Smith/Dennis Heir Hunters


Smith/Dennis

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Today, the pressure's on as one team search for heirs

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to a high-value estate...

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Bye-bye.

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It's frustrating.

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She's not at home so we can't determine

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if we've got the right heir or not.

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..and the estate of a man from Essex proves fiercely competitive...

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We knew that every second,

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every minute would count in terms of finding the beneficiaries before

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anybody else.

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..leaving a £250,000 estate hanging in the balance.

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Obviously, we'd spent a day researching into a family

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which were no longer entitled.

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It's all in a day's work for the Heir Hunters.

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As I'm sure you're aware,

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his estate's now been referred to the Government Legal Department

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on behalf of the Crown.

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In the offices of Fraser and Fraser in Central London,

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the team are working a major new case.

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Oh, no.

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Case manager Dave Slee...

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I have one, two, three, four...

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five children.

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..along with research manager Isha Adams,

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is desperately trying to find heirs

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to an estate thought to be worth around £140,000.

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The case of Edith Florence Smith.

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She died October this year, in Leicester.

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In Britain, almost 750,000 people share the surname Smith,

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so the team know they'll have their work cut out.

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I do not enjoy the challenge of a Smith search!

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It'll be a complete nightmare to try and find him.

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You're faced with numerous people

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being born at the same time

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in the same district with the same names.

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Edith Florence Smith passed away

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on the 7th of October, 2016, age 95.

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She'd lived in this semidetached house in Leicester

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since it was built in 1932,

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having moved there with her parents when she was just 12 years old.

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Her neighbour, Tom, still remembers the day he first met Edith.

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Come on, Luce.

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We got married and bought this place, moved in.

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Edie was living next door.

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She was a nice neighbour. Bit eccentric.

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When we walked past the window,

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you know, taking the dogs to the park,

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she'd always... She'd always wave.

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Although Edith was quite a private lady,

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she was an active member of her local church,

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where she played the piano for the choir.

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She'd start playing church music.

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She liked going to church.

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She had no television.

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Would never have one.

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She liked the radio, liked classical music.

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She liked playing the piano, which is still in the back room.

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Tom never recalls Edith having any contact with family members,

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but in her latter years,

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he remembers she grew close to a gentleman called John.

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They met in Littlewoods...

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..every Saturday.

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When they'd finished, they used to walk down Haymarket,

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go into Argos,

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and sit on their settees.

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They idolised each other, absolutely...

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I mean, she was in her... Nearly her 90s.

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John was quite poorly.

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He passed away a few years ago.

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She was absolutely devastated.

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She never forgot the man at all.

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She said to me once, if she'd been younger,

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she would have got married.

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What children have we got there?

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Although Edith owned the house,

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worth an estimated £140,000,

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she didn't leave a will.

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Whilst many estates are advertised

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by the Government's Legal Department,

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this came from an unusual source.

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A few days ago,

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Dave received a phone call from a gentleman

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who claimed he was a distant relative of Edith's.

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Now, what was unusual was that

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this gentleman said that he was related to

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the lady, but he didn't know how.

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Now, that is strange, in the first instance.

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With a valuable property at stake,

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the team got straight to work.

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As well as establishing whether the man who'd called in was a relative,

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they'd also need to search for any other heirs to the estate.

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Caroline, that would make sense,

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and Thomas.

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Yep.

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As with most cases, Dave began by searching for Edith's close family.

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The gentleman referred to the deceased as a spinster.

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Now, of course, we also made a search

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just to make sure that, you know,

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she hadn't married during her lifetime.

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The team were quickly able to confirm that Edith hadn't married

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and didn't have any children.

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So Dave's next task was to see if she had any siblings.

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We needed to obtain a copy of

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Edith's birth certificate in 1920,

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which led us then to find that

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her parents had married in 1911.

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So it was a big gap.

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And to see if there's any children post-1911 to 1920

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and, of course, any children after 1920

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that would be siblings to the deceased.

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Dave quickly established that Edith's parents,

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Thomas Owen Smith and Florence Edith Cooke,

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married in December 1911,

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but only had the one daughter.

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This was bad news for Dave.

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Not only did it mean he'd now have to search the wider family

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for heirs, it was clear Smith

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wouldn't be the only difficult surname to research.

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In this instance,

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the deceased's mother maiden name was Cooke with an E but,

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unfortunately, of course, families tend to drop the E or put the E on.

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So what you're doing, in fact, is duplicating your research.

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You're undertaking the research under Cooke with an E

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and without the E.

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With no easy place to start,

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Dave and the team had bitten the bullet and begun work

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on the Smith side of the family.

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And they were given a head start,

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because Dave's mystery caller had been able to give them a copy

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of Edith's parents' marriage certificate.

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The information in that marriage

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gives us the mother's father's name -

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ie the grandfather's name -

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on the mother's side,

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and the same on the father's side.

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With this vital information,

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Dave was able to work out that Edith's grandparents,

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Thomas Smith and Elizabeth Owen,

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married in Leicester in 1871.

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And, as well as Edith's father, Thomas,

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they had a further three children -

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Sarah, George and Ellen.

