0:00:02 > 0:00:03- Today... - Do you want to find parents?
0:00:03 > 0:00:05I'll try and find marriage information.
0:00:05 > 0:00:07..heir hunters race to find family
0:00:07 > 0:00:10on one of their most valuable cases ever.
0:00:10 > 0:00:12It's going to be a highly competitive case,
0:00:12 > 0:00:15with a large family tree to be looking into.
0:00:15 > 0:00:17It's going to be a lot of work.
0:00:17 > 0:00:21Heirs receive potentially life-changing sums of cash.
0:00:21 > 0:00:25To find that you're part of an inheritance is quite a shock.
0:00:26 > 0:00:30And the bravery of unsung heroes in wartime Britain is discovered.
0:00:30 > 0:00:32The men up in the front line
0:00:32 > 0:00:34were doing a dangerous job in a dangerous place.
0:00:46 > 0:00:49In London, heir-hunting firm Finders have been working
0:00:49 > 0:00:52on a new case worth hundreds of thousands of pounds
0:00:52 > 0:00:54from the government's Bona Vacantia list.
0:00:54 > 0:00:57There was quite a high value to the estate.
0:00:57 > 0:00:59Could you just give them a call just to confirm?
0:00:59 > 0:01:04A property in London, sort of the Holy Grail of cases,
0:01:04 > 0:01:07you've always got a lot of competition on these ones.
0:01:07 > 0:01:11We've got to make sure that we work really quickly, really accurately.
0:01:11 > 0:01:14- Could you just give us one and let me know?- Yeah, sure.- Thanks.
0:01:14 > 0:01:16When we picked up on the case, we didn't look at the surname
0:01:16 > 0:01:18and think it would pose us many problems.
0:01:18 > 0:01:22But Ryan soon learnt he was being overconfident.
0:01:22 > 0:01:24We were left scratching our heads
0:01:24 > 0:01:26because we couldn't find any record of them.
0:01:27 > 0:01:31The estate was that of Barbara Lillian Irene Kirk,
0:01:31 > 0:01:37who was born in 1929 and passed away in London in June 2015.
0:01:37 > 0:01:41She lived in Hampstead Garden Suburb, an area she loved,
0:01:41 > 0:01:43having lived there for over two decades.
0:01:43 > 0:01:48I understand Barbara Kirk was here for over 20 years.
0:01:48 > 0:01:51To live in Hampstead Garden Suburb is regarded by most of the people
0:01:51 > 0:01:54who live here as something special.
0:01:54 > 0:01:57People do tend to stop and have a chat.
0:01:57 > 0:02:00It is a friendlier area
0:02:00 > 0:02:02than most, I think, in London.
0:02:02 > 0:02:05So, from that point of view, it's a good place to live.
0:02:05 > 0:02:08Barbara also worked as a pathologist
0:02:08 > 0:02:11at a Central London hospital for over 40 years.
0:02:11 > 0:02:13She would have had a wide range of roles,
0:02:13 > 0:02:16helping in the diagnosis and maintenance of the patient.
0:02:17 > 0:02:21Barbara is likely to have started her job at the very foundation
0:02:21 > 0:02:23of the NHS in 1948,
0:02:23 > 0:02:28where openings for women in the workplace were expanding rapidly.
0:02:28 > 0:02:31This was not somebody who just went in as a young girl
0:02:31 > 0:02:33and sort of stayed doing the same job.
0:02:33 > 0:02:36MLSOs - medical laboratory scientific officers -
0:02:36 > 0:02:38began to have a career progression.
0:02:38 > 0:02:41There would have been training courses.
0:02:41 > 0:02:44Barbara appears to have taken hold of these new opportunities
0:02:44 > 0:02:46with both hands,
0:02:46 > 0:02:48but it would have taken a certain type of character
0:02:48 > 0:02:50to perform her crucial work.
0:02:50 > 0:02:52Well, I think you have to be methodical
0:02:52 > 0:02:53because it's really important.
0:02:53 > 0:02:56People's lives depend on getting the right blood, for example,
0:02:56 > 0:02:57in a blood transfusion.
0:02:59 > 0:03:02Barbara played a vital role in patient care in the NHS,
0:03:02 > 0:03:05but she appeared to have passed away without a will
0:03:05 > 0:03:06or any close relatives.
0:03:07 > 0:03:09Do you mind just pulling this up?
0:03:09 > 0:03:14Case manager Holly Jones was tasked with finding her heirs.
0:03:14 > 0:03:16It appears that she wasn't married,
0:03:16 > 0:03:19so we'll probably be looking for a wider family.
0:03:19 > 0:03:21It's not going to be a close kin tree.
0:03:21 > 0:03:23A large family tree to be looking into.
0:03:23 > 0:03:25It's going to be a lot of work.
0:03:26 > 0:03:29Cheers. Thanks a lot. Bye-bye.
0:03:29 > 0:03:33The area Barbara lived in meant her case was a priority.
0:03:34 > 0:03:38So we valued Barbara's estate at roughly £800,000.
0:03:38 > 0:03:40Quite a large estate.
0:03:40 > 0:03:43This is definitely up with some of the larger ones that we work on.
0:03:43 > 0:03:45With such a large amount of money at stake,
0:03:45 > 0:03:48the team sent a travelling representative out
0:03:48 > 0:03:52to uncover what they could about Barbara's life from her local area.
0:03:52 > 0:03:57Neighbours often know a lot more about the deceased.
0:03:57 > 0:03:59Peter George is a seasoned travelling rep
0:03:59 > 0:04:02and knows how valuable his work can be to the office.
0:04:02 > 0:04:06You'd never get to know that merely by looking at a computer screen.
0:04:06 > 0:04:12So it's important to try and speak to as many neighbours as you can.
0:04:12 > 0:04:14I like being out on the road.
0:04:14 > 0:04:17You know, I've never been based in an office anywhere.
0:04:17 > 0:04:20And I enjoy meeting the public, talking to people
0:04:20 > 0:04:23and making enquires. That's what this job's all about.
0:04:33 > 0:04:36Peter doesn't seem to have much luck.
0:04:39 > 0:04:43Often, people are very suspicious of cold callers.
0:04:45 > 0:04:48But people are right to be suspicious
0:04:48 > 0:04:51cos there are a lot of people out there to...to con people.
0:04:53 > 0:04:55Obviously, that's not what we're about.
0:04:55 > 0:04:58We are genuine and we're merely trying to trace relatives
0:04:58 > 0:05:01that can inherit from the estate.
0:05:01 > 0:05:04Having gleaned no helpful information about Barbara's family,
0:05:04 > 0:05:08the pressure is on the office team to unlock the case themselves.
0:05:08 > 0:05:11Having established she never married or had children,
0:05:11 > 0:05:14the first step is to find Barbara's parents
0:05:14 > 0:05:16to see if she had any brothers and sisters.
0:05:16 > 0:05:19And to do this, they need Barbara's birth record.
0:05:19 > 0:05:22Kirk isn't a particularly unusual name,
0:05:22 > 0:05:25which has plusses and minuses for us.
0:05:25 > 0:05:29If you're working with a really common name such as Jones or Smith,
0:05:29 > 0:05:33obviously, it can make your research work much more difficult -
0:05:33 > 0:05:36you have to go through many more records.
