Harrison/Robinson Heir Hunters

-Today...

-How confusing.

..Heir Hunters struggle to find family on an estate worth thousands.

There was a sense of panic.

We have to have at least one heir on a case.

This is frustrating.

While on another case, there's a risk the estate could worth nothing at all.

It's a bit of a risk, but it's a risk we kind of have to take.

But their investigation leads to something that money can't buy.

I could get £5 out of this,

but if I've got family, that's priceless.

Across the country the hunt is on.

Could the heir hunters be knocking at your door?

Some of them have passed away and we've had to find their children as well.

It's 11am, and at Finders International,

a brand-new case has just come in.

It's for the estate of Stuart Christopher Harrison.

So you can do that after, once you've confirmed that.

While many unclaimed estates are advertised by the government,

cases can also come in from a variety of sources.

This was picked up from an advertisement

from Wolverhampton Council.

Stuart passed away in Wolverhampton.

But for case manager, Ryan, the estate is risky.

At the minute we don't know any other information as to what

the estate comprises of, if indeed there is an estate.

There's a high risk that there may be a will as well.

At this stage we don't know.

Wolverhampton Council have released limited details about Stuart.

They've said that Stuart Christopher Harrison lived in a particular

area of the city. He was 69 when he passed away.

Stuart worked as a builder,

and during the latter years of his life he lived in Merry Hill

in Wolverhampton, an area well loved by local residents.

I live on the estate just down the road there.

And what I like about the area is that everyone's very friendly.

We all know each other.

We look out for each other.

But, despite the close-knit community,

it seems Stuart kept himself to himself.

He passed away in August, 2016.

And with no known next of kin, the hunt for his heirs is on.

Once you've confirmed that,

if you want to look at the 1911...

Heir hunters work on commission,

taking a pre-agreed percentage of an estate

in return for finding heirs and helping them collect their inheritance.

But it's not clear whether Stuart left any money, at all.

In terms of value,

there's no entry on the Land Registry for the property so we are

not really 100% sure whether Stuart owns the property or not.

Ownership of a property is usually a sign that an estate is worth working.

Without this crucial information, taking on the case is a huge gamble.

We are kind of working blind in terms of value,

so it is a bit of a risk.

We're never really 100% sure, when we start a case,

how much an estate may be worth.

The estate could be anywhere

between £500 or £500,000.

But, after weighing up the risk, Ryan decides to roll the dice.

It's a bit of a risk, but it's a risk we kind of have to take.

There could be other companies out there taking the same risks.

Ryan and the team quickly find that Stuart's parents and only

brother have passed away.

So they turn their attention to his wider family.

We are looking into his closest next of kin,

which would be his cousins.

We found out his dad was a Cuthbert Tom Harrison.

His mum was Doris Harrison

and her maiden name was Coyles.

So we've got the Harrison and Coyles surnames to be working with.

While Coyles should be a fairly easy name to research,

Harrison will be anything but.

The Harrison surname is up there with one of the surnames that would pose us more problems.

Luckily, Coyles is quite an unusual surname.

Ryan decides to prioritise the less common Coyles surname.

It's pretty much always sense to do research into an easier surname as

opposed to some of the harder surnames.

It does make sense in terms of finding people in the quickest time.

It's the path of least resistance.

And Ryan's decision soon pays off.

He is able to establish that Stuart's maternal grandparents

were James and Hannah Coyles.

And that they had nine children including his mother, Doris.

He recruits colleague Camilla Price to help look for their descendants.

How are we going with Coyles?

I've only done three at the moment.

We've got quite a few.

Coyles is quite a good name.

-OK.

-So... Yeah.

It's OK.

-I think I might move on to another stem in the meantime.

-Yes.

Ryan and Camilla have divided up the Coyles family

and Ryan focuses on Stuart's aunt, Martha Coyles.

It was relatively easy to find her first marriage,

given that there's not many Martha J Coyles.

That was to Robert Corney in 1930.

But, worryingly, he soon finds three more potential marriages for a Martha Coyles.

I still couldn't find a death for Martha under any of those surnames

so I don't know whether I'm still following the same Martha,

or whether it's a different Martha.

-This is frustrating.

-It's written clearly, isn't it?

-Yeah.

It's a problem for the team.

Until they're certain who Martha married,

they won't be able to search for her children,

who are potential heirs to Stuart's estate.

I've got about four or five marriages on one of my lines.

I don't know if that's correct. I want one where they get married once and stick to Yorkshire, or...

But, while Ryan is struggling, colleague Camilla is making quick progress.

-I'm down to cousins twice removed at the moment.

-OK.

-So it seems quite big with a large number of beneficiaries.

-Yeah.

Camilla has worked so fast she already has a phone number

for a possible cousin.

