0:00:00 > 0:00:03Today, the heir hunters follow a case that suddenly goes cold.
0:00:03 > 0:00:06It's as if this family had completely disappeared.
0:00:06 > 0:00:07At that point, we had no idea why
0:00:07 > 0:00:09we couldn't locate any further records.
0:00:09 > 0:00:14Another team uncover a deeply buried family secret.
0:00:14 > 0:00:17He grew up thinking his grandmother was his mother
0:00:17 > 0:00:20and actually his mother was his sister.
0:00:20 > 0:00:23It's a day of surprises for two families.
0:00:23 > 0:00:25My dad didn't know anything.
0:00:25 > 0:00:27His father, my grandfather, wouldn't tell him anything.
0:00:27 > 0:00:31It's very strange to inherit from somebody I never knew.
0:00:43 > 0:00:45Every year across the country,
0:00:45 > 0:00:48thousands of people die without making a will
0:00:48 > 0:00:50and with no known relatives.
0:00:50 > 0:00:54Their houses can be left empty for some time.
0:00:54 > 0:00:58One such case has been handed onto heir-hunting firm Fraser Fraser,
0:00:58 > 0:01:00and partner Andrew Fraser is on his way
0:01:00 > 0:01:03to the deceased's house in Broadstairs, Kent
0:01:03 > 0:01:05to investigate the property.
0:01:05 > 0:01:08This is a regular thing we do several times a month.
0:01:08 > 0:01:11We all go out and look at properties that form part of the estates that
0:01:11 > 0:01:15we're working with and we're instructed to deal with.
0:01:15 > 0:01:20So, I'm looking today for any assets that may form part of this estate,
0:01:20 > 0:01:22and of course, we're looking for - equally important -
0:01:22 > 0:01:26to find liabilities and even a will.
0:01:26 > 0:01:29However, it is very unusual for me to go to a property
0:01:29 > 0:01:32that has sat empty for four years.
0:01:34 > 0:01:37The house belonged to Joyce Hilda Houlden
0:01:37 > 0:01:39who died in 2011, aged 87.
0:01:41 > 0:01:44So, hopefully the keys will get us in
0:01:44 > 0:01:46and we'll find lots of post.
0:01:49 > 0:01:53Neighbour Anthony Collings has many memories of Joyce.
0:01:53 > 0:01:55She kept herself looking well.
0:01:55 > 0:01:58She dressed well. She was always smart.
0:01:58 > 0:02:00She was just well presented.
0:02:00 > 0:02:02I think she presented herself all the way through
0:02:02 > 0:02:06until the last days, to be perfectly honest.
0:02:06 > 0:02:08She was always immaculately turned out,
0:02:08 > 0:02:09even when she was gardening.
0:02:18 > 0:02:22Given that it's been four years since she died,
0:02:22 > 0:02:27I think it's in particularly good order and very clean.
0:02:30 > 0:02:35She was a strong woman, both physically and mentally.
0:02:35 > 0:02:36She was a very proactive person.
0:02:36 > 0:02:39She would be up first thing in the morning.
0:02:39 > 0:02:41Especially when George passed away,
0:02:41 > 0:02:45she was the one that was up on a ladder painting the drainpipes.
0:02:47 > 0:02:51She always used to call me Andy, even though my wife used to say,
0:02:51 > 0:02:53"His name is Anthony,"
0:02:53 > 0:02:55and she used to do it just to get a reaction from me.
0:02:55 > 0:02:58She just had that quirky personality,
0:02:58 > 0:03:00which was always nice.
0:03:06 > 0:03:09At the office in London, Gareth Langford is keen
0:03:09 > 0:03:12to get all the family research done this afternoon.
0:03:13 > 0:03:17We have to work this particular case as any other case, really.
0:03:17 > 0:03:19We have to assume that it's competitive,
0:03:19 > 0:03:22so we work it as quickly as possible.
0:03:22 > 0:03:26Researcher Josh Crawford gets straight onto the job.
0:03:26 > 0:03:27So, we found out from her death certificate
0:03:27 > 0:03:30that Joyce Houlden,
0:03:30 > 0:03:34she was born on 11th October 1923 in Bromley.
0:03:34 > 0:03:39We also discovered that she was the widow of a Mr Houlden.
0:03:39 > 0:03:42The first thing Josh needs to do is find the marriage record,
0:03:42 > 0:03:44which will give them Joyce's maiden name.
0:03:45 > 0:03:48We did a quick search and we discovered that
0:03:48 > 0:03:53there was only one Joyce H marrying a Houlden pre-1974,
0:03:53 > 0:03:57so the marriage was in Bromley, which is really good for us
0:03:57 > 0:04:01because that's also the same place where Joyce was born.