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Dave has recruited research manager Isha Adams

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to help tackle the daunting search for Smiths...

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Right, I think I've found it.

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..and, today, she's focusing her attention

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on Edith's uncle, George Smith.

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So I have got a marriage...

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..of a George Smith to a Emma Jinks.

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So I've got the '11 census.

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I've got four definite daughters of the marriage.

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George's daughters - Florence, Ida, Alice and Winifred -

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are all likely to have passed away.

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So Isha needs to find out if they had any children who are still alive

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and heirs to the estate.

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And then I'll probably work Ida first,

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cos she's got the better name.

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She's born June 1903.

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But, frustratingly, Ida died without having any children.

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So, next, she turns her attention to Alice.

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And Alice Elizabeth is born the 4th of July...

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..1905.

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She's 97 when she died.

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Isha's hoping that, unlike her sister Ida,

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Alice went on to have children.

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I'm just going to check anyway.

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It doesn't look like Alice had any children.

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It's disappointing news.

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And Isha soon discovers that the third sister, Winifred,

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also died a spinster.

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All hopes now rest with George's final daughter, Florence.

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So I'm going to just look for Florence Edith,

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born 1899,

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dying in Leicester.

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See if any come up.

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From looking at the deaths,

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there is a Florence Edith Pawley,

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spelt P-A-W-L-E-Y.

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She's born 14th of February, 1900.

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Dies...

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August 1984, Leicester.

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So, hopefully, she has at least one

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child that we can work with.

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And Isha soon discovers that Florence married

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and seems to have had a child.

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So there's only one daughter off of this marriage.

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But Isha has reason to be cautious.

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It's a bit odd, because it's 18 years after the marriage

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and there only seems to be one...

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child.

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But as Isha receives the birth certificate

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for her suspected heir...

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No, this is all wrong.

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..the team face some bad news.

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The indexes suggested that there was a child from this marriage,

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but subsequent research has now eliminated that.

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In fact, that's a stem that dies out.

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With no heirs,

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and absolutely no link to the man

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who brought the case to their attention,

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there is an awful lot to do before this case is cracked.

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How's everything going on the Dennis side of the family?

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Whenever the Government releases the Bona Vacantia list

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of unclaimed estates, there's a flurry of activity

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at heir hunting firms up and down the country.

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It's always a bit exciting when the new Bona Vacantia list comes out for

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that day. Obviously, we have no idea what's going to be on the list,

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how many adverts will be there, how many high-value cases.

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Generally, we have no idea what's coming.

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So it can go from maybe 10, 20, 30, 40 cases

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one day to just having one estate on the list the next day.

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Case manager Ryan Gregory

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at London-based firm Finders International

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recently had a particularly busy day.

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We knew straightaway this case was going to be highly competitive.

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If there's only one advert on the list,

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this obviously puts the pressure on.

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And this estate was worth around £250,000,

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but Ryan had no idea it would push

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him and the team to the limit.

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We knew that every second,

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every minute would count in terms of finding the beneficiaries before

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anybody else.

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Edmund Arthur Dennis passed away on the 10th of November, 2015,

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in Broomhill Hospital in Essex,

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aged 85.

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Edmund was born and bred in Essex and,

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although he kept himself to himself,

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he was befriended by neighbours Kathleen and Alan,

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who knew him as Eddie.

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Oh, Eddie was lovely.

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He was just...

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..a very private person - very private -

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but he did like to have people to have a chat to.

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And he was always a very pleasant - what's the word? -

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equable sort of character,

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and...

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..quite approachable once you knew him.

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Very little is known about Edmund's life,

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but he did have one big passion that he shared with Kathleen and Alan.

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He was very keen on gardening and, since I retired,

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I was doing more of it myself,

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so we used to chat quite a lot...

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..about garden matters.

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He used to give us little plants and shoots.

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Whatever time of year it was,

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he used to put the different flowers

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in and looked after it really well.

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He used to love his garden.

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Edmund had always been a very active man but, unexpectedly,

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his health took a sharp turn for the worse.

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He suddenly developed...

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..symptoms, shall we say, of lack of energy, which wasn't his thing.

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He was always quite energetic for an 80-year-old and more.

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Eddie died...

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fairly suddenly.

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It was very, very sad and fairly sudden and, to some extent,

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unexpected, in the end, yes. Yes.

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But despite living next door to Edmund for over 35 years,

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his friends didn't know of any family.

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Ever since we've been here - Alan's been here since the '70s -

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he's never had any family, we never saw anyone.

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No.

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Yeah, it did get a bit bigger.

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There's quite a lot of cousins!

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Yeah, a lot of cousins, yeah.

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Edmund hadn't left a will,

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and it was down to the team

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to try and find heirs to his high-value estate.

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They began by trying to establish

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if Edmund had ever married or had children.

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Interestingly for us,

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there's a Maud B Dennis

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who appears to have lived at the address

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until about 1989.

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Maud could be someone that Edmund was married to.

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If Maud was Edmund's wife,

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it could give Ryan an early break

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and the edge on his competitors.