This is Camilla Price, calling from a firm of heir hunters.

Ryan's hoping the cousin may be able to help him crack the mystery of Martha's marriages.

We've got a couple of inquiries as to what happened to a couple of your

mum's brothers and sisters. Do you know much about them, at all?

Do you know what's happened to her? Because we are struggling with her line.

Martha.

Oh, five times, OK. Oh, really?

The call has been very enlightening.

What's up with this one?

So, Martha did marry five times.

-She did?

-She did.

-OK.

It's good to confirm that I'm stuck for a reason, I guess?

Yes! Yeah.

With Camilla storming ahead,

Ryan's starting to wonder if today just isn't his day.

It makes me feel bad with how well your lines are going.

And, after just a few hours of research,

Camilla thinks she's broken the back of the Coyles side.

But things are about to get much harder.

-So, you know what we've got to look forward to now?

-Harrison.

-Harrison.

Ryan's decided it's time to tackle the paternal side of the family,

with the tricky Harrison surname.

And he's hoping that his luck will start to change.

I personally want a line were I can have a bit of success with,

just to make me feel that I've done something up to Camilla's level

of work on the case so far.

But I think we should use Camilla's good luck and hope it will rub off

on the Harrison side of the family.

Ryan discovers Stuart has seven aunts and uncles on his father's side.

It soon looks like the Harrison side is going to be every bit as difficult as they'd feared.

How are the names on the Harrison side?

Are they all fab, I imagine?

Of course, these guys might have middle names.

Mary, John, Gladys.

-Gladys has a middle name.

-OK.

Iris. James has a middle name.

Faced with a common surname, a distinctive middle name can help

the team narrow down their search.

Unfortunately, the two most common forenames, Mary and John,

don't appear to have middle names.

But without them, research into the Harrison surname

will be an uphill struggle.

-Harrison is not a fun name.

-No.

Is it particularly a north-east name, or north, or...

-..everywhere?

-It's just everywhere.

-Everywhere?

-Yeah.

And, as Camilla starts looking into the stem of Stuart's Aunt Gladys,

it seems her luck may have run out.

-Um, what's...

-And that's even with Gladys M?

-Yeah, that's Gladys M.

-Right.

Gladys Marjorie, Gladys Martha, Gladys Mary...

How many Gladys Mays are there?

There are 13, 14 born, like, just a year either side of her birth.

The sheer volume of results makes it extremely hard to identify

the right family.

For example, when looking for a marriage for a Gladys M Harrison,

it's saying here I have got 558 possibilities.

So that's a lot to play with and to consider.

I think it could be quite a long morning.

Ryan is starting to wonder if they have bitten off more than they can chew.

It's beginning to dawn on us how hard the Harrison side of the family's going to be.

I just hope it doesn't take too long and I hope it doesn't cost

too much money on a case where we really don't know whether

there will be a will, or we don't know how much money's in the estate.

Will Camilla and Ryan crack the Harrison family tree

and find heirs to Stuart's estate?

The search for heirs is often thwarted by a lack of proper records

or a missing piece of crucial information.

It doesn't look like Alice had any children.

And estates can lie unsolved for years.

It's really difficult to sort of have an idea how many cases there are out there that are dead.

There are quite a few.

Bearing in mind this industry has been around for a long, long time.

Each year, we come across dead cases, so they build up over a period of decades.

Gareth Langford is a case manager at Fraser & Fraser and

in 2016 he took on an estate that had sat unclaimed for seven years.

So this is the estate of John Beauclerc Robinson.

Gareth and the team discovered John had lived in a flat in

London's Chelsea Green.

Although just two miles from the centre of the capital,

the area has a friendly village feel.

Oh, it's lovely.

It's a very charming little patch.

It feels villagey, really. Right in the heart of Chelsea.

Everyone seems very friendly round here and it's a good mix, as well,

it's not just the super wealthy types.

There are a lot of people that have lived in Chelsea a long time.

Everyone mingles very well together around here

and seems to get on very well.

John's neighbour, who didn't want to be identified,

remembers him fondly.

-WOMAN'S VOICE:

-John was very charming.

If he could help you, he would help you.

He was a really nice person.

John had one passion she remembers well.

He was an art collector.

He did like his pictures.

There were some really valuable pictures in there.

But, while charming and helpful to his close neighbours,

John didn't give much away.

Never, ever spoke about his personal life.

Family ties or anything like that.

He was just John.

John passed away in 2009 aged 82.

But it took several years for his estate to surface

on the bona vacantia list of unclaimed estates.

The reason for this unusual delay soon became clear.

Unlike the vast majority of estates the team work, in this case,

John had actually left a will.

It's very, very unusual that we get involved in an estate

where there is a will.