0:05:36 > 0:05:40Kirk falls somewhere in the middle of that, I suppose.
0:05:40 > 0:05:43In this instance, Barbara had two middle names -
0:05:43 > 0:05:45Irene and Lillian -
0:05:45 > 0:05:49so that was helpful in narrowing down our Kirk searches.
0:05:51 > 0:05:54Some surnames are going to be harder to work,
0:05:54 > 0:05:56you would imagine, from the outset.
0:05:56 > 0:05:59It depends, often, on the combination of forenames
0:05:59 > 0:06:03and whether dates of birth, etc, are easy to identify and confirm.
0:06:03 > 0:06:07When we search for Barbara Kirks being born in 1929
0:06:07 > 0:06:12in England and Wales, there are about seven results.
0:06:12 > 0:06:16However, there's only one with middle initials I and L.
0:06:16 > 0:06:18Hello.
0:06:18 > 0:06:19Hi.
0:06:19 > 0:06:22When Barbara's birth certificate does come through,
0:06:22 > 0:06:23the team are hoping
0:06:23 > 0:06:27it will kick-start the search for her parents.
0:06:27 > 0:06:29From Barbara's birth certificate,
0:06:29 > 0:06:33we can also see her mother's name - Helen Kirk.
0:06:33 > 0:06:38It has her profession as a housemaid or a nursemaid.
0:06:38 > 0:06:40Thanks so much, Jean. Cheers. Bye-bye.
0:06:41 > 0:06:43But there's something missing.
0:06:43 > 0:06:48Barbara's birth certificate didn't have any father entered on it,
0:06:48 > 0:06:50and she was illegitimate.
0:06:50 > 0:06:53It changes the way that we would do our research
0:06:53 > 0:06:56compared to if she were born within a marriage.
0:06:56 > 0:06:58Typically, when a person is born out of wedlock,
0:06:58 > 0:07:01there'd be no father's name on the birth certificate.
0:07:01 > 0:07:05So you then have to consider that the mother,
0:07:05 > 0:07:07single at the time of birth,
0:07:07 > 0:07:10may then have married and had further children.
0:07:10 > 0:07:13With only one side of the family able to be researched,
0:07:13 > 0:07:16the office team face an uphill struggle.
0:07:16 > 0:07:19They concentrate their efforts to see if Barbara's mother, Helen,
0:07:19 > 0:07:21had any more children.
0:07:21 > 0:07:24We knew from research of the marriage indexes
0:07:24 > 0:07:25that Helen never married,
0:07:25 > 0:07:29therefore there wouldn't be any half-blood siblings to Barbara,
0:07:29 > 0:07:31who were born in wedlock.
0:07:31 > 0:07:35Once we'd established that Barbara was an only child,
0:07:35 > 0:07:39we then needed to go back a generation and focus on
0:07:39 > 0:07:43any brothers and sisters that her mother might have had.
0:07:43 > 0:07:46To do that, we can look at the census.
0:07:46 > 0:07:49Census records are a great resource tool for us
0:07:49 > 0:07:51when we're doing the research into the family trees
0:07:51 > 0:07:53because it's a snapshot of the family.
0:07:53 > 0:07:56They do capture the family at ten-year intervals,
0:07:56 > 0:07:58so very useful but very important.
0:07:58 > 0:08:01There is potentially a few children there.
0:08:01 > 0:08:04Potentially. I really don't think...
0:08:04 > 0:08:08Once located, Barbara's family's listing contained a surprise.
0:08:08 > 0:08:12It appeared her family were from Beverley in Yorkshire.
0:08:12 > 0:08:17Here we have Helen's parents as well as her brothers and sister,
0:08:17 > 0:08:19so we have an instant family tree.
0:08:19 > 0:08:22The records showed Barbara's grandparents -
0:08:22 > 0:08:23Robert Kirk and Mary Smith -
0:08:23 > 0:08:26had four children other than Barbara's mother, Helen.
0:08:26 > 0:08:29So there were aunts and uncles whose children,
0:08:29 > 0:08:30if found, could be heirs.
0:08:30 > 0:08:34But when the team received Robert and Mary's death certificates,
0:08:34 > 0:08:37they could see that fate had taken a terrible toll on the family.
0:08:37 > 0:08:41We actually found out that tragedy struck the family in 1903
0:08:41 > 0:08:43with Robert passing away,
0:08:43 > 0:08:46followed by his wife the year afterwards,
0:08:46 > 0:08:49due to complications with tuberculosis,
0:08:49 > 0:08:53and that left Helen and her brothers and sisters as orphans.
0:08:56 > 0:09:00Tuberculosis was one of the most infectious diseases
0:09:00 > 0:09:03which had reached epidemic proportions across the UK
0:09:03 > 0:09:05at the beginning of the 20th century.
0:09:05 > 0:09:09Well, the symptoms of TB are, first of all, persistent cough.
0:09:09 > 0:09:12A cough that perhaps lasts for three or more weeks.
0:09:12 > 0:09:14Sometimes, people cough up blood.
0:09:14 > 0:09:17The disease is also known as consumption.
0:09:17 > 0:09:19And it does, it consumes the body.
0:09:19 > 0:09:22So you lose weight, often have night-time sweats,
0:09:22 > 0:09:24and literally just waste away.
0:09:26 > 0:09:29Barbara's grandparents, Robert and Mary, would have known
0:09:29 > 0:09:32tuberculosis was almost certainly a death sentence.
0:09:32 > 0:09:35There was very, very little that could be done for TB
0:09:35 > 0:09:37at the beginning of the 20th century.
0:09:38 > 0:09:42There were some surgical procedures for TB,
0:09:42 > 0:09:47but in terms of a medicine, preventative, nothing very much.
0:09:47 > 0:09:49Robert was the sole breadwinner for the family
0:09:49 > 0:09:51as a poorly paid stone breaker,
0:09:51 > 0:09:55so they would have struggled to afford effective treatment.
0:09:55 > 0:09:59You might not even have a doctor, you might not have a regular doctor
0:09:59 > 0:10:01because it was expensive.
0:10:01 > 0:10:04What most people would do, would probably go to the chemists
0:10:04 > 0:10:06and get a tonic of some kind.
0:10:06 > 0:10:08So things like cod liver oil
0:10:08 > 0:10:12or beef and iron tea were very popular at that period
0:10:12 > 0:10:15because there was not very much rational medicine for anything,
0:10:15 > 0:10:17let alone TB.
0:10:17 > 0:10:20If you couldn't afford to take the time off work
0:10:20 > 0:10:23and to go into a hospital or a sanatorium,
0:10:23 > 0:10:25then what option did you have?
0:10:25 > 0:10:28There was very little in the way of sick pay or anything like that
0:10:28 > 0:10:31in the working conditions for most people,
0:10:31 > 0:10:33so most people would have had to carry on.
0:10:34 > 0:10:38And sadly, Barbara's grandparents' circumstances meant one person
0:10:38 > 0:10:41with tuberculosis was a disaster for all of them.