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But you can see straightaway, the top entry is a Maud Bessie Dennis,

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who died in 1989 in the correct area of Essex.

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But Ryan's excitement was short lived.

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We can see from her date of birth, she was born in 1903.

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Therefore, she would have been too old to be Edmund's spouse,

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and more likely fitting in of the...

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..scenario that she was Edmund's mother.

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Further searches revealed that Edmund had been a bachelor

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and hadn't had any children,

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so the team needed to look to his wider family.

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They decided to divide and conquer,

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with researcher Camilla Price focusing on the maternal side

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whilst case manager Ryan looked into Edmund's father's family.

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We want to work via the quickest channel possible in order to just,

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hopefully, get the quickest results.

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Yeah, if there's anything we can use to narrow down the search,

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it's obviously beneficial to us when we are racing against the clock.

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With every firm up and down the country also

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potentially searching for beneficiaries,

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the team had to work fast.

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With any case when...

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..there's a new advert out that day,

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we have to go as quickly as we can.

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But working fast can have its disadvantages.

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There's no time to wait for all of the certificates

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to come into the office.

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It's a tactic that carries risk.

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It's really hard to know

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that family tree is 100% correct until those certificates

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are in the office and can confirm that you are dealing with

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the right family and the right people.

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It can be very hard to know that you are on the right track.

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Camilla got straight on it, searching for Edmund's mother,

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Maud Bessie Carlick, on the 1911 census.

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We were able to see that Maud had two older brothers

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called Edward and William.

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Just had two stems to work with.

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I took one.

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Despite the heavy workload, within a matter of hours,

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Camilla was storming ahead,

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working the stems of Edmund's maternal aunts and uncles,

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hoping to find Edmund's cousins or their descendants.

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The ideal scenario for us when we're looking into any intestacy case

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would be to be conducting the research,

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to be getting results within the first hours of the research.

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To then find people.

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Hopefully, to have a phone number, we can speak to them

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and arrange a visit.

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And Camilla didn't disappoint.

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Located a cousin, was able to speak to them,

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and we got a representative out quite quickly.

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Camilla was closing in on potential maternal heirs.

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With the clock ticking, Ryan was making progress

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on the paternal side

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and had established that Edmund's grandparents,

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Ebenezer John Dennis and Beatrice Jane Coulter,

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had married in 1894.

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But as he searched the Census records for Edmund's siblings...

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..he ran into a problem.

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So on the 1901 and 1911 census records,

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Ebenezer is listed as a brewers employee.

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But, then, when we ordered his marriage certificate

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to Beatrice Jane Quilter,

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we saw that his profession was actually down as a baker.

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Had Ryan taken a wrong turn,

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or had Ebenezer simply changed professions?

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So Ebenezer Dennis was a baker in the 1890s,

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right at the end of the Victorian period.

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The Victorian era had seen a massive change in the baking industry.

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Since as far back as the Roman times,

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bread had been gracing dinner tables all over Britain.

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By the Victorian age,

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the average family of six would eat the equivalent

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of 31 loaves of bread each week.

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So it's no wonder the local baker was at the heart of

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every rural community.

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This is indicative what a bakery in a small working town

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in a rural part of the country

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would have looked like around 1890.

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So, by then, bread production was still mostly done by hand

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by a team of staff of three or four people,

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and manually kneading the dough in a dough trough

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like we have beneath the counter.

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As a baker in the late 1800s,

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Ebenezer would have been providing a vital service for the

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local community. But all that was about to change

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as the Industrial Revolution swept across England.

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The population in England in general had doubled,

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so they were forced into trying to compete with mass production,

0:19:280:19:32

and by doing it by hand,

0:19:320:19:34

it's pretty much impossible to keep up with demand.

0:19:340:19:37

As traditional bakers struggled,

0:19:370:19:39

larger, industrialised bakeries took over.

0:19:390:19:42

A bread machine working in a factory could produce 400 loaves of bread

0:19:430:19:49

from two 20st bags of flour

0:19:490:19:52

in under 40 minutes.

0:19:520:19:54

Man making dough manually in a dough trough would have to knead it for

0:19:540:19:59

an hour and a half, and could take up to six hours

0:19:590:20:01

to produce that amount of bread.

0:20:010:20:03

So the consequence of that meant that many small bakers

0:20:030:20:07

were put out of business.

0:20:070:20:09

Records suggest Ebenezer was working as a baker right in the middle of

0:20:090:20:13

these transitional times.

0:20:130:20:16

We know that Ebenezer Dennis

0:20:160:20:17

changed his profession from being a Victorian baker

0:20:170:20:21

to being a brewers labourer.

0:20:210:20:23

So it may have been as a result of industrialisation, the introduction

0:20:230:20:27

of machines that they could no longer compete against,

0:20:270:20:29

that they went out of business

0:20:290:20:31

and he had to seek alternative employment.

0:20:310:20:33

We could still, obviously, be letting them know

0:20:400:20:42

a bit about this section of the family tree.

