:03:20 | |
at the Royal Court of Guernsey, to meet researcher Susan. | 0:03:20 | 0:03:23 | |
Located here since the early 1800s, | 0:03:24 | 0:03:27 | |
the Greffe is home to all the island's birth, marriage and death records | 0:03:27 | 0:03:31 | |
and Susan has found Joan's birth record. | 0:03:31 | 0:03:34 | |
-So we know she was born in 1927 and here we have her, Joan M... -Ah, OK. | 0:03:34 | 0:03:40 | |
..Le Tissier. Which is a good Guernsey name. | 0:03:40 | 0:03:43 | |
Born on February the 13th, so now we need to look in the register. | 0:03:43 | 0:03:47 | |
-18. -Number 18. -So now we can see her parents were | 0:03:50 | 0:03:54 | |
Walter Le Tissier and Florence Lydia Quentin | 0:03:54 | 0:03:58 | |
and they lived at the north side, in the Vale | 0:03:58 | 0:04:01 | |
and her father's occupation was coal heaver. | 0:04:01 | 0:04:03 | |
With Joan's parents' names, | 0:04:05 | 0:04:07 | |
the next step is to find details about their marriage. | 0:04:07 | 0:04:10 | |
-We'll look for a marriage in the indexes, prior to 1927... -OK. | 0:04:10 | 0:04:16 | |
..when Joan was born. | 0:04:16 | 0:04:17 | |
-Careful as you go. -A rickety, rickety spiral staircase. | 0:04:18 | 0:04:22 | |
-So, what do we have here? -This is the Marriage Index... -Right. | 0:04:25 | 0:04:28 | |
..from 1919, when registration, civil registration began. | 0:04:28 | 0:04:32 | |
This manual searching is like a treasure hunt. | 0:04:33 | 0:04:36 | |
One clue leads to another, and having found Walter and Florence's | 0:04:36 | 0:04:40 | |
marriage listing, Susan can quickly find their marriage certificate. | 0:04:40 | 0:04:44 | |
This will be the key to unlocking her past | 0:04:45 | 0:04:48 | |
and to starting her family tree in the hope of finding her heirs. | 0:04:48 | 0:04:52 | |
So we can see they got married on Boxing Day in 1925 | 0:04:52 | 0:04:56 | |
-in the parish church at St Sampson. -Right. | 0:04:56 | 0:04:59 | |
Water was 32 and Lydia 24. | 0:04:59 | 0:05:02 | |
With confirmation that Le Tissier was Joan Wootton's maiden name, | 0:05:02 | 0:05:07 | |
there's still the question of the other name she had listed, Shearer. | 0:05:07 | 0:05:11 | |
So, has anything in your search so far indicated the name Shearer? | 0:05:11 | 0:05:15 | |
I did look for a marriage for Joan, but I didn't find one. | 0:05:15 | 0:05:20 | |
The trail leading to answers about Joan Wootton's former name | 0:05:20 | 0:05:24 | |
may have come to a dead end, | 0:05:24 | 0:05:26 | |
but with Walter and Florence's marriage certificate found, | 0:05:26 | 0:05:29 | |
Ryan had more fuel to fire his search in the London office. | 0:05:29 | 0:05:33 | |
Using the names of the parents that our agent was able to provide us, | 0:05:33 | 0:05:36 | |
we could then go back and look at the census records for Guernsey. | 0:05:36 | 0:05:40 | |
That is one of the few sections of information | 0:05:40 | 0:05:43 | |
we have available to us in the office. | 0:05:43 | 0:05:46 | |
So we were able to identify the fact that Joan's father, | 0:05:46 | 0:05:50 | |
Walter Le Tissier, was one of four children | 0:05:50 | 0:05:54 | |
and Joan's mother was actually one of five. | 0:05:54 | 0:05:57 | |
So we were researching as much as we could | 0:05:57 | 0:05:59 | |
with the information on the 1911 census | 0:05:59 | 0:06:01 | |
for both the maternal and paternal families, | 0:06:01 | 0:06:03 | |
when Susan in Guernsey managed to get | 0:06:03 | 0:06:05 | |
some very important information over to us. | 0:06:05 | 0:06:08 | |
Susan had news which would lead them | 0:06:09 | 0:06:11 | |
one step closer to tracing Joan's heirs. | 0:06:11 | 0:06:14 | |
-I've found three siblings, all girls. -Mm-hm. -Sisters of Joan. | 0:06:14 | 0:06:19 | |
Here we are. | 0:06:19 | 0:06:21 | |
-So, Doreen May, born on the 25th of September... -OK. -..in 1932. | 0:06:21 | 0:06:26 | |
-Same parents. -Yep. | 0:06:26 | 0:06:28 | |
