Griffiths/Nash Heir Hunters

Today, the heir hunters are trying to discover

the worth of a high-value estate.

We have a guide of 125.

Anything above that will be really good news.

But there's confusion from the off.

The problem we initially had to resolve is which estate

were we researching, was it Patricia or Ivor's?

Another team are surprised when they find their first heir.

She was still alive at the ripe old age of 100.

But for the families and friends...

I feel like I've lost...lost a best friend.

..it's a time for reminiscing.

He was always wanting to make people happy.

The job of an heir hunter is to try and find rightful heirs

to an estate that's been left behind

when someone dies without making a will.

The value of the estate increases

when the person who has died owned a property.

So we're in the Landmark Hotel

for a London auction house, auction sale,

and we have the two properties on the Griffiths case,

where we're hoping we're going to get good interest.

The Griffiths case has been taken on by London heir hunting firm

Fraser & Fraser.

-I spoke to her, she phoned in.

-Right.

It's a private referral with the details of two people -

Patricia Griffiths and Ivor Griffiths.

Dave Slee was the senior case manager in charge

when this unusual case came in.

The problem we initially had to resolve is which estate were

we researching, was it Patricia or Ivor's?

They're focusing on Patricia Griffiths first,

as they know she passed away on the 24th of June, 2014,

in Weymouth.

When we delved deeper into the background of Patricia,

we surprisingly found that not only was she was the owner

of one property but indeed

another property that was in close proximity to the first.

This is a high-valued estate and meant that the whole

of the company was involved in researching for next of kin.

Patricia's death certificate was ordered.

And in the research room,

Josh Crawford is going through records concerning the house

that could have been Patricia's home address.

We're just going to look at some of the electoral history

of the address in Weymouth

to see how long they were living there for so that we can work out

if they are married or maybe brother and sister, or something like that.

You wouldn't have thought he'd be taking on a surname at that stage.

The electoral rolls are invaluable for us because that's something

that pins down where someone is living.

So when we're trying to trace someone, an individual,

an heir, we need to know where they were living,

and electoral rolls really help in that.

Records show that Ivor and Patricia had been living together

at one of the houses.

And then there's another note here.

The team try to work out if Patricia and Ivor were married.

We have a hit on a Ivor T Griffiths

marrying a Patricia S D'Arcy

in 1983, in Weymouth, so that looks really good for us.

They can't find a birth record for a Patricia D'Arcy that matches

the date of birth Patricia Griffiths has given on the electoral roll.

OK, cool, I will. All right, bye.

So they looked to see if Patricia had married a Mr D'Arcy.

Right, so there is a marriage in Weymouth of a Patricia S Allen

to a Mr D'Arcy in the December quarter, in 1960, in Weymouth.

To me, that's a good indication that that's going to be

her first marriage. But obviously, we'd still have to check to see

if there is a corresponding birth to a Patricia S Allen,

so we know that we've definitely got the right person.

There's no other births that we can find that...

Searches confirm the findings

and a hunt for any children born to Patricia and Ivor comes up negative.

Do you know what? That's probably why we couldn't find him.

Case manager Jo Ibrahim thinks the team should now

turn their attention to Ivor.

The information which we had was that Patricia

and Ivor were stated as living together at the same address.

And from there, we tried to locate where Ivor had moved to,

because we know that he wasn't there at the time of Patricia's death.

So from there, we managed to try and see

if we could locate any sort of records to try and track him down.

Josh searches for Ivor on the internet.

And so we found a death notice for an Ivor Thomas Griffiths

in a paper in Weymouth.

This guy died in a care home, and it requires further

investigation to see if it's actually the same person.

The next day, the records they ordered are in.

OK, cheers. Thank you.

Patricia's death certificate

confirms the research done yesterday,

but the team have realised that as Ivor died after Patricia,

the case is much more complex than they originally thought.

Now we've discovered Mr Griffiths has survived his wife,

it totally changes the complexion.

Because Mr Griffiths appeared to have died without leaving a will.

He's also died intestate.

But he is a vested interest to his wife's estate,

because he survived her.

-That's hard to link it in, wasn't it?

-Yep.

When we're looking at a vested interest in an estate,

when the deceased passes away,

if they're survived by their partner, or their spouse,

then the estate forms part of their estate.

So essentially, one estate moves over to the partner.

And obviously, we then look at the surviving spouse's estate.