0:20:420:20:44

After he switched professions from a baker to a brewer,

0:20:440:20:47

Ebenezer and his wife Beatrice had five children,

0:20:470:20:51

including Edmund's father, Arthur.

0:20:510:20:53

One of these children, James,

0:20:540:20:56

died in infancy, and another, Ronald, died as a bachelor.

0:20:560:21:00

There was good news on the line of Beatrice,

0:21:010:21:03

as she appeared to have married and had children.

0:21:030:21:05

But when they looked into the final sibling, Harry,

0:21:070:21:09

they hit another snag.

0:21:090:21:11

One main delaying factor for us

0:21:140:21:16

was the fact that the eldest born,

0:21:160:21:18

Harry John Dennis, actually emigrated to Australia.

0:21:180:21:22

He married in Australia.

0:21:220:21:23

They're not records we freely have access to here.

0:21:230:21:27

It was a frustrating setback.

0:21:280:21:30

But, across the office,

0:21:300:21:31

Camilla was making good progress on the maternal side

0:21:310:21:34

and had already located a number of potential heirs.

0:21:340:21:38

Within those few hours, competition were already catching up,

0:21:390:21:42

so we were trying to get visits out

0:21:420:21:45

very quickly and speak to people as soon as we could.

0:21:450:21:49

It was a triumphant result.

0:21:490:21:51

In just one day,

0:21:510:21:52

Camilla had signed up eight potential heirs

0:21:520:21:55

on the maternal side of the family.

0:21:550:21:57

We had already retained a couple of signatures from a few

0:21:570:22:02

beneficiaries and we were hopeful

0:22:020:22:04

that everything seemed to be going quite smoothly at that stage.

0:22:040:22:07

But Camilla's research was about to be derailed.

0:22:110:22:14

The next day, I spoke to a beneficiary.

0:22:160:22:17

She believed that she may not be part of the correct family

0:22:170:22:20

and that she may potentially be a half-blood cousin once removed.

0:22:200:22:24

At this stage, Ryan believed he'd found possible full blood heirs

0:22:240:22:28

on the paternal side,

0:22:280:22:29

so that meant any half-blood relatives would not be entitled.

0:22:290:22:33

Camilla now had to wait for certificates to come in

0:22:330:22:36

to see if the heirs she'd found were indeed half-blood.

0:22:360:22:40

After receiving her birth certificate in the office,

0:22:400:22:43

we realised that, even though Maud was registered as a Carlick,

0:22:430:22:46

she was actually an illegitimate birth.

0:22:460:22:47

Edmund's mother, Maud, was born after her father had died,

0:22:490:22:52

which meant he wasn't listed on the birth certificate.

0:22:520:22:55

It was disastrous news for the team.

0:22:550:22:58

We no longer had any full-blood maternal heirs,

0:22:580:23:02

and only half-bloods,

0:23:020:23:03

so this drastically changed our research

0:23:030:23:07

and meant that we now had no maternal side to our family.

0:23:070:23:10

It meant none of the heirs Camilla had signed would be entitled.

0:23:100:23:14

We could have spent an hour, a couple of hours,

0:23:150:23:19

potentially even a day working the wrong family,

0:23:190:23:21

and someone else might be working the right one.

0:23:210:23:24

All hopes of finding heirs to this £250,000 estate

0:23:250:23:29

now rested with the paternal side of the family.

0:23:290:23:32

But would the team be able to get there ahead of the competition?

0:23:320:23:35

Every year in Britain, thousands of people

0:23:410:23:43

get a surprise knock on the door from heir hunters.

0:23:430:23:46

I found that amazing,

0:23:460:23:48

that I had that side of the family

0:23:480:23:51

that I didn't know existed.

0:23:510:23:54

As well as handing over life-changing sums of money,

0:23:540:23:57

the heir hunters can bring long-lost relatives back together.

0:23:570:23:59

And I was quite shocked

0:24:020:24:03

because I didn't realise that there was anybody in the family that we

0:24:030:24:07

could inherit from any more.

0:24:070:24:08

But thousands of estates have eluded the heir hunters

0:24:100:24:13

and remain unsolved.

0:24:130:24:14

Today, we've got details of two estates yet to be claimed.

0:24:150:24:18

Could you be the person the heir hunters are looking for,

0:24:200:24:23

or know someone that is?

0:24:230:24:24

The first case is...

0:24:260:24:27

He was born in London on...

0:24:290:24:31

..and died in...

0:24:330:24:36

John was married, and it's thought he may have had a sister,

0:24:390:24:42

and may have also used the middle name of Edward.

0:24:420:24:45

Is there a chance you could be related, or know someone who is?

0:24:470:24:50

This second case is...

0:24:530:24:55

She was born in...

0:24:570:24:58

..and died on the...

0:25:020:25:04

..in...

0:25:040:25:06

Do you know a Goff or a Yalden?

0:25:140:25:17

If so, you could be in line for a surprise windfall.

0:25:170:25:20

At Fraser and Fraser in Central London...

0:25:320:25:35

We're getting further liabilities come to light and/or assets come to

0:25:350:25:39

light as well.