0:10:41 > 0:10:46They were all crowded together, so the infectious agent,
0:10:46 > 0:10:49which is spread by...in the air,
0:10:49 > 0:10:51was passed very easily from member to member.
0:10:51 > 0:10:55So, yes, quite common for whole families to be infected.
0:10:55 > 0:10:59With Robert and Mary dying within a year of each other,
0:10:59 > 0:11:00their children were orphaned in a time
0:11:00 > 0:11:04before the welfare state existed to help those in dire straits.
0:11:10 > 0:11:13Given that four of the youngest Kirk children were very young
0:11:13 > 0:11:15when their parents passed away,
0:11:15 > 0:11:17and this meant that they were orphaned
0:11:17 > 0:11:19prior to reaching the age of 15,
0:11:19 > 0:11:22in retrospect, it looked as though their futures
0:11:22 > 0:11:25would be very challenging from that point.
0:11:25 > 0:11:27But as the team were to discover,
0:11:27 > 0:11:29for two of the orphaned Kirk children -
0:11:29 > 0:11:32Barbara's uncles Robert and Leonard -
0:11:32 > 0:11:35life was about to take a very surprising turn.
0:11:35 > 0:11:36I think, for the boys going out,
0:11:36 > 0:11:39it would have been a big adventure when they got on board the ship.
0:11:46 > 0:11:48Sometimes, cases the heir hunters work
0:11:48 > 0:11:52can reveal unsung heroes hidden in family trees,
0:11:52 > 0:11:55with stories that cross continents and decades.
0:11:58 > 0:12:02One such case was that of Philip Charles Horseman.
0:12:02 > 0:12:05He was born on the 25th January, 1940
0:12:05 > 0:12:07in Islington in North London,
0:12:07 > 0:12:09and spent much of his life living in Kent.
0:12:13 > 0:12:16I would say he was a friendly sort of a person, you know.
0:12:19 > 0:12:22If you happened to be out in the front when he went out,
0:12:22 > 0:12:24you know, he'd say hello.
0:12:26 > 0:12:30When I did have a chat to him, it was mostly about the garden.
0:12:32 > 0:12:35Philip had worked most of his life in the building trade,
0:12:35 > 0:12:38and in retirement, he was famous for his love of routine
0:12:38 > 0:12:42and enjoyed the company in his local community pub every day.
0:12:42 > 0:12:48He used to virtually go to the pub 12 o'clock.
0:12:48 > 0:12:52Half-past two to three o'clock, he'd be back.
0:12:52 > 0:12:56But one lunchtime, Philip didn't make it to his local.
0:12:56 > 0:12:59On the day, I look at my watch and think,
0:12:59 > 0:13:02"Hello. Phil's a bit late going round to the pub." You know.
0:13:02 > 0:13:04You know, that was it. He was gone.
0:13:06 > 0:13:09It is sad. Very, very sad, yes.
0:13:09 > 0:13:10Yeah, very, very sad.
0:13:12 > 0:13:16Philip passed away at home on 22nd of August, 2014,
0:13:16 > 0:13:19without a will or any obvious close family.
0:13:22 > 0:13:24His case was picked up in London
0:13:24 > 0:13:27by senior assistant case manager Amy Cox.
0:13:27 > 0:13:29- Right.- Thanks.- Good luck.
0:13:31 > 0:13:36The case of Philip Charles Horseman came to us via a referral.
0:13:36 > 0:13:38We receive a number of these throughout the year.
0:13:38 > 0:13:40And so while we didn't have an exact value,
0:13:40 > 0:13:43we knew that it's likely that there were going to be funds there
0:13:43 > 0:13:45to be distributed to beneficiaries.
0:13:48 > 0:13:51Amy's team quickly got to work on the case.
0:13:51 > 0:13:53Thank you so much for letting me know. Thanks. Bye.
0:13:55 > 0:13:57First of all, the most important thing to do
0:13:57 > 0:13:58was to check whether or not
0:13:58 > 0:14:01Philip Charles Horseman was ever married.
0:14:01 > 0:14:05So we're typing in "Philip Charles Horseman."
0:14:05 > 0:14:10We know that his date of birth was the 25th of January, 1940.
0:14:10 > 0:14:15We're able to see that Philip never married,
0:14:15 > 0:14:19and then you can assume that he never had any children.
0:14:19 > 0:14:22- Right. Shall we find out parents, first of all?- Yeah.
0:14:22 > 0:14:24And then try and find a marriage for them.
0:14:24 > 0:14:27Do you want to find parents and I'll try and find marriage information?
0:14:27 > 0:14:28Yeah, that's fine.
0:14:28 > 0:14:32Having established that Philip definitely had no close family,
0:14:32 > 0:14:34Amy needed to expand the search.
0:14:35 > 0:14:39Using his death certificate, we could find a birth entry for him.
0:14:39 > 0:14:41His birth entry gave us his father's surname
0:14:41 > 0:14:44and also his mother's maiden name.
0:14:44 > 0:14:46These are absolutely crucial information that you need
0:14:46 > 0:14:49in order to get the case off the ground.
0:14:50 > 0:14:54Philip's father was Thomas Charles Horseman,
0:14:54 > 0:14:59and he married Ellen Hayes on the 21st of January, 1939.
0:14:59 > 0:15:02With the details from the parents' marriage and their forenames,
0:15:02 > 0:15:05we were able to search to see if there were any further children.
0:15:05 > 0:15:09When we did the search, it turned out that Philip was an only child.
0:15:09 > 0:15:13This meant the team would have to find Philip's grandparents
0:15:13 > 0:15:14on both sides of his family
0:15:14 > 0:15:17to locate any aunts and uncles, or their children,
0:15:17 > 0:15:19who could be potential heirs.
0:15:19 > 0:15:22Starting with the paternal side of the family,
0:15:22 > 0:15:25the deceased's father was a Thomas Charles Horseman.
0:15:25 > 0:15:29He was born on the 6th of February, 1905.
0:15:29 > 0:15:32His parents are a Frank Horseman and a Ruth Carbis.
0:15:32 > 0:15:35And on Thomas's birth certificate,
0:15:35 > 0:15:37his father, Frank, is listed as a coal miner.
0:15:37 > 0:15:40But when we started doing our research online,
0:15:40 > 0:15:44we came across a photo of Frank and it looks as though,
0:15:44 > 0:15:47at one point, he had quite a different career.
0:15:47 > 0:15:50Records showed that Philip's paternal grandfather, Frank,
0:15:50 > 0:15:52was a private in the Royal Army Medical Corps
0:15:52 > 0:15:54during World War I,
0:15:54 > 0:15:57but he appears to have had a deep interest in army medicine
0:15:57 > 0:15:59long before war was declared.
0:16:04 > 0:16:07Frank Horseman was a really interesting soldier.
0:16:07 > 0:16:08His original service number
0:16:08 > 0:16:10was number 60. Six, zero.
0:16:10 > 0:16:12That's an incredibly low number.
0:16:12 > 0:16:13And what that says to me
0:16:13 > 0:16:18is that Frank was probably in the volunteer force before 1908,
0:16:18 > 0:16:21so gave up some time in the evenings and at weekends
0:16:21 > 0:16:23to learn those skills.
