Parker/Carr Heir Hunters

Today, the heir hunters struggle to pin down a tricky family tree...

It'll be a cold call.

We'll just play it by ear, see how you get on.

I can't call a 94-year-old, can I?

..while another team tackle one of their biggest cases yet...

All right. Cheers. Bye.

She's a beast, this case.

OK, I seem to have only half a tree. Is that the other half?

..and the research uncovers some incredible family connections.

This gives us a snapshot in time...

-Right.

-..of where he is and what he's doing.

In London, heir-hunting firm Finders are busy working on a case

referred by a member of the public.

It's the estate of Gladys Peggy Parker.

Now, the information we've been provided is quite useful.

It tells us when she was born, it tells us when she passed away,

it gives us her last known address and also her maiden name.

Gladys passed away on 10 September 2015

in Yeovil, Somerset.

She'd been born in the town in 1929 and had lived there her whole life.

However, Gladys died with no known relatives.

The team begin their research by looking at her parents' families.

Her parents were Robert Fred Chainey and Hilda Bessie Louisa Cook.

They married in 1926 in Yeovil.

So now we're looking at the paternal and the maternal families.

1911 census shows that Lindell, who's the maternal grandfather,

and Louisa, the maternal grandmother,

had ten children, which is not unusual for the time.

So there's going to be nine maternal lines

that we'll need to look into.

Ryan goes on to discover Gladys's paternal grandparents

were called John Chainey and Maria Hellier.

They also had ten children, but two died as infants.

The paternal grandfather is a leather dresser for a glove company.

But, yeah, both sides of the family, in 1911 at least,

numerous people are employed in the making of gloves.

It's absolutely no surprise that the Chainey and Cook family

were actually all involved

in the gloving industry.

This was very, very common in those days.

During the 19th and early 20th century,

Yeovil was at the centre of the glove-making industry

with up to 200 factories within a 20-mile radius.

Three main reasons why there were so many factories around Yeovil

was one, it was cheap labour,

two, there was raw material and there was plenty of sheep, farming,

and three, the water.

The River Yeo runs just outside Yeovil,

and the tanning industry needs good, soft water,

so there was plenty of water.

I think gloving gets in people's blood

and many people would have stayed in the gloving industry

most of their lives.

Almost done.

With both sides of the family deeply ingrained in Yeovil life,

the team start tracing each stem.

I am looking into the maternal family of Cook for Ryan.

There are nine stems in addition to the deceased's mother,

so I'm just going to split up the nine that are remaining

between myself and a couple of the other staff.

So, I've been given

the eldest three of the Cook family.

The surname is not the ideal one

that I would want to be looking into,

but hopefully, they stay local to the Yeovil area

and that will make it a little bit easier.

Meanwhile, Suzanne has been given the Chainey name to investigate -

Gladys's father's side of the family.

-Do you want me to look at her?

-Yeah, please, and I'll check the others.

I'm looking into the son of Mary Ethel Chainey.

She is an aunt of the deceased.

So far, I've found that she married a Mr Emery

and had three children.

They all stayed in the Yeovil area.

I've gone on to look at Clara. She was an aunt of the deceased.

I found that she married a Mr Abbott and she had three children by 1911.

There was also an Annie Elizabeth Chainey

marrying another Mr Abbott,

so it could be that the two sisters married

two brothers of the Abbott family and had children.

So that makes it a little bit difficult

to work out whose children are who.

Suzanne's hunch was correct.

Both sisters married brothers from an Abbott family.

She manages to get hold of a cousin of Gladys's,

the first potential heir.

Hi. I was wondering if you could help me.

We're looking at the Chainey family tree

and we believe that was your grandmother's maiden name.

There seems to be quite a few siblings of your grandmother,

but you're the first person we've spoken to.

All right, thanks a lot. Bye-bye.

Amy has also struck gold on the maternal side.

I've been looking at a couple of the other Cook stems.

There's a Stanley Cook and there's also a Gladys Cook.

The stems of Stanley and Gladys appear to have living beneficiaries

who would actually be cousins of Gladys's,

so it would be really useful to speak to them.