0:04:02 > 0:04:06At Joyce's house, Andrew's found evidence of her maiden name.
0:04:06 > 0:04:08So, I was going through the wardrobe
0:04:08 > 0:04:10and I found a number of letters from the House of Commons,
0:04:10 > 0:04:12and then I have here a personal message
0:04:12 > 0:04:14and it's signed Elizabeth R.
0:04:14 > 0:04:18"Joyce Hilda Britten..." The deceased's maiden name.
0:04:18 > 0:04:21"My appreciation for your loyal and devoted service as a member
0:04:21 > 0:04:25"of the Women's Land Army from July 1943
0:04:25 > 0:04:28"to the 2nd of January 1947."
0:04:33 > 0:04:35Like many women in the 1940s,
0:04:35 > 0:04:39Joyce helped the war effort by joining the Land Army.
0:04:39 > 0:04:45The Land Army came about because the government
0:04:45 > 0:04:50in their judgment took away the farm men for the army.
0:04:50 > 0:04:55They also took them away from the mines.
0:04:55 > 0:04:59So, they had to have somebody to do the work,
0:04:59 > 0:05:05and they found that girls were only too willing to step in
0:05:05 > 0:05:08and do what they possibly could.
0:05:08 > 0:05:12Dorothy Taylor and Iris Newbold both worked on farms,
0:05:12 > 0:05:15which is what Joyce had probably done.
0:05:15 > 0:05:18That is my sister and I. Oh, yes.
0:05:18 > 0:05:23And that is where we were working at Easton Farm.
0:05:23 > 0:05:29And we had eight acres to take every single weed out.
0:05:29 > 0:05:32I didn't realise what I had let myself in for,
0:05:32 > 0:05:38because I had been working in an office nine till five.
0:05:38 > 0:05:42I didn't even know there was a half past five in the morning,
0:05:42 > 0:05:44but I soon learned.
0:05:44 > 0:05:49And of course, when it was pouring with rain and snowing and blowing,
0:05:49 > 0:05:52you still had to go.
0:05:52 > 0:05:56And like Joyce, the hard work ethic has never left them.
0:05:56 > 0:05:59You can take the girls out of the Land Army,
0:05:59 > 0:06:02but you'll never take Land Army out of the girl.
0:06:02 > 0:06:05I still grow onions out there and strawberries.
0:06:05 > 0:06:09Anything I can fit in that tiny plot if I can bend down.
0:06:09 > 0:06:10On a good day, I can bend.
0:06:10 > 0:06:14On a bad day, it takes potluck cos I can't bend any more.
0:06:14 > 0:06:16I am 90. Yep.
0:06:22 > 0:06:24At the office, Josh is looking for any evidence
0:06:24 > 0:06:28that Joyce and her husband George may have had children.
0:06:28 > 0:06:31Doesn't look like there was any issued to the marriage,
0:06:31 > 0:06:34so our next step is to go back a generation and work out
0:06:34 > 0:06:36what's happened to the other kin.
0:06:36 > 0:06:38Maybe she has siblings.
0:06:38 > 0:06:42To do this, the team refer to Joyce's birth certificate,
0:06:42 > 0:06:45which gives them the names of her parents.
0:06:45 > 0:06:47Their marriage certificate is now key,
0:06:47 > 0:06:50as it will give Joyce's mother's maiden name.
0:06:50 > 0:06:54So, I've got there a marriage certificate here.
0:06:54 > 0:07:00Joseph Britten marries on the 7th of June, 1923.
0:07:00 > 0:07:02He's 50 years old at the time of marriage.
0:07:02 > 0:07:05He's also an engraver on steel and copper.
0:07:05 > 0:07:09He's a bachelor and his father's name is John Britten
0:07:09 > 0:07:11and he was a printer's manager.
0:07:12 > 0:07:16His wife, Joyce's mother, was Hilda Florence Pocock.
0:07:16 > 0:07:19She was 25 years old. She was a spinster.
0:07:19 > 0:07:23She had no profession, and her father was Sidney Albert Pocock,
0:07:23 > 0:07:25who was a cabinet maker.
0:07:25 > 0:07:29In 1896, Joyce's grandfather Sidney
0:07:29 > 0:07:31married her grandmother Florence Gaywood,
0:07:31 > 0:07:34and when the team searched for evidence of any other children,
0:07:34 > 0:07:38they discovered something very interesting on the census records.
0:07:38 > 0:07:42On the '01, they also listed infirmities,
0:07:42 > 0:07:44and he is actually down as being totally deaf.
0:07:46 > 0:07:47The team have done birth searches
0:07:47 > 0:07:50and now found that Joyce's maternal grandparents
0:07:50 > 0:07:53had four children in total.