0:16:23 > 0:16:27The Royal Army Medical Corps was formed in 1898,
0:16:27 > 0:16:30and all its members were highly skilled.
0:16:30 > 0:16:31They were incredibly well trained,
0:16:31 > 0:16:34and that went right from the top with their officers,
0:16:34 > 0:16:36who were trained as doctors and surgeons -
0:16:36 > 0:16:38and very often had been those roles in peacetime -
0:16:38 > 0:16:41right the way down to the stretcher bearers who, again,
0:16:41 > 0:16:44were capable of stopping the bleeding, doing basic first aid,
0:16:44 > 0:16:47to actually get the men off the battlefield in one piece
0:16:47 > 0:16:49and to the hospitals further back.
0:16:52 > 0:16:54But while the medically trained soldiers
0:16:54 > 0:16:57would have been on the front line facing the enemy,
0:16:57 > 0:16:59they would've had no means to defend themselves.
0:17:02 > 0:17:04The Royal Army Medical Corps weren't armed.
0:17:04 > 0:17:06Specifically, they wore the Red Cross armband,
0:17:06 > 0:17:08the Cross of Geneva.
0:17:08 > 0:17:10As part of that, they agree not to bear arms.
0:17:10 > 0:17:12So the job of the infantrymen around them was to protect them
0:17:12 > 0:17:14while they went onto battlefields
0:17:14 > 0:17:16and get the wounded from the battlefield
0:17:16 > 0:17:18and evacuate them as quickly as they could.
0:17:22 > 0:17:26A lot of Royal Army Medical Corps personnel were killed or wounded
0:17:26 > 0:17:28in exactly the same way as the infantry soldiers.
0:17:28 > 0:17:31The men up in the front line were doing a dangerous job
0:17:31 > 0:17:32in a dangerous place
0:17:32 > 0:17:35and suffered exactly the same as everybody else.
0:17:36 > 0:17:38But during World War I,
0:17:38 > 0:17:41Frank wasn't sent to the trenches and mud of Western France.
0:17:41 > 0:17:45He was part of a huge British and Commonwealth army in Egypt
0:17:45 > 0:17:48that invaded Palestine in 1916,
0:17:48 > 0:17:52then held by the Ottoman Turks, allies of Germany.
0:17:52 > 0:17:54The scorching deserts of the Middle East made
0:17:54 > 0:17:57Frank's job of helping the injured even tougher.
0:17:57 > 0:17:59It was very dry, it was very dusty.
0:17:59 > 0:18:02Men wounded on the battlefield would very often lie out
0:18:02 > 0:18:04for several days with no water,
0:18:04 > 0:18:08and they were very, very dehydrated when they were finally brought in.
0:18:10 > 0:18:13The campaign to invade Palestine which Frank was part of
0:18:13 > 0:18:17was overshadowed by the mass slaughter of the Western Front.
0:18:17 > 0:18:20But it was vitally important to the war effort.
0:18:20 > 0:18:24It was one of the most successful campaigns of the entire war.
0:18:24 > 0:18:25It was fairly long, drawn out.
0:18:25 > 0:18:29They'd been fighting right the way from 1915 onwards.
0:18:29 > 0:18:33But the final year of the war, through 1917 and 1918,
0:18:33 > 0:18:35saw a lot of advances through the desert.
0:18:35 > 0:18:38They were building pipes for water.
0:18:38 > 0:18:40They were building railways, roads
0:18:40 > 0:18:42to transport this massive army forward,
0:18:42 > 0:18:43to take on the Turks.
0:18:43 > 0:18:45And in December 1917,
0:18:45 > 0:18:48the British Army captured Jerusalem from the Turks,
0:18:48 > 0:18:52something which may have been especially significant for Frank.
0:18:52 > 0:18:55For a fella who'd spent all of his life in the Valleys, in Wales,
0:18:55 > 0:18:57it must have been quite a thing to see.
0:18:57 > 0:18:59You know, this is the Holy Land.
0:18:59 > 0:19:02It was a big thing to an awful lot of soldiers to actually go places
0:19:02 > 0:19:04that they'd just read about.
0:19:04 > 0:19:10In 1919, Frank Horseman's war ended and he returned home to his family.
0:19:16 > 0:19:19- If you can get the birth certificate ordered, that would be useful.- OK.
0:19:21 > 0:19:23Back in the office, Amy had discovered
0:19:23 > 0:19:26how many children Frank and Ruth had had together.
0:19:28 > 0:19:31With the mother's maiden name, we could do a birth search,
0:19:31 > 0:19:34and there were five other births.
0:19:34 > 0:19:38After Frank and Ruth had married in August 1902,
0:19:38 > 0:19:39they'd had six children.
0:19:39 > 0:19:43But Amy discovered another child who almost fitted in with the family,
0:19:43 > 0:19:47but who had been born before Frank and Ruth got married.
0:19:47 > 0:19:50Ruth Carbis had given birth to a daughter.
0:19:50 > 0:19:53And when we got the birth certificate for that daughter,
0:19:53 > 0:19:55there's no father listed,
0:19:55 > 0:19:58so it would appear that she's illegitimate.
0:19:58 > 0:20:01Illegitimate births are notoriously difficult for the heir hunters.
0:20:01 > 0:20:04They were uncertain whether to include Edith
0:20:04 > 0:20:08as part of the Horseman family, but decided to take a gamble.
0:20:08 > 0:20:10Although Edith was born illegitimately,
0:20:10 > 0:20:13she was born on the 15th of February, 1902,
0:20:13 > 0:20:17which is a good six months before Frank and Ruth actually married.
0:20:17 > 0:20:20It's likely that he was her father,
0:20:20 > 0:20:23but he would have been left off the birth certificate
0:20:23 > 0:20:25because they were unmarried when she was born.
0:20:25 > 0:20:29We had to find either that she was thought to be
0:20:29 > 0:20:33or known to be included as a family member of equal status
0:20:33 > 0:20:35to the other uncles and aunts.
0:20:35 > 0:20:37- These two?- Mm-hm.- OK.- Thank you.
0:20:37 > 0:20:41Amy and the team looked further into Edith's family history,
0:20:41 > 0:20:45and their gamble paid off when they received some vital documents.
0:20:45 > 0:20:49We later discovered that Edith was using the maiden name Horseman
0:20:49 > 0:20:53when she married David Morgan in 1919.
0:20:53 > 0:20:55She also then uses the Horseman surname
0:20:55 > 0:20:57on the birth of her three children.
0:20:57 > 0:21:00And it also then appears later on her death certificate.
0:21:00 > 0:21:04So, for us, that was enough to prove entitlement
0:21:04 > 0:21:08and her children and grandchildren were the heirs to that stem.
0:21:09 > 0:21:12With Edith's children's entitlement confirmed,
0:21:12 > 0:21:14the team had found their first heirs.
0:21:14 > 0:21:18But with another five aunts and uncles still to investigate,
0:21:18 > 0:21:20the hunt was on to find more.
0:21:20 > 0:21:22Thanks, bye.
0:21:22 > 0:21:24And in the next generation of the Horsemans,
0:21:24 > 0:21:27the heir hunters were to uncover another family member
0:21:27 > 0:21:29who'd risked his life to save others.