Daniel and Susan found Joan's second sister | 0:06:28 | 0:06:31 | |
in another record book upstairs. | 0:06:31 | 0:06:33 | |
Ruby Rose, she was born on May the 6th, 1936. | 0:06:33 | 0:06:38 | |
There was one further child, she was born in 1941, Valerie. Valerie M. | 0:06:38 | 0:06:44 | |
So Walter and Florence Le Tissier had four daughters | 0:06:44 | 0:06:48 | |
over a 14-year period. | 0:06:48 | 0:06:50 | |
Joan Mary was the eldest, | 0:06:50 | 0:06:52 | |
followed by Doreen May, | 0:06:52 | 0:06:54 | |
Ruby Rose and Valerie Maud. | 0:06:54 | 0:06:57 | |
With three siblings discovered, this could mean potential heirs | 0:06:57 | 0:07:01 | |
and Susan has homed in on one of them. | 0:07:01 | 0:07:04 | |
Well, I picked up on Ruby because Roselle is her married name. | 0:07:04 | 0:07:08 | |
It's quite a Guernsey name | 0:07:08 | 0:07:10 | |
and I do know several people with that surname. | 0:07:10 | 0:07:13 | |
So I spoke to one of my colleagues, who actually knew her. | 0:07:13 | 0:07:18 | |
-She was his auntie. -Oh! | 0:07:18 | 0:07:20 | |
And he told me that she'd died in the UK, in hospital, | 0:07:20 | 0:07:24 | |
and he was able to share with me her children's names, | 0:07:24 | 0:07:28 | |
so that then allows you to do the contact. | 0:07:28 | 0:07:32 | |
-And they would be heirs to this... -Potential beneficiaries, yes. -OK. | 0:07:32 | 0:07:35 | |
But there's still a vital question unanswered. | 0:07:35 | 0:07:39 | |
Why was Joan Wootton, whose maiden name was Le Tissier, | 0:07:39 | 0:07:42 | |
also known as Joan Le Tissier Shearer? | 0:07:42 | 0:07:46 | |
We still had a massive question mark over the surname Shearer. | 0:07:46 | 0:07:48 | |
If this was due to an adoption or a form of marriage, | 0:07:48 | 0:07:51 | |
we could be looking at completely the wrong family, | 0:07:51 | 0:07:54 | |
or there may have even been children from another marriage | 0:07:54 | 0:07:57 | |
that we weren't picking up on. So, optimistic, but very wary. | 0:07:57 | 0:08:01 | |
Joan's name certainly became a sticking point in her case. | 0:08:01 | 0:08:05 | |
But as time moved on, new evidence did come to light. | 0:08:05 | 0:08:09 | |
It transpired that Joan had to tragically flee her home, | 0:08:09 | 0:08:13 | |
and her family. | 0:08:13 | 0:08:14 | |
As World War II engulfed Europe, German forces occupying France | 0:08:14 | 0:08:19 | |
set their sights on the Channel Islands. | 0:08:19 | 0:08:22 | |
And in 1940, | 0:08:22 | 0:08:24 | |
Joan's family made a life-changing decision for their eldest daughter. | 0:08:24 | 0:08:28 | |
Joan was just 13 years old. | 0:08:28 | 0:08:30 | |
We understand that Joan was actually evacuated from Guernsey | 0:08:30 | 0:08:33 | |
on the eve of the Nazi invasion of World War II. | 0:08:33 | 0:08:36 | |
In June 1940, a year into World War II, | 0:08:39 | 0:08:44 | |
the Channel Islands became the only British territories | 0:08:44 | 0:08:46 | |
to be occupied by the Germans. | 0:08:46 | 0:08:49 | |
Almost half of Guernsey's population of 40,000 | 0:08:49 | 0:08:52 | |
were evacuated to England, Scotland and Wales. | 0:08:52 | 0:08:55 | |
They were mainly young children, some mothers and teachers. | 0:08:55 | 0:08:59 | |
Molly Bihet was one of the few to stay on her island home. | 0:08:59 | 0:09:04 | |
When the Germans came in 1940, I was almost nine. | 0:09:04 | 0:09:08 | |
I remember that very, very well, of course. | 0:09:08 | 0:09:11 | |
At the evacuation time, I can remember my mother being | 0:09:11 | 0:09:14 | |
so worried sick. We were crushed | 0:09:14 | 0:09:17 | |
with so many people wanting to get away. | 0:09:17 | 0:09:20 | |
It was a really horrid time. | 0:09:20 | 0:09:23 | |
Some children stayed here, young children stayed with their parents. | 0:09:23 | 0:09:28 | |
We were farming, so we stayed as children here, | 0:09:28 | 0:09:31 | |
here in the occupation. | 0:09:31 | 0:09:33 | |
But it wasn't an easy decision when the schools were going | 0:09:33 | 0:09:36 | |