0:07:53 > 0:07:56They need to follow each line to see if they can find anyone
0:07:56 > 0:07:59who is entitled to a portion of Joyce's estate.
0:08:00 > 0:08:02But they weren't in luck.
0:08:02 > 0:08:06Edith had died in childhood and Winifred's children had passed away.
0:08:06 > 0:08:09This left only descendents of uncle Alfred's
0:08:09 > 0:08:11who could be heirs.
0:08:11 > 0:08:14From the stem of Alfred Ambrose Pocock,
0:08:14 > 0:08:16we were able to establish, obviously, that he was married
0:08:16 > 0:08:19and that he had several children.
0:08:19 > 0:08:20Now, these were all Pococks.
0:08:20 > 0:08:22We were able to find the birth records,
0:08:22 > 0:08:25but after that, the trail went completely cold.
0:08:25 > 0:08:27There must have been a reason for that.
0:08:27 > 0:08:32We couldn't establish really any records after 1942,
0:08:32 > 0:08:34which was very unusual.
0:08:34 > 0:08:39So, really a stroke of luck was the records of Cyril Ambrose Pocock.
0:08:39 > 0:08:41Now, he had a very unusual Christian name,
0:08:41 > 0:08:45and we were able to locate records under the surname of Preston.
0:08:45 > 0:08:47If we applied to that to the rest of the family,
0:08:47 > 0:08:49we started finding everybody else's records.
0:08:49 > 0:08:53So, there had been a family name change at some point,
0:08:53 > 0:08:55and they had gone from Pocock to Preston.
0:08:56 > 0:08:59With the name change cleared up, the team were able to find
0:08:59 > 0:09:02a total of eight heirs on this side of the family.
0:09:02 > 0:09:04But there was still more to uncover
0:09:04 > 0:09:07on Joyce's father Joseph Britten's side.
0:09:07 > 0:09:12On the 1891 census, Joseph had seven siblings,
0:09:12 > 0:09:16the oldest of which was Frederick, who was 20 years old.
0:09:16 > 0:09:19Then we had Joseph, who was 18 years old,
0:09:19 > 0:09:24Emily, who was 16 years old, Ellen, who was 14.
0:09:24 > 0:09:27We had Florence, who was 11, Lily, who was five,
0:09:27 > 0:09:29and Rose, who was also five years old,
0:09:29 > 0:09:32so they could possibly be twins.
0:09:32 > 0:09:34The team checked an earlier census
0:09:34 > 0:09:36to see if they had any older children,
0:09:36 > 0:09:37and found one more.
0:09:39 > 0:09:44There is actually an older child, Elizabeth, a daughter.
0:09:44 > 0:09:47So, she is the eldest sibling of Joseph
0:09:47 > 0:09:50and the oldest daughter of John and Sarah.
0:09:50 > 0:09:54You've got to cover all bases and make sure you can, you know,
0:09:54 > 0:09:56find as many people as possible.
0:09:56 > 0:09:58And as the team began to look
0:09:58 > 0:10:01for living descendents of Joyce's aunts and uncles,
0:10:01 > 0:10:04they came across something interesting about Mary.
0:10:05 > 0:10:08She had seven children,
0:10:08 > 0:10:11and that was by the 1911 census, so...
0:10:11 > 0:10:13Whereas most of the other parts of the family
0:10:13 > 0:10:15were having just one child or even no children,
0:10:15 > 0:10:18Mary, obviously, decided to make up for the rest of the family.
0:10:18 > 0:10:21Mary had five sons and two daughters,
0:10:21 > 0:10:25born between 1892 and 1905.
0:10:25 > 0:10:26Mary's children,
0:10:26 > 0:10:30they were the generation a lot of which went to war.
0:10:30 > 0:10:34By the 1940s, Mary's youngest child David
0:10:34 > 0:10:38was working as an interceptor and the Second World War.
0:10:38 > 0:10:42David would listen into and record enemy radio transmissions.
0:10:42 > 0:10:43Without volunteers like him,
0:10:43 > 0:10:47there would've been no messages to decode.
0:10:47 > 0:10:50Of those seven children of Joyce's aunt Mary,
0:10:50 > 0:10:54the team managed to track down seven cousins once removed
0:10:54 > 0:10:56and eight cousins twice removed.
0:10:56 > 0:10:59So, in the end, on the paternal side of the family,
0:10:59 > 0:11:00there were 17 heirs,
0:11:00 > 0:11:05and the majority of those heirs come from Mary herself.
0:11:07 > 0:11:10One of these heirs is David's daughter, Sylvia,
0:11:10 > 0:11:12who never knew her father's cousin Joyce.