As Ivor had moved out of the family home before Patricia died,

Jo thinks this may be relevant to their investigation.

So when we're trying to find any details relating to Ivor,

one of our first concerns would be whether we could locate

a divorce record,

which would mean that he wouldn't be entitled to any Patricia's estate,

and therefore,

the estate and who would be entitled to it would change drastically.

Obviously, it's vested.

-We need to see if she's left a will or not.

-I've got notes on her.

And after some searching, the team can find no evidence

of a divorce, meaning that Ivor was the heir to Patricia's estate.

The team soon found people who knew Ivor in their hometown of Weymouth.

Sandra West worked in the local supermarket there.

He was always popping in and out with his wife, Pat.

I just thought he was the most fascinating person I'd ever met.

You know, the number of people

that come through our door,

for him, he was absolutely unique.

And our chats just developed.

And he'd point his finger and he'd go,

"Madam, did you know...?"

And the conversation started from, "Madam, did you know?"

And he would come out with sort of random facts.

And if he was talking to a man, it was always sir.

You know? And my colleagues, he didn't always know them

by name, so we were always madam or sir.

Very endearing. It was just... I mean, I could, you know,

I feel quite welled up just thinking about him now.

Now that it was clear Patricia had died before Ivor,

and that the heir hunters would only be focusing

on finding heirs on Ivor's side...

I believe it was December.

..their first step is to see if he had any brothers and sisters,

and they begin with his birth certificate

to find his parent's details.

Griffiths is quite a common name.

However, we are quite lucky that his name is Ivor T,

considering that's quite an unusual combination, as first names go.

So it wasn't actually too difficult to find Ivor's birth.

Ivor's birth was registered in Surrey.

His father was William Griffiths

and his mother was Margaret Gertrude Griffiths,

formally Dredge.

-There were two Drudges here, wasn't there?

-Both of them...

Both of them blank?

The team set about checking if they had any other children.

These brothers or sisters of Ivor would be next in line.

And it's good news.

We've found one sister by the name of Thelma Griffiths.

She's born in Kingston. That looks really good.

Our next step is to work out what happened to Thelma.

OK, well, thank you so much again.

We located a marriage of Thelma to a Mr Francis.

And that marriage resulted in them having one child.

Unfortunately, this child died a spinster, aged 28,

so therefore, there were no close relatives or near kin to Ivor,

which meant we now had to go back to paternal and maternal families.

They need to search for Ivor's mother's family first.

So firstly, we needed to obtain a copy

of Ivor's mother's birth certificate,

which was on the 5th of November, 1901,

in the Holborn registration district.

And that clearly stated she was the daughter of Percival Dredge

and Gertrude Ellen Dredge, whose maiden name was Henderson.

The team look at the census records to see if Margaret

had any brothers or sisters.

I found them on this 1911 census.

Her siblings are John Henderson Dredge,

who was seven,

Eric George Henderson Dredge, who was five,

and Clifford Henderson Dredge, who was eight months old.

They need to find out what has happened to Margaret's

three brothers.

If any of them are still alive or had children,

these would be the heirs the team are looking for.

All right, so we've found a marriage for Eric Dredge.

He marries a Janet Clapperton in 1938.

Unfortunately, Eric dies in 1941.

We just need to check if he's had any children.

The team's searches find that Eric didn't have any children,

so they are focusing on Margaret's two other brothers -

John and Clifford.

So with Eric unfortunately passing away without descendents,

we had to pin our hopes on one of the other brothers.

And Clifford married Dorothy Bissett in 1939.

And we soon discovered that they had a most unusual hobby.

Before they got married,

Clifford and Dorothy both became civilian pilots.

People learned to fly

in the '30s for all sorts of reasons. In the early '30s,

Clifford probably flew because he wanted to.

I once asked a man why he joined the London Airplane Club

in the late '20s, and he thought for a moment, then he said to me,

"Well, we've done skating." And I think that was rather what it was.

Between 1925 and 1939,

around 60 flying clubs were started

and more than 5,000 pilots were trained.

The development of the airplane in the '30s for light...light

airplane clubs, basically,

started back in 1925 when de Havilland invented the Moth,

which was the right size, the right price

and had the right sort of engine in it.

There's a Moth behind me.

Clifford and Dorothy would have been flying an airplane very similar

to this one. This one is a Hermes Moth.

Clifford and Dorothy were flying Gispy Moths - wooden air frames.