and urging their children to go. | 0:09:36 | 0:09:39 | |
Not long after the last boat taking evacuees | 0:09:40 | 0:09:43 | |
to the safety of the mainland set sail, the island was bombed. | 0:09:43 | 0:09:47 | |
The Germans wrongly believed lorries laden with Guernsey tomatoes | 0:09:48 | 0:09:52 | |
ready for export were military vehicles, | 0:09:52 | 0:09:55 | |
and dropped their bombs, which killed 33 islanders | 0:09:55 | 0:09:59 | |
and injured 67 more. | 0:09:59 | 0:10:01 | |
It was on Sunday, June 30, two days later, | 0:10:01 | 0:10:05 | |
that the Germans arrived here at the airport by plane. | 0:10:05 | 0:10:09 | |
For the next five years, everything changed for the islanders. | 0:10:11 | 0:10:16 | |
Most of their children were gone, including young Joan Wootton, | 0:10:16 | 0:10:19 | |
and they were living side-by-side with German soldiers | 0:10:19 | 0:10:23 | |
under fear, rations and curfews. | 0:10:23 | 0:10:25 | |
The end of the war finally came in 1945. | 0:10:30 | 0:10:34 | |
It was a jubilant day for the islanders. | 0:10:34 | 0:10:37 | |
Since six o'clock in the morning, we could see these boats | 0:10:37 | 0:10:41 | |
in front of Herm, just by the harbour. | 0:10:41 | 0:10:44 | |
So my mother, my sister and I, we dashed off | 0:10:44 | 0:10:49 | |
and we ran as fast as we could. | 0:10:49 | 0:10:52 | |
And we got down to these 22 soldiers, marching, | 0:10:52 | 0:10:56 | |
bayonets, tin hats. | 0:10:56 | 0:10:58 | |
All smart, new rifles, and we just loved them, kissed them, | 0:10:58 | 0:11:04 | |
cried with them. | 0:11:04 | 0:11:06 | |
We just had to just love them and cuddle them, | 0:11:06 | 0:11:10 | |
and they were crying with us. | 0:11:10 | 0:11:12 | |
Soon after the war, the evacuees began returning to Guernsey, | 0:11:14 | 0:11:18 | |
and the Queen and King visited the island. | 0:11:18 | 0:11:21 | |
But there are no records of Joan coming home. | 0:11:21 | 0:11:24 | |
And if she ever did, she didn't stay. | 0:11:24 | 0:11:28 | |
And by the time the war finished in 1945, she was then 18 | 0:11:28 | 0:11:33 | |
and she would have perhaps have adopted parents, | 0:11:33 | 0:11:37 | |
where she was evacuated to, who looked after her, | 0:11:37 | 0:11:41 | |
and she probably took a job and went on from there. | 0:11:41 | 0:11:45 | |
So, Joan's life continued away from her family in Guernsey, | 0:11:45 | 0:11:49 | |
and it was perhaps the family who took her in as a 13-year-old evacuee | 0:11:49 | 0:11:53 | |
who would provide the answer to the puzzle of her surname, Shearer. | 0:11:53 | 0:11:58 | |
And in the office in London, Ryan received a document | 0:11:58 | 0:12:02 | |
which seemed to confirm this. | 0:12:02 | 0:12:04 | |
One of the few certificates we were actually able | 0:12:04 | 0:12:06 | |
to order from the office, being an English record, | 0:12:06 | 0:12:09 | |
was actually Joan's marriage to Roland Leonard Wootton. | 0:12:09 | 0:12:13 | |
Now, as soon as this came into the office, we were actually able to see | 0:12:13 | 0:12:17 | |
that Joan had listed her father as Francis Linden Shearer. | 0:12:17 | 0:12:21 | |
Now, this really went a long way to solving the riddle of where | 0:12:21 | 0:12:26 | |
the Shearer name came from. | 0:12:26 | 0:12:28 | |
With this confirmation in place, Daniel is on his way to meet | 0:12:30 | 0:12:33 | |
Joan Wootton's niece, Kay Leslie, | 0:12:33 | 0:12:35 | |
daughter of her sister, Ruby Rose. | 0:12:35 | 0:12:38 | |
Kay was born in 1960... | 0:12:40 | 0:12:42 | |
-Hi. -Hello, Kay. | 0:12:42 | 0:12:43 | |
..20 years after her aunt, Joan, fled her home of Guernsey. | 0:12:43 | 0:12:47 | |
-So, your mother was a Le Tissier at birth? -Yes. -OK. | 0:12:47 | 0:12:51 | |
I can remember my grandparents vaguely, her parents. | 0:12:51 | 0:12:54 | |
And if we can... We work, we have an online system... | 0:12:54 | 0:12:57 | |
Kay may have distant memories of her grandparents, | 0:12:57 | 0:13:00 | |