0:25:390:25:40

..heir hunters Dave and Isha are frantically

0:25:400:25:43

trying to find beneficiaries for the estate of Edith Smith

0:25:430:25:47

after being tipped off by a gentleman

0:25:470:25:49

who thinks he might be an heir.

0:25:490:25:51

So that's where it stands at the moment.

0:25:510:25:53

It's incredibly rare to receive a phone call like I did,

0:25:530:25:57

where the person who's phoned me,

0:25:570:26:00

believes they're related to the deceased,

0:26:000:26:02

but don't know to what degree they're related

0:26:020:26:06

or, indeed, to what side of the family they're related.

0:26:060:26:09

Edith didn't leave a will,

0:26:120:26:14

so the team have been trying to build a family tree

0:26:140:26:18

to try to find out if there's any truth in the caller's claims

0:26:180:26:22

and whether there were any other potential heirs

0:26:220:26:25

to Edith's £140,000 estate.

0:26:250:26:29

And he asked us if we could firstly

0:26:290:26:32

establish if he was, indeed, related, and to what degree.

0:26:320:26:36

PHONE RINGS

0:26:360:26:37

Hello?

0:26:370:26:39

Isha thought she'd found a potential heir

0:26:390:26:41

through one of Edith's paternal uncles,

0:26:410:26:42

but she discovered she'd been researching the wrong family.

0:26:420:26:46

It was just pure fluke that there were two families in the same area,

0:26:480:26:50

at the same time, with the same surnames, having children.

0:26:500:26:54

No, that's no good to you, to use that.

0:26:540:26:56

While Isha continues the search for Smith relatives,

0:27:000:27:03

Dave has been able to make some progress

0:27:030:27:05

on the maternal Cooke side of the family.

0:27:050:27:09

What we want to now establish -

0:27:090:27:12

are there other brothers and sisters to the deceased's mother

0:27:120:27:16

who would have descendants alive,

0:27:160:27:18

who would, of course, be entitled parties in this estate?

0:27:180:27:21

To do this, Dave has had to look into the maternal grandparents,

0:27:260:27:29

Benjamin Cooke and Mary Dovaston,

0:27:290:27:32

and search for their children.

0:27:320:27:34

And, immediately, something caught his eye.

0:27:340:27:36

Unusually, the father had this great profession -

0:27:380:27:41

he was a master hatter...

0:27:410:27:42

..based in Oxford Street in Leicester.

0:27:430:27:45

In the late 19th and early 20th century,

0:27:500:27:53

hats were at the peak of their popularity in England,

0:27:530:27:56

with hat manufacturing one of the busiest industries of the era.

0:27:560:28:00

Everyone wore a hat - man, woman and child.

0:28:010:28:03

You wouldn't leave the house without a hat.

0:28:030:28:06

But not just any old hat would do.

0:28:060:28:08

Your choice of headwear was governed by stringent rules.

0:28:080:28:13

The hat etiquette at this time was very strict.

0:28:130:28:16

What kind of hat you wore depended on your status and your role in

0:28:160:28:19

society. The foreman of a factory would wear one kind of hat,

0:28:190:28:24

whereas the workers would wear another.

0:28:240:28:27

Men like Edith's grandfather,

0:28:270:28:29

Benjamin Cooke, who made hats for a living,

0:28:290:28:31

were referred to as hatters.

0:28:310:28:34

Benjamin Cooke would have mainly been making silk top hats.

0:28:340:28:37

It was all done by hand in the time we're thinking about,

0:28:380:28:42

so you'd have to spend many years training to get it exactly right.

0:28:420:28:46

It was quite a lonely job, because you'd be in a room all by yourself.

0:28:460:28:49

It may have been hard work for very little pay,

0:28:510:28:54

but hatters did get some perks.

0:28:540:28:57

Bosses would insist on their staff drinking a large quantity of beer

0:28:570:29:00

each day, and for good reason.

0:29:000:29:02

Then the urine, at the end of the day, would be put into a bucket,

0:29:040:29:08

and then the urea from that would be used for the felting process with

0:29:080:29:12

wool. All the hatters would live along a road and, at the end of the

0:29:120:29:15

night, or in the morning, you'd leave your bucket of urine

0:29:150:29:17

outside and you'd get a penny for your bucket,

0:29:170:29:20

hence why there are so many Penny Lanes around the country.

0:29:200:29:22

However, there was one major drawback

0:29:230:29:26

to this fascinating profession.

0:29:260:29:27

Being a hatter was not a healthy occupation.

0:29:270:29:31

You were surrounded by toxic chemicals,

0:29:310:29:33

with the main toxicity being mercury.

0:29:330:29:36

Mercury poisoning gives you the shakes,

0:29:370:29:41

it makes you hallucinate,

0:29:410:29:43

and it makes you appear insane.

0:29:430:29:46

This is where the phrase "mad as a hatter" originated from.

0:29:460:29:49

And, eventually, it will kill you.

0:29:500:29:52

Not a very nice disease.

0:29:520:29:54

All right, thank you very much for your time.

0:30:010:30:03

Take care, bye-bye.