0:11:14 > 0:11:18I was very surprised to know that I had any further relations
0:11:18 > 0:11:20other than the ones I know.
0:11:20 > 0:11:24I'd never heard the name Joyce Hilda Houlden before,
0:11:24 > 0:11:26nor of her father Joseph.
0:11:26 > 0:11:32It's very strange to inherit from somebody I never knew.
0:11:32 > 0:11:33She was a stranger,
0:11:33 > 0:11:37and there are all kinds of questions about what she was like.
0:11:37 > 0:11:40It would have been nice to know her, I think.
0:11:43 > 0:11:47But Sylvia does have fond memories of her own grandmother Mary,
0:11:47 > 0:11:49who would've been Joyce's aunt.
0:11:49 > 0:11:53I know that she was a suffragette - my parents told me about this -
0:11:53 > 0:11:56and that she was there on the occasion,
0:11:56 > 0:12:00or one of the occasions, I imagine, when Sylvia Pankhurst was arrested,
0:12:00 > 0:12:03but she had to get home and get the dinner up
0:12:03 > 0:12:05for her five sons and two daughters,
0:12:05 > 0:12:08so she got on a tram and off she went.
0:12:08 > 0:12:12I don't think she was ever arrested. I've never been told that.
0:12:16 > 0:12:19The total value of all of Joyce's possessions,
0:12:19 > 0:12:24including the sale of her house, came to ?300,000,
0:12:24 > 0:12:27which will be split between all 25 heirs,
0:12:27 > 0:12:31but for Sylvia, it isn't about the inheritance she will receive.
0:12:31 > 0:12:34I'm quite content with what I have.
0:12:34 > 0:12:37I've no ambitions to have a bigger house.
0:12:37 > 0:12:39In fact, in some ways, I'd like it to be a little smaller.
0:12:39 > 0:12:44But it is interesting just to know about her.
0:12:44 > 0:12:45I wish she wasn't a stranger.
0:12:54 > 0:12:57In some of the cases the heir hunters investigate,
0:12:57 > 0:13:00trying to track down living heirs is like piecing together
0:13:00 > 0:13:03a jigsaw puzzle with no picture to follow.
0:13:03 > 0:13:07I've got her birth now, so hopefully, we can find her. OK.
0:13:07 > 0:13:09One case that proved particularly tricky
0:13:09 > 0:13:12was that of Arthur Sebastian Pickwell.
0:13:15 > 0:13:18He lived in a small bedsit in St Albans
0:13:18 > 0:13:24and passed away on the 5th of June 2014, aged 78.
0:13:24 > 0:13:28His friend and work colleague Jennifer remembers him well.
0:13:28 > 0:13:32I first met Arthur Pickwell in St Albans City Hospital
0:13:32 > 0:13:37in about 1976 when I was a staff nurse
0:13:37 > 0:13:39on the intensive care unit
0:13:39 > 0:13:43and he worked next door in the operating theatres
0:13:43 > 0:13:47as a theatre technician.
0:13:47 > 0:13:50I think the surgeons put a lot of trust in Arthur
0:13:50 > 0:13:53because he was vital to what they were doing.
0:13:53 > 0:13:56If they needed something, Arthur knew where it was.
0:13:56 > 0:13:59But it was after Arthur retired from his job
0:13:59 > 0:14:01that he and Jennifer became friends.
0:14:03 > 0:14:06He came to live just nearby to where we live,
0:14:06 > 0:14:11and I used to see him walking up to down every day
0:14:11 > 0:14:13to get his paper and his shopping.
0:14:13 > 0:14:17He never came around to our house, even though I invited him.
0:14:17 > 0:14:20He was quite content to be on his own.
0:14:20 > 0:14:23Didn't really see him with any friends.
0:14:23 > 0:14:25Every week, called round to see him.
0:14:25 > 0:14:29And then when he became ill, he had to go for investigations.
0:14:29 > 0:14:33My husband and I said we'd take him to the hospital,
0:14:33 > 0:14:36and that was only a few weeks before he died.
0:14:38 > 0:14:40As Arthur had passed away without making a will
0:14:40 > 0:14:42and with no known family,
0:14:42 > 0:14:46the details were picked up by senior case manager Amy Moyes
0:14:46 > 0:14:48at London heir-hunting firm Finders.
0:14:48 > 0:14:50With the surname Pickwell,
0:14:50 > 0:14:53it looked like a pretty good surname to work with.
0:14:53 > 0:14:56It's not particularly common.
0:14:56 > 0:14:59It may be more common to wherever he may have been born,
0:14:59 > 0:15:02but for the time being, it looked like a good surname to work with.