her Aunt Joan's parents, and although she wasn't born | 0:13:00 | 0:13:03 | |
when Guernsey was under German occupation, | 0:13:03 | 0:13:05 | |
she does have a knowledge of those turbulent years. | 0:13:05 | 0:13:08 | |
As a writer, she's covered those bleak times. | 0:13:08 | 0:13:12 | |
Those five years, for children who went away | 0:13:12 | 0:13:15 | |
as slightly older children, it changed their lives, | 0:13:15 | 0:13:17 | |
because they came back. | 0:13:17 | 0:13:19 | |
Either they didn't come back, or they came back and some of them | 0:13:19 | 0:13:22 | |
didn't even recognise their family after five years. | 0:13:22 | 0:13:24 | |
You know, growing up without any contact at all. | 0:13:24 | 0:13:27 | |
And I always thought that was really poignant. | 0:13:27 | 0:13:30 | |
-And, of course, the big shock was I'd written those pieces... -Mm. | 0:13:30 | 0:13:33 | |
..completely unaware that I had an aunt who went through exactly that. | 0:13:33 | 0:13:38 | |
-Exactly the same thing. -I wouldn't judge Joan at all. | 0:13:38 | 0:13:42 | |
She didn't have that tie with Guernsey, through her childhood. | 0:13:42 | 0:13:45 | |
The family had been through really hard times for those five years and, | 0:13:45 | 0:13:49 | |
-hopefully, she had found something that was comfortable and secure. -Mm. | 0:13:49 | 0:13:53 | |
And to think that somebody who was such a close relative | 0:13:53 | 0:13:55 | |
had survived for a long period and had died only recently | 0:13:55 | 0:13:58 | |
and we didn't know about her. | 0:13:58 | 0:14:00 | |
This might be nice for you, actually, we've got some photographs. | 0:14:00 | 0:14:03 | |
This is from friends of Joan. | 0:14:03 | 0:14:06 | |
And, apparently, this is the lady herself, this is your Auntie Joan, | 0:14:06 | 0:14:10 | |
-as a young lady. -That's making me go a bit shivery, actually. | 0:14:10 | 0:14:13 | |
Because it suddenly becomes very real, doesn't it? | 0:14:13 | 0:14:15 | |
Oh, she looks like Doreen, my mother's older sister. | 0:14:15 | 0:14:18 | |
-She looks really like her. -Definitely one of the family, then? | 0:14:18 | 0:14:21 | |
-Yeah, very much so. Yeah, I can definitely see that. -Yeah. | 0:14:21 | 0:14:24 | |
It's fantastic to be able to put a face to the name. | 0:14:24 | 0:14:28 | |
My personal reaction to hearing that there was an aunt, | 0:14:28 | 0:14:32 | |
who I'd never known, was a sadness. | 0:14:32 | 0:14:35 | |
To think that, until fairly recently, | 0:14:35 | 0:14:38 | |
there was a direct relative, a close relative, | 0:14:38 | 0:14:41 | |
who I didn't know anything about and who was living in the UK, | 0:14:41 | 0:14:45 | |
made me feel sad and curious, actually, at the same time, | 0:14:45 | 0:14:49 | |
because I thought, "Why does this woman not want to have | 0:14:49 | 0:14:52 | |
"any contact with her family in Guernsey?" | 0:14:52 | 0:14:54 | |
But, you know, life is complicated sometimes. | 0:14:54 | 0:14:57 | |
This case has been, certainly, | 0:15:00 | 0:15:02 | |
one of the more pleasant ones to deal with. | 0:15:02 | 0:15:05 | |
It's a nice story of a family being reunited, at least in name, | 0:15:05 | 0:15:08 | |
with the person they never knew about. | 0:15:08 | 0:15:11 | |
Daniel's firm signed up all seven heirs to Joan Wootton's estate, | 0:15:12 | 0:15:17 | |
which is estimated at around £150,000. | 0:15:17 | 0:15:20 | |
Joan may be sadly gone, but she's definitely not forgotten. | 0:15:20 | 0:15:25 | |
All the neighbours all think of her very fondly. | 0:15:25 | 0:15:29 | |
She's got loads of friends in the village | 0:15:29 | 0:15:32 | |
that, you know, will miss her greatly. | 0:15:32 | 0:15:34 | |
To think that, for 30-odd years, there was someone | 0:15:34 | 0:15:38 | |
living across the English Channel who was such a close relative, | 0:15:38 | 0:15:42 | |
we all felt sad that the contact hadn't been made. | 0:15:42 | 0:15:46 | |