But it's not as simple as that.

So far, though, every number I'm trying

is just ringing without answer,

without an answer machine, so I can't even leave a message.

Amy is frustratingly close, but needs to be patient.

Usually, I would be sending a rep straight over to these addresses

because I can't get hold of them.

It doesn't sound as though they're home. It's just ringing.

They're also quite elderly. They're in their 80s.

It's a little bit more sensitive when they're on the elderly side.

But it's really important to speak to them, at the same time.

Finally, there's a breakthrough.

We're a company of heir hunters. I trace missing beneficiaries.

The Cook family were sort of from Yeovil, that sort of area.

Gordon Cook? But a cousin Gordon?

I'll make a note of him. Bye-bye.

And the research is all starting to add up.

I can't call a 94-year-old, can I?

-What's his name?

-Gordon.

Well, I just spoke to Eric and he is going to call Gordon,

so that means that Gordon is quite with it

and Gordon knows everything about the family, apparently.

But instead of waiting,

the team decide to send travelling researcher Steven

out to the heirs' homes.

We've got another five visits in the area,

so I'm just trying to work out the quickest way for him

to get to each person.

He's about an hour and a half away from the first beneficiary,

and then each person after that is about ten minutes away,

so he'll just go from beneficiary to beneficiary, I imagine.

He's two hours away from Wells,

and then from Wells, there's another one in Taunton,

which is 20 minutes, half an hour away.

The following day, Steven is still on the road visiting heirs.

He's on his way to meet Graham Patton,

a maternal cousin once removed from the Cook family.

This is the fifth visit I've been to on this case.

Bit of a problem with this job - that it's mid-morning.

The chap is of working age and he's probably going to be at work.

But Steven's got to find him first.

So, the triangle is just this little bit here.

-Hopefully.

-Hopefully. If not, I'll ask in the Post Office. Thanks.

-Hello there.

-Hello there. I'm looking for a Graham Patton.

-Speaking.

-Hello there.

Success. Steven manages to find Graham and sign him up.

I've got a couple of forms to fill out.

Firstly, could I ask you just to sign on that one there?

And there is further success

with another maternal cousin once removed.

-Hello there.

-Hello.

Avril is able to confirm the family connection to glove making.

Well, I worked in the glove factory for years.

Well, it was quite good. It was quite a well-run factory.

You know, people were friendly.

There were dozens of glove factories in Yeovil.

And it's not over for Steven yet, as he puts in a call to the office.

Oh, hello, Camilla. It's Steve here.

I have actually got four agreement forms with me,

-so I could do another...

-PHONE:

-'OK.'

I could do, actually, another full two if you need me to.

'A Gordon Cook, who's in Yeovil, who Ryan spoke to yesterday.

'If you go and visit Gordon, then hopefully, he'll sign.'

-Yeah.

-'And then... Cos we've spoken to him.

-'And then we've got four other beneficiaries.'

-OK.

'So just take your pick.

'If you can find them, that's brilliant.'

With the heirs all very local to one another,

it doesn't take long to reach Gordon Cook,

a cousin of Gladys's on her mother's side.

-Hello. Mr Cook?

-Hello.

-Gladys Parker.

-Ah, she died.

-Yeah.

She's died without leaving a will and she's...

You are a beneficiary of her estate.

And it seems Gordon was part of the gloving industry too.

Well, I know she was...quiet. Very quiet girl.

I used to pass her when I was going to work.

I used to just wave to her on the bike. That's all.

My father was a glove cutter all of his life.

And I was a glove cutter as well

until the factories closed in Yeovil.

Back at the office, the team have uncovered even more heirs.

I've got three possibles lined up for tomorrow,

which I'll be doing, and that's it for the day.

And if I was drinking man, I'd be going for a drink.

-But I'm not, so I won't.

-HE CHUCKLES

Done.

Over the following days,

the heir hunters consolidate their research.

Still got a few people left to find,

but essentially, it's looking as though there's going to be

about 40 beneficiaries in this case.

It's really useful that we sent Steven out on the case

to go and visit the family,

and particularly in a family such as this

where a lot of people stayed local.