0:21:29 > 0:21:32He would have witnessed some horrendous sights
0:21:32 > 0:21:37of badly burned air crew crashing back on airfields
0:21:37 > 0:21:38in their fighters.
0:21:45 > 0:21:48Every year in Britain, thousands of people
0:21:48 > 0:21:51get a surprise knock on the door from the heir hunters.
0:21:53 > 0:21:54Good morning.
0:21:54 > 0:21:57But there are still thousands of unsolved cases
0:21:57 > 0:22:00where heirs need to be found. Could you be one of them?
0:22:01 > 0:22:03Today, we've got details of two estates
0:22:03 > 0:22:06on the Government Legal Department's Bona Vacantia list
0:22:06 > 0:22:08that are yet to be claimed.
0:22:09 > 0:22:12The first is Margaret Lee-Ying,
0:22:12 > 0:22:14who died on the 25th of March, 2005,
0:22:14 > 0:22:16in Eastbourne, East Sussex,
0:22:16 > 0:22:18at the age of 76.
0:22:18 > 0:22:21She'd travelled thousands of miles in her lifetime,
0:22:21 > 0:22:25as Margaret was born on the 26th of January, 1929, in China.
0:22:25 > 0:22:30She married in 1955 on the Royal Air Force base Changi
0:22:30 > 0:22:32in the Far East,
0:22:32 > 0:22:34so it's possible Margaret married a British airman
0:22:34 > 0:22:36and moved to the UK with him.
0:22:36 > 0:22:38But do you know exactly why Margaret came here?
0:22:38 > 0:22:42Does she have family in Britain or is her family still in China?
0:22:44 > 0:22:46The next case is that of Alide Kand,
0:22:46 > 0:22:49who died on the 9th of May, 1997,
0:22:49 > 0:22:51in Leeds, West Yorkshire, aged 89.
0:22:51 > 0:22:55Alide was born on the 10th of September, 1907, in Estonia.
0:22:55 > 0:22:59Information suggests she worked as a cook on merchant ships
0:22:59 > 0:23:02before settling in the UK after World War II.
0:23:02 > 0:23:04Do you know anything that could help solve the cases
0:23:04 > 0:23:07of Margaret Lee-Ying and Alide Kand?
0:23:07 > 0:23:10Perhaps you could be the next of kin.
0:23:10 > 0:23:13If so, you could have thousands of pounds coming your way.
0:23:20 > 0:23:23It's not many miles away, is it? But it just doesn't fit together.
0:23:23 > 0:23:26In London, heir hunters are searching for beneficiaries
0:23:26 > 0:23:28to the estate of Barbara Kirk...
0:23:28 > 0:23:31It'll be a cold call. Just play it by ear, see how you get on.
0:23:31 > 0:23:34..who lived most of her life in the north of the city
0:23:34 > 0:23:37until she passed away in 2015.
0:23:38 > 0:23:42Richard Wiseman is part of the community in which Barbara lived.
0:23:44 > 0:23:47Barbara Kirk lived here for over 20 years.
0:23:47 > 0:23:51She would have continued to be familiar with her neighbours
0:23:51 > 0:23:55because, on the whole, people don't move much.
0:23:55 > 0:23:57Once you're in the suburb, you tend to stay here.
0:23:57 > 0:24:01And I think a number of her neighbours
0:24:01 > 0:24:03were on the lookout for her well-being.
0:24:03 > 0:24:06So, from that point of view, it's a good place to live.
0:24:07 > 0:24:09Unfortunately for the heir hunters,
0:24:09 > 0:24:12their man on the ground in Barbara's old neighbourhood
0:24:12 > 0:24:15hadn't been able to find anyone who could help with their research.
0:24:15 > 0:24:17My name's Peter George.
0:24:19 > 0:24:23But the heir hunters are having more luck with online records.
0:24:23 > 0:24:25- Leave that page up and open a new one.- Yeah.
0:24:25 > 0:24:27They discover that both Barbara's grandfather
0:24:27 > 0:24:31and grandmother died in their early 40s from tuberculosis,
0:24:31 > 0:24:34leaving four of their youngest children to fend for themselves.
0:24:37 > 0:24:38Annie was only 13,
0:24:38 > 0:24:40her brother Robert was ten,
0:24:40 > 0:24:42Leonard was five.
0:24:42 > 0:24:43And then Helen, Barbara's mother,
0:24:43 > 0:24:47was actually only aged two when she lost her parents.
0:24:47 > 0:24:49In reality, the only option available
0:24:49 > 0:24:50was for them to be fostered.
0:24:53 > 0:24:56But without an effective welfare state to re-home them,
0:24:56 > 0:24:59the children could have been abandoned on the streets.
0:24:59 > 0:25:01If you were homeless and a young child,
0:25:01 > 0:25:04your ability to feed yourself would have been,
0:25:04 > 0:25:06you know, almost impossible.
0:25:06 > 0:25:08You would've had to beg on the streets.
0:25:08 > 0:25:10Life would've been terrible
0:25:10 > 0:25:12for a child out on the streets at that time.
0:25:14 > 0:25:16But help was at hand,
0:25:16 > 0:25:19and records show that the four youngest Kirk children
0:25:19 > 0:25:22appeared to have been helped by the Barnardo's charity.
0:25:22 > 0:25:25For the Kirk family, coming into Barnardo's would have been,
0:25:25 > 0:25:28you know, that would've been the best thing for them,
0:25:28 > 0:25:30especially after their parents had died.
0:25:30 > 0:25:32They would've been looked after, they would've been well fed,
0:25:32 > 0:25:35they would've been educated, they would've had a warm bed
0:25:35 > 0:25:37and they were safe.
0:25:40 > 0:25:45Dr Thomas Barnardo had set up the charity in 1866.
0:25:45 > 0:25:48Barnardo wanted to make sure that children were kept safe
0:25:48 > 0:25:50and that they were away from harm.
0:25:50 > 0:25:53So by bringing them in, offering them employment,
0:25:53 > 0:25:54offering them training,
0:25:54 > 0:25:57providing them with a skill so that they could go out,
0:25:57 > 0:26:00earn money and support themselves, that was his main goal.
0:26:05 > 0:26:06Back in the office,
0:26:06 > 0:26:09the team need to find exactly what happened to the Kirk children
0:26:09 > 0:26:12after they were taken in by Barnardo's
0:26:12 > 0:26:14in order to track down any heirs.
0:26:15 > 0:26:18Holly uses the census records to trace their movements
0:26:18 > 0:26:22and discovers why Barbara ended up living in the south of England.
0:26:22 > 0:26:26From the 1911 census, we can find Barbara's mother, Helen,
0:26:26 > 0:26:29living down in Hertfordshire.
0:26:29 > 0:26:32It appears that she'd been moved from Yorkshire,
0:26:32 > 0:26:35in a foster home, in a Barnardo's children's home.
0:26:35 > 0:26:38Previously, if we thought they stayed in Yorkshire,
0:26:38 > 0:26:41we might have restricted our searches to that area.
0:26:41 > 0:26:43So being able to track their movements
0:26:43 > 0:26:46through these later censuses is really important.