One month later, Joan Wootton's story takes another twist. | 0:15:52 | 0:15:56 | |
We were notified by our firm's solicitors in Norfolk | 0:15:56 | 0:15:59 | |
that they held a will. | 0:15:59 | 0:16:01 | |
If the will is valid, then she's left £180,000 | 0:16:01 | 0:16:05 | |
to be divided between the RNLI and the local youth centre. | 0:16:05 | 0:16:08 | |
So, it does seem as though the heirs that we contacted | 0:16:08 | 0:16:11 | |
won't actually stand to benefit, after all. | 0:16:11 | 0:16:13 | |
Although Jane Wootton's relatives | 0:16:13 | 0:16:16 | |
may no longer be entitled to her estate, | 0:16:16 | 0:16:18 | |
they have been given the gift | 0:16:18 | 0:16:20 | |
of a missing piece of their family history. | 0:16:20 | 0:16:22 | |
The case of Susan Watson is | 0:16:29 | 0:16:31 | |
a particularly sad and interesting one. | 0:16:31 | 0:16:34 | |
Susan was raised in the quiet village of Leasowe | 0:16:34 | 0:16:37 | |
on the northern coast of the Wirral peninsula in Cheshire. | 0:16:37 | 0:16:41 | |
After graduating from Edinburgh University in 1973 | 0:16:41 | 0:16:45 | |
with a first-class honours degree in biological sciences, | 0:16:45 | 0:16:49 | |
Susan emigrated 5,000 miles away | 0:16:49 | 0:16:52 | |
to Oakland in California, | 0:16:52 | 0:16:54 | |
where she worked as a biological scientist. | 0:16:54 | 0:16:57 | |
She had a real sense of fun and adventure, | 0:16:57 | 0:17:00 | |
was an intrepid traveller and a keen cyclist. | 0:17:00 | 0:17:04 | |
Tragedy struck when Susan was cycling home from the office | 0:17:04 | 0:17:08 | |
just before Christmas 2013. | 0:17:08 | 0:17:10 | |
She was knocked off her bike and killed by a truck. | 0:17:10 | 0:17:15 | |
Susan was just 62 years old. | 0:17:15 | 0:17:18 | |
The dreadful accident was covered by a local news station. | 0:17:18 | 0:17:22 | |
Susan was doing everything right. | 0:17:23 | 0:17:25 | |
She was obeying all the laws, | 0:17:25 | 0:17:27 | |
she was riding her bike with her helmet, | 0:17:27 | 0:17:30 | |
she probably had 14 lights on her bike, | 0:17:30 | 0:17:32 | |
because she was an amazing person | 0:17:32 | 0:17:35 | |
and lived brightly. | 0:17:35 | 0:17:37 | |
A memorial bike and ferry ride was held in Susan's honour | 0:17:37 | 0:17:41 | |
by her friends in the Oakland cycling community, | 0:17:41 | 0:17:44 | |
but since she was British, | 0:17:44 | 0:17:46 | |
her case came back across the pond | 0:17:46 | 0:17:48 | |
and was taken up by Saul Marks, | 0:17:48 | 0:17:50 | |
case manager at heir-hunting firm Celtic Research. | 0:17:50 | 0:17:53 | |
This case came to us from an associate company | 0:17:54 | 0:17:57 | |
who we work with in the United States. | 0:17:57 | 0:17:59 | |
They referred it to us in the hope that we could find heirs | 0:17:59 | 0:18:02 | |
here in the UK. | 0:18:02 | 0:18:04 | |
The American firm had told us that Susan seemed to be an only child, | 0:18:05 | 0:18:10 | |
she didn't have any children of her own, | 0:18:10 | 0:18:12 | |
and they found her parents and grandparents on the maternal side. | 0:18:12 | 0:18:16 | |
She had been living with a man in the United States | 0:18:16 | 0:18:18 | |
but they didn't appear to be married | 0:18:18 | 0:18:20 | |
and, as such, he didn't appear to have a claim to her estate. | 0:18:20 | 0:18:23 | |
So, it was up to us to go and find cousins who were living in the UK | 0:18:23 | 0:18:26 | |
or elsewhere who would be the rightful heirs. | 0:18:26 | 0:18:29 | |
We couldn't find a birth listing for the deceased | 0:18:29 | 0:18:32 | |
and when we've got information to suggest who the parents are | 0:18:32 | 0:18:36 | |
but there's no birth listing, | 0:18:36 | 0:18:37 | |
it usually suggests that the person is adopted | 0:18:37 | 0:18:40 | |
and we did a search of the adoption register | 0:18:40 | 0:18:43 | |
and, sure enough, there she was, | 0:18:43 | 0:18:44 | |
and we obtained a copy of the adoption certificate | 0:18:44 | 0:18:47 | |