0:30:030:30:04

From looking at his death certificate,

0:30:040:30:06

it seems Benjamin died from another condition

0:30:060:30:09

linked to exposure to mercury.

0:30:090:30:12

Benjamin, the grandfather,

0:30:120:30:13

died when he was only 51 of cirrhosis of the liver.

0:30:130:30:17

The team had been trying to establish

0:30:180:30:20

how many children Benjamin had before his untimely death.

0:30:200:30:23

Now, the grandfather's deceased by 1906,

0:30:250:30:30

but the 1911 Census shows that she had five children.

0:30:300:30:33

In theory, four other aunts and uncles to the deceased

0:30:330:30:36

who could have descendants alive who could be entitled.

0:30:360:30:39

Dave established that,

0:30:410:30:42

after Benjamin Cooke married Mary Dovaston, they had

0:30:420:30:45

Edith's mother, Florence,

0:30:450:30:47

and four other children -

0:30:470:30:48

Caroline, Thomas, Arthur and Emily.

0:30:480:30:51

But after further research into these aunts and uncles,

0:30:530:30:56

things weren't looking good for the team.

0:30:560:30:58

Caroline, who was married to Mr Bates and died without any issue.

0:31:010:31:05

Thomas, who we believe was a casualty of the First World War.

0:31:060:31:11

Arthur Benjamin Cooke, who died a bachelor.

0:31:110:31:14

That means all hope of finding heirs on the maternal family and

0:31:160:31:19

establishing whether or not the mystery caller

0:31:190:31:22

is a long-lost relative rests with Edith's one remaining aunt.

0:31:220:31:26

Emily, the youngest, who was married to Mr Coleman,

0:31:270:31:30

and that's the only stem on the maternal family

0:31:300:31:33

that has a descendant alive.

0:31:330:31:35

So although we started off with four maternal aunts and uncles,

0:31:350:31:40

we've ended up with literally just one beneficiary

0:31:400:31:43

entitled on that side of the family.

0:31:430:31:45

Dave has managed to make contact with the sole maternal heir,

0:31:470:31:50

so it's a major breakthrough.

0:31:500:31:52

Things are also looking up on the Smith side of the family.

0:31:540:31:57

The team have established that there are several potential heirs from

0:31:570:32:00

Edith's aunt, Ellen,

0:32:000:32:02

which just leaves the stem of her other aunt, Sarah, to crack.

0:32:020:32:05

Fingers crossed she's at home and I can actually get to see her.

0:32:080:32:11

And, today, one of the firm's travelling researchers,

0:32:110:32:14

Ewart Lindsay, is on his way

0:32:140:32:16

to visit a lady they believe may be Sarah's granddaughter.

0:32:160:32:19

Yeah, I'm just about to go and see a cousin once removed

0:32:210:32:25

on this case of Smith.

0:32:250:32:26

I'll go and see if she's at home

0:32:280:32:30

and if I can get to speak to her...

0:32:300:32:31

..and go through the family with her, you know?

0:32:330:32:35

If the lady is in and can confirm she's an heir,

0:32:350:32:38

the team could be close to wrapping up this tricky case.

0:32:380:32:41

But it's not good news.

0:32:460:32:47

Unfortunately she's not at home,

0:32:490:32:51

still not home, so I've left her a letter...

0:32:510:32:53

..and hopefully she'll get back,

0:32:540:32:56

probably later on today or tomorrow.

0:32:560:32:58

In the office, Dave's got wind of the bad news.

0:33:000:33:03

This is typical of my luck - she's not at home,

0:33:040:33:07

so we can't determine if we've got the right heir or not.

0:33:070:33:10

A few days later, though,

0:33:160:33:17

Dave's made a breakthrough and managed to answer a key question -

0:33:170:33:22

whether the man who has referred the case to them is a relative or not.

0:33:220:33:25

So the first stem that we researched was the paternal aunt of the

0:33:280:33:32

deceased, Sarah Smith.

0:33:320:33:34

She had just one child, called Evelyn,

0:33:340:33:36

who was a first cousin to the deceased.

0:33:360:33:38

But it was one of her grandsons, Richard,

0:33:410:33:43

who had contacted Dave in the first place,

0:33:430:33:45

and was now confirmed as an heir.

0:33:450:33:49

I knew I was connected in a way,

0:33:490:33:51

but I didn't know whether I was bloodline,

0:33:510:33:53

or which side of the family I was connected.

0:33:530:33:56

I was traced to being a first cousin twice removed.

0:33:560:34:00

Richard had known of Edith since he was a little boy

0:34:010:34:04

and has fond memories of the times he spent with her

0:34:040:34:06

when he was growing up.

0:34:060:34:08

Well, I knew Edith, really, from an early age.

0:34:080:34:10

She used to go...

0:34:100:34:11

..to my grandma's on a Saturday afternoon.

0:34:130:34:16

She used to go from her home in Anstey

0:34:160:34:19

and always visit my grandma on a Saturday.

0:34:190:34:21

It was always pleasant, you know, and that sort of thing.

0:34:210:34:25

Liked her. She loved her tea. When you went round,

0:34:250:34:27

she always liked a cup of tea.