0:15:02 > 0:15:04I did a birth search
0:15:04 > 0:15:08looking for an Arthur Sebastian Pickwell
0:15:08 > 0:15:09in Holbeach.
0:15:09 > 0:15:13The one that popped up was an Arthur Pickwell,
0:15:13 > 0:15:16no middle name, born in 1926.
0:15:16 > 0:15:19I noticed straightaway that on the indexes
0:15:19 > 0:15:22it noted that his mother's maiden name was Pickwell.
0:15:23 > 0:15:27Either his mother and father were both Pickwells by birth,
0:15:27 > 0:15:30which would probably be slightly unusual,
0:15:30 > 0:15:33especially given the surname is less common,
0:15:33 > 0:15:38or Arthur was actually an illegitimate child,
0:15:38 > 0:15:41which would potentially make our work a lot more difficult.
0:15:43 > 0:15:46I noticed that he didn't have a father noted
0:15:46 > 0:15:48on his birth certificate.
0:15:48 > 0:15:52I did think that this would be a lot harder than I first thought.
0:15:52 > 0:15:55This meant that I couldn't do a marriage search
0:15:55 > 0:15:56between his parents,
0:15:56 > 0:15:58cos I just had the plain Annie Pickwell to work with.
0:16:00 > 0:16:04Arthur's birth certificate gave them some clues that may help.
0:16:04 > 0:16:08We noticed that Annie Pickwell was a domestic servant
0:16:08 > 0:16:10at Holbeach Drove.
0:16:11 > 0:16:15The team knew Annie Pickwell worked in a place called Holbeach Drove,
0:16:15 > 0:16:20but Arthur's birth certificate said he was born in Shrubbery, Fleet.
0:16:20 > 0:16:23Suzanne decided to investigate further.
0:16:23 > 0:16:26So, I had a look and I found that The Shrubbery, Fleet
0:16:26 > 0:16:27was actually a workhouse.
0:16:27 > 0:16:30I found that often in these cases,
0:16:30 > 0:16:34they give names to prevent embarrassment on birth certificates,
0:16:34 > 0:16:38so that made me think that he probably wasn't aware
0:16:38 > 0:16:39of his family.
0:16:39 > 0:16:42He probably didn't know his mother Annie existed.
0:16:42 > 0:16:47It seems as though he was born at the workhouse and left there.
0:16:49 > 0:16:51Arthur's friend Jennifer remembers he did talk
0:16:51 > 0:16:53about his upbringing on one occasion.
0:16:53 > 0:16:57I once asked him had he got any family,
0:16:57 > 0:17:01and he said, "I haven't," and that was quite a few years ago.
0:17:01 > 0:17:05And from that conversation, I thought, "Poor man.
0:17:05 > 0:17:07"He needs, you know,
0:17:07 > 0:17:14"some...somebody to sort of, um, be his friend, I suppose."
0:17:14 > 0:17:16Hmm. Yeah.
0:17:18 > 0:17:21In 1926, when Arthur's mother Annie was pregnant with him,
0:17:21 > 0:17:25she was a domestic servant so probably had little choice
0:17:25 > 0:17:28but to go to the workhouse.
0:17:28 > 0:17:32Peter Higginbotham has researched Britain's workhouses extensively.
0:17:32 > 0:17:35The workhouse was the last place you would want to have a baby,
0:17:35 > 0:17:40and anybody who possibly could would make other arrangements.
0:17:40 > 0:17:43So, really, it was the people with no money,
0:17:43 > 0:17:46and particularly the working class, who would end up there.
0:17:48 > 0:17:51Annie Pickwell, as a single domestic servant in those days,
0:17:51 > 0:17:53really wouldn't have had much option.
0:17:53 > 0:17:55If you were a pregnant domestic servant,
0:17:55 > 0:17:56you may well have lost your job.
0:17:56 > 0:17:58Your family may have disowned you.
0:17:58 > 0:18:00And to have a baby, you really need two things.
0:18:00 > 0:18:02You need a place to have it
0:18:02 > 0:18:04and possibly pay for a midwife or a doctor.
0:18:04 > 0:18:06I mean, there were charities around,
0:18:06 > 0:18:09but a lot of those wouldn't deal with single mothers.
0:18:09 > 0:18:14It was only when the workhouse opened its doors to a single mother.
0:18:16 > 0:18:19They didn't know anything about his original family.
0:18:19 > 0:18:21Back at the office, the team were trying to see
0:18:21 > 0:18:24if Arthur had any family he may never have known about.
0:18:25 > 0:18:27Dealing with an illegitimate birth,
0:18:27 > 0:18:30there are a number of issues that are thrown up.