and it proved that she was the adopted daughter | 0:18:47 | 0:18:50 | |
of Isabel Davie and George William Watson. | 0:18:50 | 0:18:52 | |
Although Saul discovered that Susan had been adopted, | 0:18:52 | 0:18:56 | |
the news didn't change the heir-hunter's job | 0:18:56 | 0:18:59 | |
when searching for her beneficiaries. | 0:18:59 | 0:19:02 | |
Records revealed that Susan's father George passed away | 0:19:02 | 0:19:05 | |
in 1966, when Susan was in her mid-teens, | 0:19:05 | 0:19:08 | |
leaving her mother Isabel to raise her on her own. | 0:19:08 | 0:19:12 | |
Isabel never remarried | 0:19:12 | 0:19:14 | |
and passed away in 1998. | 0:19:14 | 0:19:17 | |
So, with no siblings or children for Susan, | 0:19:17 | 0:19:20 | |
Saul knew he had to search for aunts, uncles and cousins, | 0:19:20 | 0:19:24 | |
all potentially her heirs. | 0:19:24 | 0:19:26 | |
The next step for me was to go to Liverpool Register Office | 0:19:26 | 0:19:29 | |
and get a copy of the marriage certificate of Susan's parents. | 0:19:29 | 0:19:34 | |
This gave us their ages at marriage, | 0:19:34 | 0:19:36 | |
which allowed us to find them both in the 1911 Census. | 0:19:36 | 0:19:42 | |
The census is invaluable for genealogists, | 0:19:43 | 0:19:46 | |
as it records each person living in a UK household, | 0:19:46 | 0:19:49 | |
including their ages, jobs and relationships to one another. | 0:19:49 | 0:19:53 | |
The 1911 Census showed us that Isabel had an older brother | 0:19:55 | 0:19:59 | |
named Gordon Davie, who was Susan's adoptive uncle. | 0:19:59 | 0:20:02 | |
So, if he had any children, | 0:20:02 | 0:20:04 | |
they would be heirs to the estate. | 0:20:04 | 0:20:06 | |
Sure enough, he had two children, they were both alive, | 0:20:06 | 0:20:09 | |
so we were really happy that things were starting nicely. | 0:20:09 | 0:20:12 | |
Things may have been off to a good start for the first two heirs traced | 0:20:14 | 0:20:17 | |
but, unfortunately, they weren't in the bag for Saul. | 0:20:17 | 0:20:20 | |
It transpired that Gordon's two children, | 0:20:20 | 0:20:23 | |
who were Susan's first cousins, | 0:20:23 | 0:20:25 | |
had actually been approached by a rival firm of ours here in the UK, | 0:20:25 | 0:20:29 | |
which meant that our American associates | 0:20:29 | 0:20:32 | |
had obviously got rivals there who had referred it to our rivals here, | 0:20:32 | 0:20:37 | |
so, suddenly, this had become an international competition | 0:20:37 | 0:20:41 | |
that had moved from the west coast of the United States | 0:20:41 | 0:20:44 | |
to the north-west coast of England. | 0:20:44 | 0:20:46 | |
Susan's two cousins were the only heirs on her mother's side of | 0:20:46 | 0:20:49 | |
the family, so the race was now on for Saul to track down | 0:20:49 | 0:20:53 | |
and secure any heirs on her father's side | 0:20:53 | 0:20:56 | |
before his competitors got there first. | 0:20:56 | 0:20:59 | |
In order to start our work on the paternal side of Susan's family, | 0:20:59 | 0:21:02 | |
we went back to her parents' marriage certificate. | 0:21:02 | 0:21:05 | |
We were able then to use the 1911 Census to establish that | 0:21:05 | 0:21:09 | |
George William Watson actually had two younger sisters, | 0:21:09 | 0:21:12 | |
and the parents of those people were Jane Watson and George Watson, | 0:21:12 | 0:21:17 | |
a stonemason. | 0:21:17 | 0:21:19 | |
Records also showed that Susan's great-great-grandfather, | 0:21:19 | 0:21:23 | |
John Watson, was also a stonemason, | 0:21:23 | 0:21:26 | |
and further research into census records between 1841 and 1871 | 0:21:26 | 0:21:30 | |
uncovered that her father's two brothers | 0:21:30 | 0:21:33 | |
were also in the trade. | 0:21:33 | 0:21:35 | |
In the 19th century, stonemasonry often ran in families. | 0:21:37 | 0:21:41 | |
Stonemasons at that time would have been probably working as families, | 0:21:41 | 0:21:46 | |
like father and son would more than likely work together, | 0:21:46 | 0:21:50 | |