0:26:46 > 0:26:50But despite working out what became of Barbara's mother, Helen,
0:26:50 > 0:26:52the whereabouts of Barbara's uncles,
0:26:52 > 0:26:55the two boys - Robert and Leonard - remained a mystery.
0:26:55 > 0:26:57We were left scratching our heads
0:26:57 > 0:27:00because we couldn't find any record of Robert and Leonard.
0:27:00 > 0:27:03We couldn't find them on the 1911 census. But beyond that,
0:27:03 > 0:27:07we couldn't locate a marriage which looked likely for either of them.
0:27:07 > 0:27:10The death search was proving negative as well.
0:27:11 > 0:27:14It could be that they've ended up in another part of the country.
0:27:14 > 0:27:15If their surname has changed,
0:27:15 > 0:27:18then they would've been almost impossible to find.
0:27:18 > 0:27:21But we needed to go through the processes in order to ascertain
0:27:21 > 0:27:23whether got married and whether they had children
0:27:23 > 0:27:26because, potentially, any children they did have
0:27:26 > 0:27:28would be entitled to inherit from Barbara's estate.
0:27:28 > 0:27:32With two sources of potential heirs mysteriously disappearing,
0:27:32 > 0:27:34the team were stumped,
0:27:34 > 0:27:38until they discovered Robert Kirk on shipping records from 1904.
0:27:38 > 0:27:41We found out that the reason why he wasn't tuning up
0:27:41 > 0:27:46on the 1911 census records here was because he actually went to Canada
0:27:46 > 0:27:49with Dr Barnardo's, the children's home,
0:27:49 > 0:27:52along with around 200 other children.
0:27:57 > 0:28:03In 1907, Robert's brother Leonard also went to Canada with Barnardo's,
0:28:03 > 0:28:06but it wasn't a holiday they were being treated to.
0:28:06 > 0:28:09The child migration scheme was actually a government initiative
0:28:09 > 0:28:12set up by both the British and Canadian government
0:28:12 > 0:28:15to basically populate Canada,
0:28:15 > 0:28:18which before then was very much a dying society
0:28:18 > 0:28:20of old men and railroad workers.
0:28:20 > 0:28:24So it was an opportunity for the governments to, one,
0:28:24 > 0:28:27provide somewhere for the vast, growing number of children
0:28:27 > 0:28:29who were homeless in the UK,
0:28:29 > 0:28:33but also give them an opportunity to have a different life.
0:28:35 > 0:28:37For Robert and Leonard, it would have been
0:28:37 > 0:28:39quite an adventure going to Canada.
0:28:39 > 0:28:42They probably would have put their hand up and volunteered to go,
0:28:42 > 0:28:45been told a little bit about life in Canada,
0:28:45 > 0:28:46about the snow and about the summers
0:28:46 > 0:28:49and, you know, life working on a farm.
0:28:50 > 0:28:54The migration scheme in Canada ran till 1939,
0:28:54 > 0:28:57and 100,000 children were actually sent to Canada,
0:28:57 > 0:29:00the vast majority of which went prior to the First World War.
0:29:03 > 0:29:07And by the time Britain declared war on Germany in 1914,
0:29:07 > 0:29:10Robert and Leonard were 21 and 16.
0:29:10 > 0:29:14They both responded to the call to arms from their motherland
0:29:14 > 0:29:16and joined Canadian forces
0:29:16 > 0:29:18who were sent to the Western Front in France.
0:29:18 > 0:29:20But Ryan uncovered a tragic end
0:29:20 > 0:29:23to Robert and Leonard's great adventure.
0:29:23 > 0:29:27Robert Kirk was actually killed in action in France in 1916,
0:29:27 > 0:29:31and his brother Leonard sadly passed away a year later,
0:29:31 > 0:29:33but back in Canada, in a military hospital.
0:29:33 > 0:29:36Both never married and therefore our research was focused
0:29:36 > 0:29:38onto the other lines of the family.
0:29:40 > 0:29:42So have you got his address?
0:29:42 > 0:29:45With no heirs from Robert and Leonard,
0:29:45 > 0:29:47the team were running out of options,
0:29:47 > 0:29:49so they focused on their two surviving sisters -
0:29:49 > 0:29:51Barbara's aunties, Annie and Ethel.
0:29:51 > 0:29:54Helen's sister, Annie Kirk,
0:29:54 > 0:29:56actually died in 1910,
0:29:56 > 0:29:58unmarried and without children,
0:29:58 > 0:30:00and from tuberculosis.
0:30:00 > 0:30:04Again, it's quite sad that she didn't have any children of her own
0:30:04 > 0:30:07after she came out of Barnardo's.
0:30:08 > 0:30:10We were running out of options
0:30:10 > 0:30:12if we were going to find any beneficiaries,
0:30:12 > 0:30:16so all our hopes were really pinned on the line of Ethel Kirk.
0:30:17 > 0:30:19Oh, perfect.
0:30:20 > 0:30:22That is... That's great.
0:30:22 > 0:30:24And the team were in luck this time.
0:30:24 > 0:30:25OK, bye.
0:30:27 > 0:30:29Ethel Kirk, Helen's sister,
0:30:29 > 0:30:34married in 1904 to a George William Gillyon.
0:30:34 > 0:30:39Because they married in 1904, it meant we could look for them
0:30:39 > 0:30:42on the 1911 census, and we found them.
0:30:42 > 0:30:44They were living together
0:30:44 > 0:30:46and they'd already had several children.
0:30:46 > 0:30:49Ethel Kirk and George Gillyon had six children,
0:30:49 > 0:30:52four of whom survived to adulthood.
0:30:52 > 0:30:56And the team were able to track down all of their descendants,
0:30:56 > 0:30:59finding a total of 17 heirs to Barbara's estate.
0:31:00 > 0:31:03John Maw is the great grandson of Ethel Kirk
0:31:03 > 0:31:06and is Barbara's cousin twice removed.
0:31:06 > 0:31:09He still lives in the same town of Beverley in Yorkshire,
0:31:09 > 0:31:12that Barbara's grandparents lived in at the turn of the 20th century.
0:31:12 > 0:31:15It was a knock on the door,
0:31:15 > 0:31:18and there was a chap there...
0:31:18 > 0:31:21John remembers the moment he found out he would be inheriting
0:31:21 > 0:31:25from Barbara Kirk - a name he'd never heard of before.
0:31:25 > 0:31:27I basically didn't believe him.
0:31:27 > 0:31:33I think my words to him were, "You're joking."
0:31:33 > 0:31:35I was gobsmacked.
0:31:35 > 0:31:38It wasn't until he gave me some further details
0:31:38 > 0:31:44that I realised that he wasn't one of these scammers or what-have-you,
0:31:44 > 0:31:47- and I invited him in. - HE CHUCKLES
0:31:47 > 0:31:51Once John's surprise subsided, he was left with more questions.
0:31:51 > 0:31:56Well, to find that you're part of an inheritance is quite a shock.
0:31:57 > 0:32:01The name Barbara Kirk means absolutely nothing to me at all,
0:32:01 > 0:32:05and it doesn't mean anything to the family either.
0:32:05 > 0:32:08I think when you first find that you've got a relative
0:32:08 > 0:32:12who's left something,
0:32:12 > 0:32:14it does make you wonder,
0:32:14 > 0:32:17what's the story behind that particular person?