0:34:270:34:30

After Edith passed away,

0:34:300:34:31

Richard tried to help organise her affairs

0:34:310:34:34

and found this photo album in her house.

0:34:340:34:37

This first photo we've got in the album is of Edith.

0:34:370:34:41

I don't know how old - not very old - looking very...

0:34:420:34:45

Looking very cheerful and a good head of hair.

0:34:450:34:48

This has helped him fill in the blanks about his family history.

0:34:480:34:52

Edith sitting, it looks like, on holiday at the seaside,

0:34:520:34:56

sitting on the beach with my grandma.

0:34:560:34:59

Both smiling, enjoying themselves.

0:35:010:35:03

I'm not sure how old she'd be there,

0:35:030:35:05

but that's how we always remembered Edith.

0:35:050:35:09

She sort of looked like that from then on, until her latter years.

0:35:090:35:13

Richard will share Edith's £140,000 estate

0:35:150:35:18

with seven other heirs.

0:35:180:35:20

For Dave, having successfully found the right beneficiaries,

0:35:220:35:26

as well as solving the mystery of Richard's long-lost family,

0:35:260:35:29

it's certainly one phone call he's glad he took.

0:35:290:35:32

We were very fortunate to have Mr Tebbit phone us up directly.

0:35:340:35:38

And a lot of the times I take phone calls and those matters don't go

0:35:380:35:44

anywhere at all. So this is one of those few that come across my desk

0:35:440:35:48

which were really worth working.

0:35:480:35:50

I'm struggling to find contact details for this guy.

0:35:580:36:01

The team at Finders International

0:36:010:36:02

had been racing to find beneficiaries

0:36:020:36:05

for the £250,000 estate of Edmund Dennis,

0:36:050:36:08

who passed away in 2015.

0:36:080:36:11

We knew straightaway this case was going to be highly competitive.

0:36:110:36:14

Edmund didn't leave a will,

0:36:140:36:16

so his sizeable estate was advertised by the Government.

0:36:160:36:20

But as it was the only case published that day,

0:36:200:36:22

the team faced stiff competition from rival firms.

0:36:220:36:25

Immediately, from the offset, with only one case,

0:36:270:36:29

we were kind of up against it, in terms of competition.

0:36:290:36:32

The team had started finding potential heirs

0:36:330:36:36

on both sides of the family,

0:36:360:36:37

but they'd suffered a setback on the maternal side when they discovered

0:36:370:36:41

the eight heirs they'd found were half-blood cousins,

0:36:410:36:44

and therefore unlikely to be entitled.

0:36:440:36:47

When we find out that we've taken a wrong step,

0:36:470:36:49

we'll realise then that we're most likely behind.

0:36:490:36:53

We could have spent an hour, couple of hours,

0:36:530:36:56

potentially even a day working the wrong family,

0:36:560:36:59

and someone else might be working the right one.

0:36:590:37:02

We need to map it out. It's good that someone else told us.

0:37:020:37:04

To stay ahead of rival firms,

0:37:060:37:08

the team needed to work fast and complete their research

0:37:080:37:11

into the paternal side of the family.

0:37:110:37:13

And they were now focused on Edmund's aunt, Beatrice.

0:37:130:37:16

The main problem for us was that she married a Walter Frederick Johnson.

0:37:190:37:24

Despite the tricky surname,

0:37:250:37:26

Ryan was able to find some vital information about Beatrice.

0:37:260:37:30

Found out that Beatrice had seven children

0:37:300:37:34

in the years between 1917 and 1929.

0:37:340:37:37

For us, at this stage, we want to hopefully find one of these children

0:37:370:37:40

who are still alive. They'd be a cousin of the deceased

0:37:400:37:43

and a key port of information for us.

0:37:430:37:44

Using every resource at his disposal,

0:37:480:37:51

Ryan and the team successfully traced all seven children.

0:37:510:37:55

But, despite his best efforts, Ryan

0:37:550:37:57

was about to receive another setback.

0:37:570:38:00

What we found out, that all of the children of Beatrice actually had

0:38:010:38:05

passed away.

0:38:050:38:06

With a £250,000 estate at stake,

0:38:060:38:09

it's the last thing he wanted to hear.

0:38:090:38:11

So, again, we're dropping down another generation.

0:38:110:38:14

It's quite frantic for us to try and get to a beneficiary

0:38:140:38:17

before the competition.

0:38:170:38:18

The pressure was mounting.

0:38:180:38:20

It means that we are at the mercy

0:38:210:38:24

of how good...

0:38:240:38:25

..any other competitors' research is. How quick are they?

0:38:270:38:30

Do they have other resources?

0:38:300:38:32

Can you try and trace them through and speak to them, and find out

0:38:320:38:35

whether they're related or not?

0:38:350:38:37

Ryan and the team used every record they could find

0:38:370:38:40

to piece together Beatrice's family.

0:38:400:38:43

It is quite a big family -

0:38:430:38:44

seven children now have all passed away.