possibly even grandfather, father and son | 0:21:50 | 0:21:53 | |
could have been a combination. | 0:21:53 | 0:21:55 | |
The Watson family would have done jobs such as | 0:21:56 | 0:21:59 | |
work on buildings, works on churches, memorials... | 0:21:59 | 0:22:03 | |
A master stonemason would have also done carving work as well, | 0:22:05 | 0:22:09 | |
and would have been very well respected in his time. | 0:22:09 | 0:22:13 | |
The craft was a very skilled one | 0:22:13 | 0:22:15 | |
and would have taken many years to master. | 0:22:15 | 0:22:18 | |
He would have left school as early as 14 | 0:22:18 | 0:22:20 | |
and gone straight into the family business | 0:22:20 | 0:22:23 | |
and you would do the very menial jobs, | 0:22:23 | 0:22:26 | |
then they'd let you on the tools to do very basic sort of jobs | 0:22:26 | 0:22:30 | |
to do with masonry, and over the years, | 0:22:30 | 0:22:33 | |
you'd get more familiar and your skills would develop over time. | 0:22:33 | 0:22:37 | |
So the Watsons appeared to be a close-knit | 0:22:37 | 0:22:40 | |
and hard-working family, and the next step for Saul | 0:22:40 | 0:22:44 | |
was to work his way up Susan's father's family tree. | 0:22:44 | 0:22:48 | |
A search of the marriage register showed that John Watson's | 0:22:48 | 0:22:51 | |
son George, Susan's grandfather, | 0:22:51 | 0:22:54 | |
married Jane Parsons in Chester in 1898. | 0:22:54 | 0:22:57 | |
They had three children - Susan's father, George William, | 0:22:57 | 0:23:01 | |
and his sisters Olive Jean and Queenie Elizabeth, | 0:23:01 | 0:23:05 | |
all born in Peckforton in Cheshire. | 0:23:05 | 0:23:09 | |
If Susan's aunts had had children, | 0:23:09 | 0:23:11 | |
this would potentially lead Saul to her heirs. | 0:23:11 | 0:23:15 | |
The first line we looked at was that of Olive Jean Watson. | 0:23:15 | 0:23:18 | |
She married Arthur Green in 1922 in Nantwich, | 0:23:18 | 0:23:22 | |
and they went on to have six children. | 0:23:22 | 0:23:24 | |
She had her first child when she just 20, | 0:23:24 | 0:23:27 | |
and she had her last child when she was very nearly 42. | 0:23:27 | 0:23:30 | |
We then delved into the family of Olive Watson and Arthur Green | 0:23:30 | 0:23:34 | |
in the hope that we might be able to find some heirs on this branch. | 0:23:34 | 0:23:38 | |
Their eldest child was also named Olive, but she was known as Betty, | 0:23:38 | 0:23:41 | |
and she had three children, who we visited, | 0:23:41 | 0:23:44 | |
and they signed with us. | 0:23:44 | 0:23:46 | |
The next child of the Green family was George, and he was known as Ike, | 0:23:46 | 0:23:51 | |
and he had quite a number of children, from whom | 0:23:51 | 0:23:54 | |
there were seven heirs, who, again, we were able to visit | 0:23:54 | 0:23:57 | |
and write to, and we signed. Having had a bad start to this case, | 0:23:57 | 0:24:00 | |
where the first two heirs who we spoke to had actually been | 0:24:00 | 0:24:03 | |
contacted by a rival firm, | 0:24:03 | 0:24:05 | |
it was a great relief for us to actually find heirs who | 0:24:05 | 0:24:09 | |
hadn't been contacted by the competition yet | 0:24:09 | 0:24:11 | |
and who were very willing to sign with us. | 0:24:11 | 0:24:14 | |
One of her first cousins once removed is Angela Lang. | 0:24:14 | 0:24:17 | |
Her mother was Susan's first cousin, Molly, | 0:24:17 | 0:24:20 | |
and her grandmother was Susan's aunt, Olive Jean. | 0:24:20 | 0:24:23 | |
She received a phone call from Saul with the news that she was | 0:24:23 | 0:24:26 | |
an heir to Susan Watson's estate. | 0:24:26 | 0:24:29 | |
It was a complete surprise, because I didn't know of her existence... | 0:24:29 | 0:24:34 | |
..prior to the phone call. | 0:24:36 | 0:24:38 | |
But Angela was glad to be given the chance to reconnect with her past. | 0:24:38 | 0:24:43 | |
This is a connection that's been lost, as far as my side | 0:24:43 | 0:24:49 | |