And for Gordon and the other heirs, it's still a lot to take in.

It's the first time it's ever happened to me, but...

Nobody's ever left me anything before.

Margery Carr was born on October 25, 1926 in Sunderland, Tyne and Wear,

and remained in Sunderland for the rest of her life.

I knew Margery for... Well, I'm 57. For 57 years.

I was born in this house, so Margery and the family lived next door.

She was always full of fun and that, and you used to hear her

singing and that, in the house and that,

and, no, she was a lovely lady.

Margery worked as a master bakeress at the local bakery in the dockyard.

Margery loved to cook. She were a lovely, lovely cook.

She often used to bake cakes and send them over to us.

And she loved her garden, she loved flowers,

and she loved to be in the garden.

Before moving into a nursing home, she lived with her brother John.

There was only Margery and her brother.

It was just the two of them left.

They always used to bring us flowers out of the garden

and things like that, and just a very kind family.

Margery passed away on 26 October, 2014.

The case was advertised

on the Government Legal Department's Bona Vacantia list

and was picked up by London heir-hunting company

Fraser & Fraser.

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

Case manager Ben Cornish was in charge,

and hit a problem immediately.

So, when the estate was advertised by the Bona Vacantia Division,

the spelling of Margery was with a J.

When we subsequently looked for a birth record

of a Margery Carr in 1926 using that spelling,

we couldn't locate one.

We soon found out that she was actually registered

under Margery with a G.

The team also wanted to check for any value in the estate

to pass on to any heirs.

So, when Margery died, she was living in a nursing home,

but two years prior to that,

she was living at a residential address

with her brother John Hall Carr.

When we looked into the Land Registry document,

we discovered that she owned it with her brother.

Conversations with the neighbours

discovered that it'd been a family home

and that John Hall Carr and Margery were the last of their siblings.

With value confirmed

and neighbours suggesting Margery may have had more siblings,

Ben got his team to dig deeper.

Who's free? Anybody?

Off her birth certificate, we found out her parents' names,

so we did a search and we discovered that...

..there was a very good-looking marriage

between a William Carr and a Margaret Fox

in Sunderland in 1918.

And Ben discovered Margery's close family was quite large.

All right. Cheers. Bye.

When we undertook the search,

we found out that she had a number of brothers and sisters.

We have one, two, three, four, five in total.

William and Margaret had six children,

including Margery,

but the initial research then hit a dead end.

When we discovered that Margery was one of six,

we were thinking that it was going to be a case

where there'd be near kin,

but when we started looking into the brothers and sisters,

we discovered that none of them had left descendants.

When we looked into the mother's side of the family,

we discovered that she was born as Margaret Fox.

We soon discovered that Charles Fox, her father,

had died pretty soon after she was born.

Margaret was the only child born to her parent's marriage.

We then found out that Sarah had remarried

and had further children,

but these would be half-blood relations

and therefore, full blood have a prior claim

and they would not be entitled.

The team now needed to see

if Margery's father's side of the family might prove more fruitful.

When we were looking into the paternal side of the family,

we knew that the deceased father was William Carr.

We then located his birth record.

He was the son of Robert Carr

and Alice Parkin.

They married in March 1871

in Sunderland

and had 11 kids in total.

Robert Carr was a shipwright, which is the grandfather of Margery,

but also a lot of his other kids

also had been working on the shipyards as well.

It seemed that Margery was not the only family member

who had worked at the docks.

With shipbuilding being such a major industry in Sunderland

during the 19th and 20th century, this came as no surprise.

In 1840, when 251 ships were built,

this was the record number of ships

ever built on the Wear.

And, of course, these were quite small ships,

and as ships got bigger

and developed into steamships and motor ships,

there was a lot of changes in the yards

to accommodate the building of these different types of vessels.

Shipbuilding was probably the biggest employer at one time.

Possibly 20,000 men worked in the yards.

It was very common for whole families to work at the port,

and working at the shipyard as war approached

had significant dispensations.

Because the shipbuilding industry was so vital to the war effort,

both in the First World War and the Second World War,

many of the trades were regarded and designated as reserved occupations,

and therefore, they remained in the yard

and that was their contribution towards the war effort.