All the clubs had this kind of airplane, open cockpit biplanes,

which really lasted until the war.

Although the team had uncovered a fascinating hobbyist...

..at the office, they still hadn't found any heirs.

So if Clifford didn't have any children, it would

only be John left for any beneficiaries.

Lot number 87.

Today, Andrew Fraser is at a property auction in West London,

where the two properties that Ivor inherited from his late wife,

Patricia, are being sold.

My role is to maximise the assets.

We have a guide of 125.

Anything above that will be really good news.

A lot is riding on this auction.

125. 125 is bid. 30.

In many of the cases the heir hunters investigate,

surprising family history is uncovered in their searches

that heirs know nothing about.

One of these cases is that of Valerie Linda Nash.

She was born on the 26th of March, 1936, in Birmingham,

and grew up in living in the suburb of Great Barr.

Liz Wallis met Valerie many years ago.

I can only ever remember Valerie coming to visit us once,

and I would be about ten years of age.

And she was probably about

four to five years older than me.

But I remember that she was very quiet. She didn't have a lot to say.

She was tallish, longish hair, I think, and wore glasses.

But she kept herself very much to herself.

Valerie died at a nursing home in Birmingham

on the 17th of February, 2014.

Her details were advertised

on the Treasury's Bona Vacantia List in June 2015.

They were picked up by assistant case manager

Holly Jones, of London heir hunting firm Finders.

The Treasury had actually had this information

on Valerie's estate for over a year

after her death, before it was released on the list.

-You can confirm Andrew and Peter?

-Yeah.

This can happen sometimes.

They didn't give a reason, in this instance.

We found from the land registry that Valerie owned her own property,

and this was valued at about £90,000.

So quite a good amount for us to be working with,

making it a competitive case.

The information on Valerie's death certificate was

all Holly had to go on.

To be a good heir hunter,

I think there are a number of important traits,

a number of skills that you learn over the years,

but at the end of the day,

the most important thing is basic common sense.

Get the death and marriage certificates, make sure that...

have a look at those professions. That will be interesting stuff.

The death certificate informs us that she was unmarried.

But we searched the marriage records for England

and Wales to check anyway. And indeed, she was a spinster.

She was unmarried when she passed away.

We also checked the birth records for England and Wales,

and as far as we could see, she didn't have any children either.

The next heirs entitled would be any brothers

and sisters Valerie may have.

-The person that I found, if this is correct, they have children.

-OK.

The first thing they needed was to find Valerie's birth.

And senior research manager Amy Littlechild started the hunt.

Looking for a birth certificate,

we put in all the names that we can to try and find someone.

Is it OK if you answer a few of my inquiries at all?

We also have an exact date of birth from the death.

So obviously, we need to check around 1936.

Mainly... She was born in March. It will be around the March,

June quarters of the years.

A search of the birth index records

came up with a match that looked promising.

So the certificate was ordered.

It tells us that Valerie,

again using her middle name of Linda,

was born on the 26th of March, 1936.

Again, it goes exactly the same as the death certificate.

So we've ordered that to see who she left it to.

The team now had Valerie's parents' names - Horace Henry Nash

and Linda Lillian Nash, formally Berry.

They did a birth search to look for any other children

who would be Valerie's siblings.

This came up negative, so we're looking at Valerie being

an only child, and we'll need to go onto the next stage.

During the research process, it could be relatively easy to

make a mistake or to overlook a certain key fact, which is

why it's important that we always emphasise that we double-check

the family tree, double-check the report,

make sure that everything's done correctly before we submit

the results of our research to the estate custodians.

Having established that Valerie was an only child,

had never married or had children of her own, the team now need to

go back a generation and look for Valerie's grandparents.

They focused on Valerie's mother's family first.

On the 1911 census, we were able to locate Valerie's mother,

Linda, living with her parents in Birmingham.

We now had Valerie's grandmother's name on her maternal side.

Also living at the address at the time, in 1911, is listed a brother.

So this would be a maternal uncle to Valerie.

Valerie's mother's family tree was starting to take shape.

Linda's father was Arthur Berry.

Her mother was Agnes Berry, formally Stanton.

Linda's brother, also called Arthur,

had been for three years before her.

The 1911 census tells us that Arthur, Linda's father,

was a silversmith.

The family were living in the Brooksfield area of Birmingham.

Again, this is tying in with the jewellery trade.

These folks were the ones that they would have needed certs for.