and Molly Green, my mother, | 0:24:49 | 0:24:52 | |
because my father moved us away from the Cheshire area. | 0:24:52 | 0:24:56 | |
It is a very strange feeling to inherit from somebody | 0:24:56 | 0:25:00 | |
whom I actually had no knowledge of before Saul contact me. | 0:25:00 | 0:25:05 | |
It's a shame that she didn't have family of her own to leave it to, | 0:25:05 | 0:25:10 | |
but, from my point of view, it's a very nice present to enable | 0:25:10 | 0:25:16 | |
an extra holiday or something of that nature. | 0:25:16 | 0:25:20 | |
Angela has come to Peckforton Castle, | 0:25:22 | 0:25:25 | |
where her great-great-grandfather, the stonemason John Watson, | 0:25:25 | 0:25:29 | |
helped carve and create this magnificent | 0:25:29 | 0:25:32 | |
architectural masterpiece. | 0:25:32 | 0:25:34 | |
It was commissioned by Lord John Tollemache, a landowner | 0:25:36 | 0:25:39 | |
and Member of Parliament. | 0:25:39 | 0:25:41 | |
So he purchased this estate in 1840, | 0:25:41 | 0:25:45 | |
and in 1842, he set about building this castle. | 0:25:45 | 0:25:48 | |
All the stone as we see now, which your ancestor would have had | 0:25:48 | 0:25:53 | |
a hand in creating, was all bought from the local quarry. | 0:25:53 | 0:25:58 | |
The architect Anthony Salvin, who designed the castle, | 0:25:58 | 0:26:02 | |
had a rather impressive CV. | 0:26:02 | 0:26:05 | |
He'd previously worked on both the Tower of London and Windsor Castle. | 0:26:05 | 0:26:09 | |
Would you like to take a look inside the castle, and I can | 0:26:09 | 0:26:11 | |
show you some of the rooms that your ancestor had a hand in building? | 0:26:11 | 0:26:14 | |
-That would be lovely, thank you. -Great. | 0:26:14 | 0:26:17 | |
The castle, built from red sandstone, | 0:26:17 | 0:26:20 | |
took nine years to complete. It's Grade I listed. | 0:26:20 | 0:26:24 | |
-So, welcome to the Great Hall. -Right. | 0:26:24 | 0:26:28 | |
This is my favourite room in the whole of Peckforton Castle. | 0:26:28 | 0:26:32 | |
-Right. -And if you look around, you will see that it is exactly | 0:26:32 | 0:26:37 | |
-what a medieval great hall should look like. -A baronial hall. | 0:26:37 | 0:26:42 | |
-Yeah. -It's a very impressive room in a very impressive building, | 0:26:42 | 0:26:47 | |
I must admit. | 0:26:47 | 0:26:50 | |
Susan Watson, who's made this possible, this trip, | 0:26:50 | 0:26:53 | |
this visit, for me, because I'm one of her distant relatives. | 0:26:53 | 0:26:58 | |
It's very sad that perhaps she's never been back here and, | 0:26:58 | 0:27:03 | |
maybe, I kind of wish she could have. | 0:27:03 | 0:27:06 | |
Once all the heirs on the estate were found, we could send all | 0:27:09 | 0:27:12 | |
the relevant paperwork to our attorney in California, | 0:27:12 | 0:27:15 | |
who could submit a claim to the relevant court. | 0:27:15 | 0:27:18 | |
This was all going perfectly well, until he was made aware that | 0:27:18 | 0:27:22 | |
Susan's partner was actually also making a claim against the estate. | 0:27:22 | 0:27:26 | |
It turns out that Susan | 0:27:27 | 0:27:29 | |
and her partner had been living together as common-law man and wife. | 0:27:29 | 0:27:32 | |
What this meant, in this instance, was that Susan's partner did | 0:27:32 | 0:27:36 | |
actually have a reasonably legitimate claim to this estate. | 0:27:36 | 0:27:40 | |
US law was on Susan's partner's side and he WAS a rightful heir. | 0:27:42 | 0:27:47 | |
So, with an approximate value of around £500,000, | 0:27:47 | 0:27:52 | |
there were now 27 heirs who would inherit the estate between them. | 0:27:52 | 0:27:56 | |
And for Angela, | 0:27:56 | 0:27:58 | |
not only was she going to inherit a piece of her cousin's fortune, | 0:27:58 | 0:28:02 | |
she'd also been given an invaluable insight into her family's ancestry. | 0:28:02 | 0:28:06 | |
The death of Susan, intestate, without family, is very sad. | 0:28:06 | 0:28:12 | |
It is bittersweet. | 0:28:12 | 0:28:14 |