This was certainly the case for some of Margery's uncles.

For the team at Frasers, the size of the task was becoming clear.

She's a beast, this case.

OK, I seem to have only half a tree. Is that the other half?

But as the family tree kept on unravelling,

the team hit another stumbling block.

One of Margery's uncles, James Weatherall Carr,

married a Margaret Dalzell

and had a son named James Weatherall Carr Junior.

If James had any children, they could be heirs,

but his life appeared to be a mystery.

We couldn't identify any deaths for him or any marriages for him.

He was a good age to have fought in the Second World War,

so we thought that was an avenue to look at.

Eventually, more service records revealed that Margery's cousin,

James Weatherall Carr,

was a gunner in the 35th light infantry regiment sent to Asia.

In 1941, the Japanese invaded Burma,

which was part of the British Empire at this time.

The Japanese assault

on the British Empire in the Far East

causes us lots of problems.

The war's been fought since 1939 and we've had some major reverses.

This is causing huge strain on equipment supplies and men.

When the Japanese finally attack,

there's not a lot left for the field army,

especially around Singapore.

They start sending all of the regiments

and equipment that they can spare from other fronts.

The British campaign to push the Japanese out of Burma

was one of the longest and most violent campaigns of World War II.

When the Japanese attack, it's a surprise.

We've never fought in the Far East before against such an enemy.

The Japanese have total air superiority.

This is firing in jungle warfare.

Most of these guys have never been to a jungle before.

Not only are they fighting a battle for the first time,

but they're fighting in a place they've never been,

unfamiliar surroundings. It's a proper ordeal for them.

As a gunner, James Weatherall Carr

would have been right at the heart of the action.

These roles are 24 hours a day. It's on your nerves all the time.

You are waiting for the enemy to attack you all the time.

You're looking at someone

who's going to have to have very steady nerves.

On 15 February, 1942, the British formally surrendered.

The Japanese close in

and they push us back onto Singapore Island,

so they're on the mainland, we're on the island.

The Japanese are constantly bombing us,

constantly under artillery and shellfire,

so we're taking losses and there is no way forward

for the general officer commanding, so he surrenders.

It was a hard fight, but the Japanese were better.

It was a major knock to our prestige in that area of the world

where, up till then, we are the invincible British Empire

and now we have surrendered to the Japanese.

But the story didn't end there for James Weatherall Carr.

I did a search on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission

and I managed to identify a death

of a James W Carr in Thailand in 1943.

Since being sent out to Burma,

how had James Carr come to be buried

in a Thai grave?

Following the surrender in Burma,

the remaining British troops were now prisoners of war.

The Japanese take time to work out how to deal with their prisoners,

and what they do is they decide to use them as a slave labour force.

To defend their new conquered lands, their new Japanese empire,

they need to improve the transport links.

They've taken Burma for a reason, and that's the rubber, it's the oil,

it's all of those rich, raw materials

that is what they want,

and they need to get that out there quickly.

The prisoners of war were forced to build the Thailand-Burma Railway,

the principal route to support Japanese forces in Burma

and to move raw materials into India.

The conditions in the camps on the railway

are the worst you could possibly imagine.

They are dying every day of malnutrition, beriberi, cholera.

They're catching every single disease.

They get no rest, no break. They are being worked to death.

It's the most miserable existence you can think of.

And you're in the jungle. You've got no medical supplies.

You've got no food. You've got no water.

It's the worst place you could possibly be.

Over 12,500 prisoners of war died

during the construction of the railway.

When you die, the Japanese actually allow them to bury them.

They have more respect for the dead than they do for the living.

James Weatherall Carr

was buried in Kanchanaburi War Cemetery.

With that stem ending, the team had no choice

but to continue searching through Margery's other cousins

and their children,

and after an epic hunt, their efforts were rewarded.

We also found another uncle by the name of Thomas Liddle Carr.

He married a lady by the name of Margaret Florence Grimes.

So, Margaret and Thomas had four kids.

Those four children went on to produce 11 heirs on the tree.