0:18:30 > 0:18:32For instance, being able to establish whether
0:18:32 > 0:18:36there were any additional siblings, illegitimate or legitimate.
0:18:36 > 0:18:39The only detail they had to go on was his mother's name,
0:18:39 > 0:18:42Annie Pickwell, and the area she lived,
0:18:42 > 0:18:45Holbeach in Lincolnshire.
0:18:45 > 0:18:47Found that Annie didn't ever marry,
0:18:47 > 0:18:51so then went on to see if she had any other children out of wedlock.
0:18:51 > 0:18:54First of all, we started off in the Holbeach area,
0:18:54 > 0:18:55cos if she had Arthur in Holbeach,
0:18:55 > 0:18:59I assume she may have other children in that area.
0:18:59 > 0:19:02'I did a Pickwell-Pickwell birth search
0:19:02 > 0:19:04'and the first one that came up'
0:19:04 > 0:19:09was for an Albert Pickwell in 1913 in Holbeach.
0:19:09 > 0:19:13The birth certificate for Albert Pickwell was ordered.
0:19:13 > 0:19:15It revealed that in fact
0:19:15 > 0:19:18his mother was Annie Pickwell as well.
0:19:18 > 0:19:19Domestic servant.
0:19:19 > 0:19:22And again, the address comes up, Holbeach Drove,
0:19:22 > 0:19:25which certainly links it back to Arthur.
0:19:25 > 0:19:29He was born on 23rd of October 1913,
0:19:29 > 0:19:32so that was actually 13 years previously.
0:19:32 > 0:19:36So, it looked like Arthur had a brother who was also illegitimate.
0:19:36 > 0:19:38If he had had any children,
0:19:38 > 0:19:40they would be the heirs the team were looking for.
0:19:40 > 0:19:44There were a few possibilities that I thought could've happened.
0:19:44 > 0:19:46The first, that he may have gone abroad.
0:19:46 > 0:19:50That's why nothing was coming up in the UK records.
0:19:50 > 0:19:52Another possibility was that he might have grown-up
0:19:52 > 0:19:55with another family using a different surname,
0:19:55 > 0:19:59which made me think I needed to look a bit more into Annie
0:19:59 > 0:20:03and into Holbeach Drove to find out more about the family.
0:20:03 > 0:20:07They found that Annie Pickwell was born in 1889
0:20:07 > 0:20:09and that her mother was also called Annie,
0:20:09 > 0:20:11but there was no father listed.
0:20:11 > 0:20:16It seems Arthur and Albert's mother had also been born illegitimate.
0:20:19 > 0:20:21And now I'm going to look into another line
0:20:21 > 0:20:22where we can start working on it now.
0:20:22 > 0:20:25When Annie was two in 1891,
0:20:25 > 0:20:28there were almost 1.4 million domestic servants
0:20:28 > 0:20:30working inside Britain's homes.
0:20:30 > 0:20:33The census for this year would give the team an idea
0:20:33 > 0:20:36of the kind of life Annie and her mother were living then
0:20:36 > 0:20:38and who they were living with.
0:20:38 > 0:20:41The census showed that Annie Pickwell Snr
0:20:41 > 0:20:45was working as a domestic servant in the household of Charles Alexander.
0:20:46 > 0:20:50He had a family and they seemed to be their servants,
0:20:50 > 0:20:52so it did a census search
0:20:52 > 0:20:56and I couldn't find either Annie Pickwells on any censuses,
0:20:56 > 0:20:59apart from this one, the 1891.
0:20:59 > 0:21:02I then thought I should follow the Alexanders
0:21:02 > 0:21:04to see what happened to them.
0:21:04 > 0:21:07By that time of the next census in 1901,
0:21:07 > 0:21:10things were quite different in the Alexander household
0:21:10 > 0:21:11at Holbeach Drove.
0:21:12 > 0:21:16I found that there was an Annie Alexander married
0:21:16 > 0:21:17to a Charles Alexander.
0:21:17 > 0:21:19This seems to show that Charles
0:21:19 > 0:21:22actually married his domestic servant
0:21:22 > 0:21:24after his wife had passed away.
0:21:25 > 0:21:28Now married to her employer, the team discovered that
0:21:28 > 0:21:31Charles Alexander had made an unusual gesture
0:21:31 > 0:21:35towards his new wife's illegitimate daughter, Annie.
0:21:35 > 0:21:39As being born out of wedlock was frowned upon during that era,
0:21:39 > 0:21:41he listed her as a daughter,
0:21:41 > 0:21:44so she seemed to fit in with the rest of the family,
0:21:44 > 0:21:48but in fact, her birth name was Pickwell.