0:32:17 > 0:32:21But the windfall will also be of some practical use for John.
0:32:21 > 0:32:24If I got a reasonable inheritance,
0:32:24 > 0:32:28I do need a new roof on my bathroom.
0:32:28 > 0:32:32So it will certainly come in handy there
0:32:32 > 0:32:35because roofs are not...cheap.
0:32:37 > 0:32:42But it's also quite sad that this person has obviously
0:32:42 > 0:32:47left...left money and I don't know that person.
0:32:49 > 0:32:52For all concerned, it's been a satisfying and interesting case
0:32:52 > 0:32:54to be a part of.
0:32:54 > 0:32:57As much as there are some things we'll never know about Barbara Kirk,
0:32:57 > 0:32:59looking at her family tree, we can build a picture
0:32:59 > 0:33:02and really see how she rose through adversity.
0:33:02 > 0:33:07She'd lost both her mother and her grandparents at a very young age,
0:33:07 > 0:33:11and she didn't seem to let that dampen her spirits.
0:33:11 > 0:33:14She went on to have a very successful career,
0:33:14 > 0:33:17and this was something that we could see as we developed
0:33:17 > 0:33:20the story of the family tree but also on our journey
0:33:20 > 0:33:22to find the heirs to Barbara's estate.
0:33:22 > 0:33:24And for heir John,
0:33:24 > 0:33:27his newly enlarged family tree is a welcome surprise.
0:33:27 > 0:33:31We've got a story there that I didn't know existed.
0:33:31 > 0:33:34That, to me, is probably as important,
0:33:34 > 0:33:37more so, than money.
0:33:45 > 0:33:50Philip Charles Horseman passed away at home in Kent in 2014
0:33:50 > 0:33:53without a will or any known next of kin.
0:33:53 > 0:33:57Neighbour Edward Jarman used to help Philip look after his property.
0:33:57 > 0:34:00Most of the talk we had
0:34:00 > 0:34:04was really about the garden, you know, like being a neighbour.
0:34:04 > 0:34:07I did go round there with weedkiller
0:34:07 > 0:34:12and did cut all the brambles as best I could, you know.
0:34:12 > 0:34:15Just go round and just do it, don't worry about it, you know.
0:34:17 > 0:34:19And one day, he was gone.
0:34:22 > 0:34:25It is sad. Very, very sad, yes.
0:34:25 > 0:34:27Yeah, very, very sad.
0:34:36 > 0:34:39Heir hunters Amy and Camilla had picked up Philip's case
0:34:39 > 0:34:42and found heirs to the estate from his eldest aunt, Edith,
0:34:42 > 0:34:44on his father's side.
0:34:44 > 0:34:46But the paternal side was quite large
0:34:46 > 0:34:50and Amy continued to investigate his five remaining aunts and uncles.
0:34:50 > 0:34:52Both William Henry Horseman
0:34:52 > 0:34:56and Annie Mary Horseman, they never had any children,
0:34:56 > 0:34:59so with regard to those two stems, they've died out.
0:34:59 > 0:35:02Laura married twice and she had one child,
0:35:02 > 0:35:05but unfortunately, he passed away as an infant.
0:35:05 > 0:35:07It looks like the paternal side of Philip's tree
0:35:07 > 0:35:10was going to have only a handful of heirs,
0:35:10 > 0:35:13despite there being at least six aunts and uncles to look at.
0:35:13 > 0:35:18But the final few branches of the family tree were to bear more fruit.
0:35:18 > 0:35:22Alice Doreen Horseman, she married a John Morris Howard in 1934,
0:35:22 > 0:35:25and they had one child who's a beneficiary.
0:35:25 > 0:35:28That left the youngest of Philip's uncles,
0:35:28 > 0:35:30Albert Vernon Horseman.
0:35:30 > 0:35:32And when the team looked into Uncle Albert,
0:35:32 > 0:35:35they discovered something interesting.
0:35:35 > 0:35:36On this marriage certificate,
0:35:36 > 0:35:38we can see that Albert Vernon Horseman
0:35:38 > 0:35:42married Ruby May Boakes in 1945.
0:35:42 > 0:35:45It lists that he was in the RAF.
0:35:45 > 0:35:48However, it says that he was not a pilot.
0:35:49 > 0:35:52Records show that Albert was listed as an ambulance driver
0:35:52 > 0:35:55in the RAF in 1945.
0:35:56 > 0:36:00But he'd already performed this role in a civilian capacity
0:36:00 > 0:36:01earlier in the war,
0:36:01 > 0:36:04during one of the most dangerous and destructive periods
0:36:04 > 0:36:09of World War II on mainland UK - the London Blitz.
0:36:09 > 0:36:11He was later drafted into the RAF
0:36:11 > 0:36:14and given a dual role of ambulance driver
0:36:14 > 0:36:17and plane mechanic on an airfield in Kent.
0:36:17 > 0:36:19Albert would have been frantically busy -
0:36:19 > 0:36:22repairing aircraft engines,
0:36:22 > 0:36:24maintaining aircraft engines,
0:36:24 > 0:36:26keeping the squadrons operational
0:36:26 > 0:36:29at a time when Britain really was fighting for its life
0:36:29 > 0:36:31against the enemy.
0:36:32 > 0:36:35The way it tended to work, if you were on ambulance duty,
0:36:35 > 0:36:37was that you would continue
0:36:37 > 0:36:40with your normal, day-to-day occupation -
0:36:40 > 0:36:42perhaps maintaining aircraft engines -
0:36:42 > 0:36:45and if the crash alarm went off on the airfield,
0:36:45 > 0:36:47you then dropped everything,
0:36:47 > 0:36:49sprinted to your ambulance, jumped in
0:36:49 > 0:36:51and got to where the problem was.
0:36:56 > 0:37:01Although he was a driver, he would no doubt have had to do
0:37:01 > 0:37:05whatever was required of him in order to recover aircrew
0:37:05 > 0:37:08from wrecked airplanes, get them to hospital,
0:37:08 > 0:37:10look after them on the way.
0:37:10 > 0:37:12Working on an airfield would have been no respite
0:37:12 > 0:37:15from the horrors Albert would have seen in Central London
0:37:15 > 0:37:17during the Blitz.
0:37:17 > 0:37:19He would've witnessed some horrendous sights
0:37:19 > 0:37:24of badly burned aircrew crashing back on airfields.
0:37:24 > 0:37:27It would've been quite a harrowing experience
0:37:27 > 0:37:31for anybody involved in the whole medical emergency services
0:37:31 > 0:37:32at that time.
0:37:32 > 0:37:35Like his father Frank before him,
0:37:35 > 0:37:38Albert served on a lesser known, unconventional battlefield.
0:37:38 > 0:37:40And he also wasn't trying to kill.
0:37:40 > 0:37:42He was trying to help and to heal.
0:37:42 > 0:37:46Both as a ground crew and as an ambulance driver,
0:37:46 > 0:37:50Albert was one of those unsung heroes of the war effort.
0:37:51 > 0:37:53I think Albert's family can be very proud
0:37:53 > 0:37:55of what he did in World War II.