A census record is a fantastic source

of information for us, given that it gives us a snapshot of the family

at that particular time.

At the time of the 1911 census, the family were living within

a mile of Birmingham's thriving industry of jewellery production.

Birmingham's jewellery quarter

is roughly a square mile of the city,

just north, northwest of the city centre.

And for the last 150 years, it's been the main centre of jewellery

and silverware production in Britain.

It overtook other centres such as Edinburgh and London,

mid-19th century, and it grew to become the largest single

centre of jewellery and silverware production on the planet in 1913.

At its peak, in the early 1900s,

the jewellery industry in Birmingham is said to have employed

around 70,000 people.

The silversmiths were thought of as being a cut above ordinary artisans.

They wore very fine clothing and they lived in comfortable houses.

And they definitely held the position above your general

artisan in the time.

Arthur Berry very much would have been in the norm

in living close to his work.

If you were a small master, owning your own firm,

you would very much live and work at home.

If he was one of the outworkers in a firm,

he would have been living in the district, certainly.

And a very wonderful site which you would have seen is that

when the lunch bell went at one o'clock, the streets

would go from being deserted to being absolutely festooned

with people running down the road here to catch the tram

to Handsworth, the next district along,

where they'd have their lunch

and then pile back to the workshops for two o'clock.

And in that bustle of people, he may have met his future wife,

as Arthur wasn't the only ancestor of Valerie's who worked

in the jewellery trade.

So I haven't put one down for that.

This one was the only address for this.

When the team looked at the 1901 census, Valerie's grandmother,

Agnes, was working as a silver burnisher in the same district.

Agnes would've been working on various polishing processes

involving mild abrasives, such as using a substance

called jeweller's rouge, which is iron oxide.

It's a mild abrasive

and it basically brings the full sheen out in the precious metal.

Having taken the family tree back to Valerie's grandparents,

the team can now search to see

if her mother had any other siblings in addition to Arthur.

After we found the 1911 census,

we looked for further births for Arthur and Agnes.

We found out that they had four other children.

However, we sadly found out that Arthur,

mentioned on the 1911 census, passed away.

With four aunts and uncles who, if still alive, could be heirs,

the search was looking very good and the team has still yet to

begin on Valerie's father's side of the family.

Quite an incredible discovery for us. It doesn't happen very often.

A surprise knock on the door from the heir hunters

happens to thousands of people every year in the UK.

It's very strange to inherit from somebody I never knew.

It would have been nice to know her.

Today, we have the details of two estates

on the Treasury Solicitor's Bona Vacantia List

that are still unclaimed.

The first is that of Hilda May Abbott,

who passed away aged 82 in Birmingham,

on the 8th of February, 1990.

She was born in Solihull on the 10th of July, 1907.

Hilda's parents were Herbert George Abbott

and Maria Gascoigne.

They married on the 10th of February, 1908,

and they both died in the mid-'60s in Solihull.

The name Abbott is Anglo-Saxon in origin,

given to a person who is of great importance in a monastery.

Abbott may also be a nickname applied to someone thought to

be pious and devout.

Could there still be family links to Hilda in the West Midlands?

Do you know anyone of that name?

The next unclaimed estate is that of Thomas Aherne.

He was 92 when he passed away, on the 12th of June, 2010,

in Leicester.

He was born on the 24th of July, 1917,

in Ardagh, County Limerick, in Ireland.

The surname Aherne is of French origin and means lord of horses.

Do you know anything that could be the key to solving this case?

If you think you might be related to either of these people,

you would need to make a claim on their estate through

the Government Legal Department.

Once again, the names of the cases we are trying to solve

with your help today are...

When's that? 1919 he's born, isn't he?

In London, the team at Fraser & Fraser are investigating

the case of Ivor Thomas Griffiths.

Ivor inherited the estate of his late wife, Patricia Allen,

when she died two months before him.

They walked all around the town. They walked so many places.

And they bumped into so many people.

People would stop and talk to him.

Being part of Ivor's world was a privilege, an absolute privilege.

The first of the two properties that Ivor inherited

is about to go before the bidders at auction.

Andrew Fraser is hoping for a good price.

My role is to maximise the assets.

We have a guide of 125.

Anything above that will be really good news.

Can I say 125? 125 is bid. 130?

130? Another five? 135. It's with you, 135.

I'm looking for 140.

142, madam, is now bid.

143 for the first time.

Sold. Well done to you, madam.