0:21:48 > 0:21:51This finding had given the team that crucial lead
0:21:51 > 0:21:55they needed with Arthur's half-brother Albert.
0:21:55 > 0:21:57So, this discovery of the Alexander surname
0:21:57 > 0:22:00then made me look back at Albert Pickwell,
0:22:00 > 0:22:02which made me think he could have possibly taken on
0:22:02 > 0:22:04the Alexander name.
0:22:04 > 0:22:07The next step was to search for a death certificate
0:22:07 > 0:22:10of an Albert Alexander with the same date of birth
0:22:10 > 0:22:12as Albert Pickwell.
0:22:12 > 0:22:13Straight away,
0:22:13 > 0:22:15I found he only passed away down the road
0:22:15 > 0:22:17from where he was actually born.
0:22:17 > 0:22:22To me, this looked like this was definitely the correct person,
0:22:22 > 0:22:24given the Alexander surname
0:22:24 > 0:22:27links in with the rest of the family.
0:22:27 > 0:22:30They now knew that Albert Alexander was the Albert Pickwell
0:22:30 > 0:22:32they were looking for.
0:22:32 > 0:22:34I found that he married,
0:22:34 > 0:22:36but unfortunately, he had no children.
0:22:36 > 0:22:39This led us back to square one.
0:22:39 > 0:22:43But the hunt for Albert did unlock yet more family secrets.
0:22:43 > 0:22:47When the team looked at the death certificate for Annie Pickwell Snr,
0:22:47 > 0:22:49who'd married again and become Mrs Bloom,
0:22:49 > 0:22:52grandson Albert was the informant,
0:22:52 > 0:22:54but he was recorded as her son.
0:22:54 > 0:22:57Him being listed as the son could've meant he grew up thinking
0:22:57 > 0:23:00his grandmother was his mother
0:23:00 > 0:23:03and actually his mother was his sister.
0:23:03 > 0:23:05Which may also explain why Albert's name
0:23:05 > 0:23:08was changed to Alexander when he was growing up.
0:23:08 > 0:23:11So, when we deal with children who are born out of wedlock,
0:23:11 > 0:23:14it's quite common that they are raised by another family.
0:23:14 > 0:23:17Whether that's due to a formal adoption or an informal adoption,
0:23:17 > 0:23:19there'll be a change of surname there
0:23:19 > 0:23:22and that can make our job vastly more difficult when it comes
0:23:22 > 0:23:24to tracing their whereabouts
0:23:24 > 0:23:26or whether they've passed away or married.
0:23:27 > 0:23:31In the early 20th century when Albert was born,
0:23:31 > 0:23:34the social stigma of illegitimacy was very strong.
0:23:34 > 0:23:37Families responded to illegitimacy with strategies
0:23:37 > 0:23:39to try to minimise the damage,
0:23:39 > 0:23:42so changing Albert's name, his surname,
0:23:42 > 0:23:45to absorb him into a family where he could be raised
0:23:45 > 0:23:50in a respectable way would've been a very common sleight-of-hand.
0:23:51 > 0:23:53Children's right to know about their parentage
0:23:53 > 0:23:57wasn't regarded as a kind of paramount right,
0:23:57 > 0:24:00and it would've been quite common for children to later discover
0:24:00 > 0:24:02that their auntie was in fact their mother or,
0:24:02 > 0:24:05you know, their grandmother turned out to be
0:24:05 > 0:24:06a different kind of relative.
0:24:07 > 0:24:11But the question still remained why Albert was able to be adopted
0:24:11 > 0:24:15by the Alexanders, but Arthur was sent to the workhouse.
0:24:15 > 0:24:18Yeah, I'll look into that one. OK.
0:24:19 > 0:24:21The team investigated further
0:24:21 > 0:24:24and found that Charles Alexander died in 1913
0:24:24 > 0:24:27and Annie Snr later remarried.
0:24:28 > 0:24:29It does seem to be quite likely
0:24:29 > 0:24:33that when Annie Snr married somebody new that
0:24:33 > 0:24:36that really closed off the options for Annie Jr,
0:24:36 > 0:24:40so that new husband might well have been really not interested
0:24:40 > 0:24:43in dealing with any more illegitimate children,
0:24:43 > 0:24:45so that would've made for some very tragic choices for Annie Jr.
0:24:49 > 0:24:52Despite solving the riddle of Albert Pickwell
0:24:52 > 0:24:54becoming Albert Alexander,
0:24:54 > 0:24:56the team was still no closer to finding any heirs
0:24:56 > 0:24:57to Arthur's estate.
0:24:59 > 0:25:01We're a genealogy company.
0:25:01 > 0:25:04For researcher Suzanne, it was back to the drawing board.