0:37:55 > 0:37:58He wasn't a fighter pilot or a bomber pilot,
0:37:58 > 0:38:02but his role in the RAF was an important one.
0:38:02 > 0:38:04He made a real contribution.
0:38:11 > 0:38:14Back in the office, Amy's team were busy piecing together
0:38:14 > 0:38:17the family Albert Horseman and his wife Ruby Boakes had
0:38:17 > 0:38:21after the war to see if they could find any more heirs.
0:38:21 > 0:38:23But they had to approach it carefully,
0:38:23 > 0:38:26as any potential heirs could have known Philip well,
0:38:26 > 0:38:28as they would be his first cousins.
0:38:28 > 0:38:30We spoke briefly yesterday...
0:38:30 > 0:38:32You can have all the qualifications in the world,
0:38:32 > 0:38:34but it doesn't necessarily prepare you
0:38:34 > 0:38:36for the situation you could be faced with,
0:38:36 > 0:38:38whether that's talking to a relative on the phone,
0:38:38 > 0:38:41having to tell someone that someone's passed away
0:38:41 > 0:38:43or describing the family relationships
0:38:43 > 0:38:45to someone you've never spoken to before in your life.
0:38:45 > 0:38:47Thank you. Bye.
0:38:49 > 0:38:53The team discovered Albert and Ruby had four children after the war.
0:38:53 > 0:38:54Come!
0:38:57 > 0:38:59One of them is Stephanie Ives,
0:38:59 > 0:39:02who remembers meeting Philip several decades ago.
0:39:02 > 0:39:05My one meeting with Philip, I was about 17.
0:39:05 > 0:39:07He was, I think, about 35.
0:39:07 > 0:39:08He wasn't there initially,
0:39:08 > 0:39:12and he came back from work, and we met and we spoke.
0:39:12 > 0:39:13He seemed very laid-back,
0:39:13 > 0:39:16very sort of...nothing seemed to bother him a great deal.
0:39:16 > 0:39:21In fact, his mother and stepfather's nickname for him was Unconscious
0:39:21 > 0:39:25because he was just so laid-back and horizontal.
0:39:26 > 0:39:29That was the one and only time I ever met him.
0:39:29 > 0:39:31Hearing about Philip after so many years
0:39:31 > 0:39:34came like a bolt from the blue for Stephanie.
0:39:34 > 0:39:36The first contact from the heir hunters
0:39:36 > 0:39:39was a knock on the door on a weekday night, about five o'clock.
0:39:39 > 0:39:42So we took it from there, really.
0:39:42 > 0:39:46It is surreal to find you're, you know, coming into an inheritance
0:39:46 > 0:39:48from someone you didn't have a lot of contact with,
0:39:48 > 0:39:50even though they're part of the family.
0:39:50 > 0:39:54And the experience has reignited her interest in her own close family,
0:39:54 > 0:39:56especially her father Albert,
0:39:56 > 0:39:59and the memories he shared about his wartime experiences
0:39:59 > 0:40:01as an ambulance driver.
0:40:01 > 0:40:04I know he saw lots of awful things during the Blitz.
0:40:04 > 0:40:07He delivered lots of babies during the Blitz.
0:40:07 > 0:40:09And I've still got his scissors that he used
0:40:09 > 0:40:12when he was an ambulance driver during the Blitz.
0:40:14 > 0:40:16Finding Stephanie and her siblings
0:40:16 > 0:40:19had tied up Philip's father's side of the family.
0:40:19 > 0:40:22But heir hunters now needed to try and find any surviving heirs
0:40:22 > 0:40:24on his mother's side.
0:40:24 > 0:40:27The first step was to locate Philip's maternal grandparents
0:40:27 > 0:40:29through his mother Ellen.
0:40:29 > 0:40:32We looked into Ellen's parents,
0:40:32 > 0:40:35who were John Hayes and Catherine Costello.
0:40:35 > 0:40:39The team quickly found nine births related to Hayes and Costello.
0:40:39 > 0:40:42But as with the paternal side of the tree,
0:40:42 > 0:40:45the first child they found was problematic.
0:40:45 > 0:40:48The first birth that we could find was actually for
0:40:48 > 0:40:53a Mary Catherine Costello, who was born in 1899.
0:40:53 > 0:40:55The surname Costello means that she was actually
0:40:55 > 0:40:57an illegitimate child of Catherine.
0:40:57 > 0:41:01In a strange parallel of Philip's father's side of the family,
0:41:01 > 0:41:05his eldest maternal aunt was born out of wedlock,
0:41:05 > 0:41:07as had been his eldest paternal aunt.
0:41:07 > 0:41:10But there was a crucial difference in the timing of this birth
0:41:10 > 0:41:13and marriage of his grandparents.
0:41:13 > 0:41:16Rather than a matter of months between the two events,
0:41:16 > 0:41:18Mary Costello had been born nearly three years
0:41:18 > 0:41:22before her mother Catherine married John Hayes.
0:41:22 > 0:41:25In those situations, we might ask other family members
0:41:25 > 0:41:27if they remember the person by name,
0:41:27 > 0:41:29remember her being included
0:41:29 > 0:41:32in the overall family set-up.
0:41:32 > 0:41:35And therefore, there may be an argument for including her,
0:41:35 > 0:41:37or any of her surviving descendants.
0:41:37 > 0:41:41But the records quickly showed that Mary didn't appear to have been
0:41:41 > 0:41:43part of the Hayes family.
0:41:43 > 0:41:46We also found, on a 1911 census,
0:41:46 > 0:41:48that she was no longer living with the Hayes family,
0:41:48 > 0:41:52unlike in the 1901 census, where she was living with Catherine.
0:41:52 > 0:41:56We had to just conclude that the most that particular person could be
0:41:56 > 0:41:57would be a half-blood relative,
0:41:57 > 0:42:01and therefore, there would be prior claimants.
0:42:01 > 0:42:03The team did find eight births
0:42:03 > 0:42:06which came after John and Catherine's marriage in 1902...
0:42:06 > 0:42:09OK, will do. Thank you. Thanks, bye.
0:42:12 > 0:42:14..and were able to prove they were all correct,
0:42:14 > 0:42:17leading to a further 19 heirs to Philip's estate.
0:42:17 > 0:42:20The team did a fantastic job in identifying the heirs,
0:42:20 > 0:42:24and in total, there were 26 heirs identified
0:42:24 > 0:42:27across the maternal and paternal sides of the family.
0:42:29 > 0:42:31And for Philip's cousin Stephanie,
0:42:31 > 0:42:35it's been an opportunity to think more about her family.
0:42:35 > 0:42:37I think any of the family history, I'd be interested in,
0:42:37 > 0:42:39simply because I think you get to an age
0:42:39 > 0:42:42where you do wonder about other parts of the family
0:42:42 > 0:42:44that you just sort of don't deliberately neglect,
0:42:44 > 0:42:47but you just sort of imperceptibly drift away from.
0:42:47 > 0:42:49And you often wonder what happened to them
0:42:49 > 0:42:52and where they are now and what they're doing.
0:42:52 > 0:42:53That's probably more interesting
0:42:53 > 0:42:56than any small inheritance we might get.