They've gone for £143,000.

It's a very good result for the estate.

OK, we now move...

In the office, the search for any heirs to Ivor's estate

rested with two of Ivor's uncles - Clifford and John.

But before they look into them,

the team decide to look at Ivor's father's side.

We searched to locate any potential beneficiaries

on the paternal family.

It was a lot trickier than the mother's side of the family

because of the name Griffiths.

Good news or bad news?

'Griffiths is a really common name.'

It's a difficult name to work with.

Because of that, we need to check all the records.

We need all of those birth, marriage and death records

to make sure we're on the right family.

The advantage of a difficult name is

it's very difficult for competition to find them as well.

More work for us, but, you know, hopefully we'll get to the

correct heirs by researching the family properly.

To find Ivor's grandfather's name,

the team looked for Ivor's parents' marriage certificate first.

So there are three marriages between a Griffiths and a Dredge.

Now, we know that Ivor was born in 1935.

The two marriages which we can discount...

The first reason is that they are both female to male.

So female Griffiths marrying male Dredges.

So they don't give the right surname for Ivor.

But also, there is only one marriage before his birth,

and that's in 1928 in Romford

from a William Griffiths to a Margaret Dredge.

Interestingly enough, it's in Romford and not in Surrey.

But it's the only logical marriage that's possible,

so we have to go with it.

The marriage certificate between Ivor's parents told them

that Ivor's grandfather was called Thomas Griffiths

and that he was a builders' merchant.

I'd have a look. Let me just speak to this guy now.

Then I can...

Their next step is to try and find a birth certificate

for William Griffiths, which would give his mother's name.

Case Manager Jo Ibrahim took on the mammoth task.

So we looked through William Griffiths and we tried to

locate a birth record for him.

But there were lots of William Griffiths.

Same goes for the census where there was lots and lots of

William Griffiths living with a Thomas Griffiths,

which made our job trying to research that part of the family

very difficult.

The team looked closely at William's marriage certificate

and from that worked out the year of his birth.

And that's...

INDISTINCT SPEECH

But rather than continue to look for a birth record,

they decided to look for a death record instead.

What's his mother's maiden name?

This was a turning point in the investigation

as it gave an exact date of birth for William.

William's birth record was found

which gave them his mother's name -

Elizabeth Thomas.

The crucial information on the birth certificate

was the specific village name where William was born,

which helped us locate the census records.

The team are looking at the 1911 census in this part of Wales,

where he was born, to see if they can find the family.

And they're crosschecking the details with those from

Ivor's parents' marriage certificate.

We've managed to link Thomas' occupation as

a travelling timber tradesman to the builder's merchant.

It's the best out of everything else,

all the other censuses. So that's the one to go with.

The census shows that William had three sisters

and one brother called David.

We've been asked to try and find the next of kin,

which we believe would be you.

The team think David could be the person who

signed as a witness for William's marriage to Margaret Dredge in 1928.

And feel confident they've found the right Griffiths family.

All right, let me take some notes of these.

The next step is to find out what happened to these aunts

and uncles on Ivor's father's side.

Ethel died in 1972, as a spinster.

Winifred also died in 1990, as a spinster.

And Sadie died in 1978, as a spinster.

So we're only left with David after that.

Thankfully, he married in 1932 and had two children.

Even though there were quite a few siblings,

it turns out there were only two heirs on this side of the family

because three of the siblings of William all died spinsters,

without issue.

With their first two potential heirs found,

the team moved back on to Ivor's mother's side of the family

to see if the remaining two uncles - Clifford and John -

had any children who might still be alive.

It turns out that aviators Clifford and Dorothy had three children.

One of them is John Dredge.

Wonderful memories.

He's Ivor's first cousin.

The team had found their first heir.

When I first heard that Ivor was leaving some sort of estate,

that I might be a beneficiary, along with my sisters,

it was a great surprise.

I'm pretty sure the last time I saw Ivor...

it was at the period when he had decided to go

to try to become a minister in the church.

And Ivor came bounding in from a side door to his pulpit.

And with great gusto, started to preach to us.

Then it was time for a hymn, at which point,

Ivor dived behind his pulpit,

and we could see he was eating his sandwiches.

-And it was hilarious.

-HE CHUCKLES

I feel sure that any congregation would have warmed to him.

Ivor's third and final uncle on his mother's side, John,

had one daughter who had passed away,

so her two children became heirs,

bringing the total number

on this side to five.