0:25:05 > 0:25:06Bye-bye.
0:25:06 > 0:25:09So, I searched for more births of Annie Pickwell,
0:25:09 > 0:25:11the domestic servants,
0:25:11 > 0:25:16and another birth came up in that area - Fred Pickwell.
0:25:16 > 0:25:18Mother's maiden name, Pickwell.
0:25:18 > 0:25:22So, again, this looked like another son of Annie.
0:25:22 > 0:25:26Like Arthur, Fred was born after Charles Alexander had died,
0:25:26 > 0:25:29and when his birth certificate arrived
0:25:29 > 0:25:30there was no father listed
0:25:30 > 0:25:33and his place of birth was the workhouse again.
0:25:35 > 0:25:38At this point, I didn't think I would be able to find
0:25:38 > 0:25:39any heirs for Arthur,
0:25:39 > 0:25:43so another way I tried to find Fred Pickwell
0:25:43 > 0:25:47was to search for a Fred using his date of birth.
0:25:48 > 0:25:52AMY: We came up with one hit for a Fred Halgarth
0:25:52 > 0:25:55who had passed away in 1992 in Holbeach.
0:25:55 > 0:25:59Now, this is the exact area where Fred Pickwell had been born,
0:25:59 > 0:26:02and so we were fairly confident that this was probably
0:26:02 > 0:26:06our Fred Pickwell having simply changed his name.
0:26:06 > 0:26:08In the circumstances like this one
0:26:08 > 0:26:10where Fred had been born in a workhouse,
0:26:10 > 0:26:13from time to time, you come across a situation where that child
0:26:13 > 0:26:15perhaps was raised by another family,
0:26:15 > 0:26:19so the child takes on a new surname rather than by official adoption.
0:26:21 > 0:26:26The team found that Fred Halgarth had married Beatrice Hall in 1941
0:26:26 > 0:26:28and they'd gone on to have a son, Raymond Halgarth.
0:26:30 > 0:26:33From his marriage, the team located two heirs.
0:26:38 > 0:26:40Fred Halgarth's grandson Karl
0:26:40 > 0:26:42knew nothing about his grandfather's past,
0:26:42 > 0:26:45and he had never heard of the name Pickwell.
0:26:45 > 0:26:47I feel sorry for Annie Pickwell.
0:26:47 > 0:26:52She grew up in a difficult time and she, obviously, made mistakes,
0:26:52 > 0:26:55but, you know, no-one is there to judge, and they're not,
0:26:55 > 0:26:58but unfortunately, she passed it on to my grandfather,
0:26:58 > 0:27:02who was probably ashamed of what he was,
0:27:02 > 0:27:03which was nothing bad.
0:27:03 > 0:27:06All three children were illegitimate.
0:27:06 > 0:27:09She was a legitimate. Her mother was illegitimate.
0:27:09 > 0:27:13At the time then, it was taboo.
0:27:13 > 0:27:17My dad didn't know anything because his father, my grandfather,
0:27:17 > 0:27:19wouldn't tell him anything, and he wouldn't.
0:27:19 > 0:27:21He couldn't talk about it,
0:27:21 > 0:27:24and I feel quite sad that he couldn't about it
0:27:24 > 0:27:29cos if it was my kids or grandkids, I'd want to tell them...
0:27:29 > 0:27:30if I had a bad experience.
0:27:30 > 0:27:32He never told his son.
0:27:32 > 0:27:36And he used think a lot of me. He would never tell me.
0:27:36 > 0:27:40He must've carried that around with him all his life.
0:27:40 > 0:27:45Like, an anger and a hurt, and I feel sad for him.
0:27:46 > 0:27:49But for Karl, it's opened up an avenue in his family
0:27:49 > 0:27:52that he's going to continue to explore.
0:27:52 > 0:27:54Me and my sister are going to go
0:27:54 > 0:27:56down to see Arthur and Albert's graves.
0:27:56 > 0:28:01My name is Halgarth, but I'm not sure now whether it is Halgarth.
0:28:01 > 0:28:03Is it Pickwell or...?
0:28:04 > 0:28:10I'm not sure. It's a strange, strange feeling.
0:28:10 > 0:28:11That's the truth.
0:28:43 > 0:28:45I don't quite know what I'm going to get round the corner.
0:28:45 > 0:28:49Nadiya's journey across Bangladesh to explore her roots continues.
0:28:49 > 0:28:50I have to keep pinching myself.
0:28:50 > 0:28:52I cannot believe where I am right now.
0:28:52 > 0:28:53That's all right.
0:28:53 > 0:28:56Got my first selfie in Bangladesh!
0:28:56 > 0:28:58I'm tempted to say, "Ahoy!"