0:38:440:38:47

If each of those seven children had a number of children of their own,

0:38:470:38:50

you can see how quickly the tree gets bigger and bigger.

0:38:500:38:53

There were 24 - at least 24 - beneficiaries on the paternal side.

0:38:530:38:57

It was the breakthrough the team desperately needed.

0:38:570:39:01

With 24 potential heirs on the horizon,

0:39:010:39:03

Ryan knew their efforts were starting to pay off.

0:39:030:39:06

The paternal side, it was quite easy for us to get a lead in to the

0:39:070:39:11

paternal family. Everything was going well -

0:39:110:39:13

we had reps out to the beneficiaries.

0:39:130:39:16

But the team's excitement was short-lived.

0:39:180:39:21

As they made contact with the potential paternal heirs,

0:39:220:39:25

they got bad news...

0:39:250:39:27

..some of them had already been spoken to by rival firms.

0:39:270:39:31

I feel we could have had more luck on our side with this case.

0:39:320:39:35

We faced a bit of a delay by contacting people

0:39:350:39:38

who were no longer entitled on the maternal side of the family.

0:39:380:39:41

When it came to the paternal side of the family,

0:39:410:39:43

we were having a string of bad luck

0:39:430:39:45

with getting hold of people.

0:39:450:39:46

But Ryan wasn't giving up without a fight.

0:39:480:39:50

He knew any hopes of signing further beneficiaries rested with the

0:39:500:39:54

potentially tricky stem of Edmund's cousin, Eric.

0:39:540:39:58

We knew we were looking for an Eric H Johnson

0:39:580:40:01

who was born in 1920,

0:40:010:40:03

and we found out that Eric actually, unfortunately, passed away in 2005.

0:40:030:40:08

The thing which delayed the search for his descendants

0:40:080:40:11

was the fact that he'd moved from Essex to Kent.

0:40:110:40:15

It's a neighbouring county but, obviously, it threw up a lot more

0:40:150:40:18

possibilities, in terms of potential marriages.

0:40:180:40:20

Ryan was in luck and managed to find a marriage record for Eric

0:40:220:40:26

to a Daphne Ellis in 1944.

0:40:260:40:29

They had four children - one of them was Wayne,

0:40:290:40:32

who Ryan believed was Edmund's cousin once removed.

0:40:320:40:35

Was Ryan finally closing in on an heir?

0:40:370:40:39

I was quite surprised,

0:40:450:40:47

a little bit shocked,

0:40:470:40:49

to find out that I had a long-lost relative who's...

0:40:490:40:52

..passed on.

0:40:530:40:55

For Wayne, the news came like a bolt out of the blue.

0:40:550:40:58

And he'd never mentioned him.

0:40:590:41:01

He didn't say a lot, my father, about his family,

0:41:010:41:04

so it was a bit of a surprise,

0:41:040:41:06

as I'd never met him.

0:41:060:41:07

I'd never met the gentleman.

0:41:070:41:09

Wayne has spent much of his life working away at sea

0:41:110:41:14

in the Merchant Navy.

0:41:140:41:16

The first day I went to sea,

0:41:160:41:18

I remember was the day that President Kennedy died.

0:41:180:41:21

It's faded now...

0:41:210:41:23

This is when I started off -

0:41:230:41:25

the beginning of my career.

0:41:250:41:27

But his seafaring career didn't leave much time for family.

0:41:270:41:31

I lost all contact with them.

0:41:310:41:34

Travelling around the world, I never did meet many of them.

0:41:340:41:37

I wish that I-I...

0:41:370:41:38

..had kept in contact with them.

0:41:400:41:42

It would have been interesting to...

0:41:420:41:44

..see how they're getting along.

0:41:450:41:47

After a tough search with plenty of pressure from the competition,

0:41:520:41:56

the case had worked out well for Ryan and the team.

0:41:560:41:59

They'd signed up eight of Edmund's heirs

0:42:000:42:02

and were pleased with the result.

0:42:020:42:04

I guess when you speak to beneficiaries,

0:42:060:42:09

and they can confirm that you have

0:42:090:42:11

the right family and that everything is correct,

0:42:110:42:14

it makes everything so much more rewarding.

0:42:140:42:17

You can never really be too content with the research that you've done

0:42:170:42:21

until the case is at a stage where it's going to pay out, really.

0:42:210:42:25

There's so many different scenarios that could happen which could twist

0:42:250:42:29

the research on its head.

0:42:290:42:31

For heir Wayne, after years at sea,

0:42:310:42:34

he's now settled in the UK.

0:42:340:42:36

And discovering he's an heir has given him extra motivation

0:42:370:42:40

to find out more about his extended family...

0:42:400:42:43

It would be interesting to find out who my relative was,

0:42:430:42:47

to see what he had done with his life.

0:42:470:42:49

That would be interesting to find out.

0:42:490:42:51

..and not just the ones in the past.

0:42:530:42:55

Now that I'm retired, maybe I would have the chance now to...

0:42:550:42:59

..go up and visit them. I'd have to find out where they all live.

0:43:010:43:04

But...that won't be hard to do.

0:43:060:43:09

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