In total, we ended up with seven beneficiaries -

two on the paternal side and five on maternal side.

So, for those of you who are new to...

In the auction room in London,

Andrew is about to discover just how much the estate will be worth.

So the next lot is lot 72 - Mrs Griffiths' investment property.

This house was bedsits many years ago,

although it's been empty for many years.

Everything needs doing to it.

And although they will get mortgage security,

it will be very difficult to secure normal mortgages

given the condition of the properties.

And that's why we're here at auction rather than private treaty sale.

With the first house having sold for £143,000,

now it's time for Patricia and Ivor's investment property

to go under the hammer.

193,000.

194.

195.

We're going to get there, aren't we? 196.

197.

197 I have. 197.5.

He's bid 198.

All right. Here we go then. £198,000. First time.

£198,000 for the second time.

It's been absolutely clear, madam, you will lose this to these guys.

Another £500 possibly if I don't another bid from you.

Third and final time then.

At £198,000. I'm pointing at them but looking at you. Are we all done?

Sold. Well done. £198,000.

That's an excellent result.

The heirs to Mr Griffiths' estate, his blood relatives,

will now have quite a substantial amount of cash

to distribute between them.

From our point of view,

this was both an interesting and unusual estate

where we initially didn't know whose estate we were researching.

And we had the vested interest angle as well.

And I understand that the estate has a value of over £400,000.

But for Ivor's cousin, John,

the benefit isn't really a financial one.

I think I'm thrilled to bits to hear now that,

even in his later years, he was out there communicating with people.

He was always wanting to make people happy and please them.

While for Ivor's friend Sandra,

it's a reminder of a man who's greatly missed.

He made people love him.

And if you can do that, you can do anything.

He was just...marvellous.

Marvellous, marvellous.

I feel like I've lost, you know, lost your best friend.

SHE SNIFFLES

Wonderful Ivor. That's all I can say about him. Just wonderful.

Valerie Linda Nash passed away in a care home

in Birmingham in 2014.

I never actually visited Valerie's family home,

but we were told about it.

My mum would say it was a really nice home in Great Barr,

but we never ever got to see it.

Heir hunting firm Finders are searching for her heirs.

OK, I have some more information.

What did they say?

The team have been looking at the five siblings

of Valerie's mother - Linda Berry.

Is it in connection with a cousin of your mother's?

They've found that her older sibling - brother Arthur -

died when he was 14.

Linda's three youngest sisters have also died, but they had all married.

Any children of these siblings

would be the heirs the team were looking for.

Valerie's youngest aunt, Eileen Berry, married William Jones

just after war in 1946.

When we located the family from that stem,

they informed us of an interesting story about Valerie's aunt.

She'd actually been involved in the Women's Land Army.

To keep up food production while the farmers had gone to war,

the Women's Land Army was set up in 1917 and then reformed in 1939.

It forms part of the voluntary work which women could undertake

to support the war effort,

alongside that of munitions,

nursing and women's military services.

'In no country are women so thoroughly organised for war.'

However, from December 1941, all unmarried single women, widows,

were conscripted to join the war effort,

between the ages of 20 and 30.

Eileen joined the Women's Land Army in August 1942.

She was based in Birmingham and was unusual in the fact that

she actually worked in Warwickshire, so her home county.

So, as part of her work, she would have undertaken a whole

variety of farm work,

for example, dairy farming, animal farming, ploughing, threshing.

Before joining the Women's Land Army,

Eileen worked as an invoice clerk.

So you couldn't really get a more stark change in occupation.

It was very strenuous, hard manual labour.

They were doing digging, they were carrying heavy farm equipment,

things which they were unused to before.

And some suffered from long-lasting back and joint injuries,

as a result of that work.

At the beginning of World War II, 70% of Britain's food was imported.

By the end of the war, 70% was home-grown.

After the Women's Land Army disbanded,

recognition was very delayed.

Recognition really culminated in the unveiling

of the Women's Land Army and Timber Corps Memorial

at the National Memorial Arboretum in October 2014,

which is now a permanent memorial

for all the women who worked on the land as part of the

Women's Land Army during the First World War

and the Second World War.

Eileen and her husband, William, went on to have three children

and four grandchildren.

One of Eileen's granddaughters is Nicola Jones.

She's first cousin once removed of Valerie's and an heir to the estate.

It still does not feel real that all this has happened, I suppose.