One of them was Vaughan Williams,

great-grandson of Thomas Liddle Carr,

alive and well and living in Wales.

It came as a complete surprise. I mean...

And when he started talking about him, I thought, "Oh, yeah.

"I would be interested to know more."

I'd heard the name Carr.

I hadn't heard the name Margery before.

Vaughan didn't know much about his extended family.

I only knew of a few people in Sunderland,

and the Coventry families.

But he has fond memories of his father,

who had also served in Burma.

His medals used to be in a box.

I mean, they were only the standard military medals you got.

I think they call them campaign medals.

But, I mean, I used to look at those.

But unlike James Weatherall Carr, Vaughan's father had a lucky escape.

My father was shot in Burma in the leg.

Him and another chap were trying to rescue somebody who had been shot,

so he was shipped home.

As I say, I don't know where he went,

you know, what he did, really, apart from what he told me.

It was just interesting to find out. This family tree, I'd like to see.

For Vaughan, this was an opportunity to delve into his family's past

and find out more about his father's war days.

Hello, Vaughan. Nice to see you. Come with me. Come on through.

What I'm looking for is details of my father's time in the army.

We need to start with, "What's his name?"

-Reginald Vaughan Williams.

-OK.

What we have is we have the ATA station registers,

so that's every soldier who joined the artillery 1921 to 1946.

So, here, we have Reginald Vaughan Williams.

1817252. OK?

-Heard him say it.

-Every old soldier can rattle it off.

Do you want to pass me that little card off there?

This is a tracer card.

-This gives us a snapshot in time...

-Right.

..of where he is and what he's doing.

So, we've got, "Enlisted 26th of June 1941.

-"Coast Branch." That's Coast Defence and Anti-Aircraft Branch.

-Mm-hm.

That regiment writes a daily war diary.

1943.

So, it's the day, sometimes it's the time,

sometimes it's a minute-by-minute whatever's going on.

All of this, which tells you people going in and out of the regiment.

-I knew he went to Ceylon, Burma, Sumatra.

-Yeah.

Those were the things that he said about.

But, you know, again, I wish I'd listened then more than I did.

But Vaughan's memories have confirmed the family connection.

I'm intrigued about your mentioning of Sumatra.

That intrigues me - Sumatra, Java - because whilst doing all of this,

-we came across somebody else.

-Oh, right.

-And he's also in the Far East.

-Yes.

-They are second cousins.

He's a Carr.

-Right.

-James Weatherall Carr.

-Mm-hm.

-And he died July 1943.

-Mm-hm.

He was from Sunderland, so it's that side of the family.

-That's right, yeah.

-But we do also have his attestation.

1827. Your father was 18...

-It was almost at the same time.

-Yeah, yeah.

-Almost at the same time.

-So, 1827295.

-It's a small world, isn't it?

-Now, we don't hold a lot else.

-No.

We don't hold a lot else on that regiment

because they were so utterly destroyed.

-Yeah.

-The war diaries didn't come back.

Not a lot of them came back either.

We've considered that my father was lucky.

I mean, all right, he was shot, but he got over that.

I mean, he didn't lose his leg, he didn't die, he could walk after.

-And he went on to have a good life.

-Well, yeah, yeah.

-And even had you.

-Well, yeah.

-There you go.

-Win-win.

-Yeah.

The revelation that Vaughan's father Reginald

was fighting at the same time as James Weatherall Carr

left Vaughan reflecting on what could have been.

I knew nothing about James Carr.

The outcome was a lot worse there. He didn't come back.

So, you know, it's a lot sadder story.

My father's story was, you know, a happy story.

I'm really surprised how well-documented it is

and I really want to find out more now.

It's whetted my appetite.

And for Ben and the team at Frasers, the story wasn't over either.

This is the largest case that I've ever worked on

and we ended up having, in total, 85 heirs,

so this really was quite a beast of a job.

For Vaughan Williams,

the experience has been far more valuable than the inheritance.

It's not the money that is paramount.

It's what I've learnt now.

The chance that I can find out information

of my father's things and, like, my family.

It'd be nice to be able to look further back.