It's not something that you get,

someone knocking on your door telling you that someone died

and they've left you inheritance.

It's a nice feeling, but it's a sad feeling at the same time.

I wish that I got the chance to know this Valerie.

I'd love to see the pictures of her and what she looked like,

and the sort of job that she did.

It would have been nice to have known her.

Nicola's father's, who was a cousin of Valerie's,

passed away when Nicola was 18.

She and her three siblings lost contact with his side of the family.

We know our cousins, but we're not really in touch with them.

We only really have each other - like, me, my sisters and my brother.

In the office, the team are looking into Valerie's other

three aunts on her mother's side.

One of them appeared to marry in 1939,

but the team could find no other records for her.

We managed to trace one of the aunts of Valerie

and she was still alive at the ripe old age of 100.

It's quite an incredible discovery for us.

It doesn't happen very often.

Often on a family tree, we'll come across a number of elderly people.

I think the important thing there is to take a responsible

approach to it and to maybe ensure that there's someone else there,

maybe a family member or friend,

who can reassure the person we're speaking to, if it's in person.

Or to ask on the phone

if there's anyone else that they wish to consult with

further to the conversation that we're having.

A niece of this lady has power of attorney for her,

so it meant that we were able to provide all paperwork for the case

through her niece, she didn't have to deal with it herself.

Valerie's other two aunts - Constance and Joyce -

both passed away, but their three children have been found

and are heirs to Valerie's estate,

bringing the total on her mother's side to nine.

Resolving the number of heirs on Valerie's father's side

of the family was now the focus of attention.

Nope. That's absolutely fine. That's great.

We discovered Valerie's father's parents were William and Laura Nash.

From the 1911 census of William and Laura,

it tells us that they had eight children -

seven were alive, one had passed away.

However, now we know Laura's maiden name of Bishop,

we can always check to see if they had any further children after 1911.

The team did, in fact, find one more child - Hilda, born in 1912.

The next step is to look into if Valerie's paternal aunts

and uncles got married and had any children.

In fact, they did.

And from these aunts and uncles, the team found a total of 18 heirs.

But the call from the heir hunters has meant more than just

a welcome financial boost. For Nicola and her sister Donna,

it's also an opportunity to find out more about the family's trade,

so they've come to Birmingham's Jewellery Museum.

This is where your great-grandmother Agnes would be working.

She was a silver finisher,

so she would have been applying the finish to the article, basically.

And what these devices here are

are polishing machines, basically.

You would have a different grade of abrasiveness of this thing here,

which you can fit on the end, called a polishing mop.

And you would also use this substance here

to be polishing the precious metal with.

How long would she have been sitting here working for,

-how long was the working day?

-All day long, it could be.

Basically, 8.00 in the morning to 5.45 at night.

It would be a particularly horrible job.

To protect their clothing,

all they would have on top would be a long sheet of brown paper.

-Really?

-And that would be expected to catch the precious metal

coming away as well.

Just round here...

Right. So, over here is the bench, or the peg,

where your great grandad Arthur would be working.

He would be using tools and techniques that have been in the

trade literally thousands of years.

Now this particular tool he'd be using is called the drill stock.

It's more commonly called the bow drill or Archimedes drill.

This is a tool that was developed by the ancient Egyptians.

So 3,000-plus years ago.

Can't imagine what you'd use it for.

No. Here we go. I'll give you a little demonstration.

Very, very simple to use.

For Nicola and Donna, it's been a journey of discovery

about their ancestral roots.

It's inspired us.

It definitely makes you realise that history is valuable.

There's just so much, isn't there?

Life changes in such big way 100 years ago,

but this all still here,

although lots of things have changed.

It does make you realise that you do leave a legacy, I suppose.

You know, everybody leaves a footprint.

-And I think it does make you value that, doesn't it?

-Yeah.

In total, the team found 27 heirs to Valerie's estate.

It's a great result for us.

It means all the money will go to the family,

as opposed to the government.

But for Valerie's friends and family, it isn't

about an inheritance, the experience has been a reflective one.

I think it's important that you do keep in touch with your family.

And I'm just sad that Valerie didn't

or we didn't keep in touch with Valerie.

-It has been exciting...

-Yeah.

-..and emotional to think that

there's some relation that you never knew, you've never met

that's out there. It's...

Yeah, it's really nice, isn't it? It's really nice.

And it is a journey.

And one that you sort of want to find more out about.