In this case, the only wish that the deceased had made

was for his estate to go to his friend.

Unfortunately, his friend predeceased him.

He died before.

And there was no other conditions in the will,

so that part of his estate became intestate.

OK, thank you, bye.

From looking at the will, the team established the estate was worth

over £30,000. And they got straight to work.

Gareth started with the basics and quickly found

records for John's parents.

John's parents are Walter and Grace Robinson.

Research indicated he was an only child.

That means that we have to go back to cousins.

We then have to start researching both the maternal and

paternal family trees.

Get the births and the marriages and have a look at that.

-And we'll work on it.

-OK.

With the common surname Robinson,

the paternal side looked like it would be tricky.

But a key detail gave them hope.

John had the unusual middle name of Beauclerc.

Looking at the paternal side, we've got Walter Beauclerc Robinson,

the deceased's father, again, that middle name cropping up,

so it's looking like that's a family name, a traditional name,

that's going to be used quite often.

It was a very useful piece of information.

So, although the Robinson name isn't brilliant,

we've got an exceptionally good middle name to use on this case.

A case with a specific, unusual middle name is

extremely useful, and it does help immensely with the research.

Because we can identify the family so much more easily.

The Beauclerc middle name meant they could pick the trace up from John's father, Walter.

Walter Beauclerc Robinson was born in 1882.

He was the son of William Beauclerc Robinson

and Harriet Kathleen Robinson, and they married in 1873.

From that we started to look to see if they had any brothers and sisters,

so, uncles and aunts of the deceased.

From the 1911 census,

they discovered that John's paternal grandfather,

William Beauclerc Robinson, married Harriet and lived in North London.

In addition to Walter, the couple had five further children,

John's aunts and uncles.

OK, bye-bye.

Gareth was hoping Walter's siblings had descendants who were still alive.

So, we had William Beauclerc Robinson who was

born in 1876 but died a minor.

It wasn't a promising start.

It soon transpired that both Grace and Winifred had also died without

having had children.

Ah, really?

Well, that don't sound good. I don't like that.

Gareth moved on to John's next uncle,

Charles Robinson and scoured the records, hoping he may have had children.

Charles Archibald Robinson, born in 1883.

Once again, no marriage so no heirs there, either.

Gareth was starting to feel the pressure.

What became evident, though,

and rather worrying is that a lot of the paternal uncles and aunts

were not leading to any heirs.

Once you're looking at an estate and you keep on repeatedly coming along

dead stems, or stems where there are just no issue,

or it's just not going anywhere.

No issue means no children.

And it was bad news.

There is a sense of panic.

You do need an heir.

We have to have at least one heir on a case.

There was one final chance for a breakthrough on the paternal side

of John's family.

Finally, Harriet Kathleen Robinson, who did marry, to Frank Richards,

but they didn't have any issue

so the whole paternal side of the family there were no heirs.

It was a blow to the team's hopes of solving the mystery of

John's family.

If the case is dead then the money eventually goes to the government

and we don't get paid for all the work that we've done,

no matter how long it's taken, we won't see a penny of that.

Gareth's hopes of cracking this case now rested with the maternal side.

We are obviously reliant that there's going to be some heirs here.

So, what have we got?

He looked at the records with a new sense of urgency.

So Grace Adkins, the deceased's mother, her father,

so that's the maternal grandfather Frank, and the mother was Jemima.

They had nine issue, including Grace.

We're looking at children born in the 1870s.

It was quite normal then to have very large families.

In fact, nine kids was probably an average number at that time.

Gareth and the team started looking to John's maternal uncles,

Frank and Percy.

Frank Adkins, born 1868, he died a minor, 1878.

Percy Atkins, again, did marry,

Eliza Lawrence, and they had an issue,

Stanley Lawrence Adkins but, again,

no issue from that stem so another dead stem.

Gareth started to get an awful sense of deja vu.

Every stem that we look at, the research is the same.

We've got to establish exactly what happened to it.

If it's not leading to an heir it's going to be wasted time.

Would Gareth and the team find heirs to John's estate?

Here we are.

Every year in Britain, thousands of people

get a surprise knock on the door from the heir hunters.

It was unbelievable.

It came as a complete and utter shock.

I thought, "Oh, lovely, wonderful, whoopee!

"A million pounds here we come."

But there are over 11,000 unsolved cases,

worth at least £5.5 million, where heirs need to be found.

Today we've got details of two estates on the government's

bona vacantia list that are yet to be cracked.

Could you be the heirs they are looking for?

The first case is Mary Jane Aljovin.

Mary died on 10th January 1993, in Chelsea, London.

Mary had married William Joseph Aljovin

and her maiden name was Caffery.

She was born in the Republic of Ireland in 1917.

Perhaps you are part of the Caffery family.

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

The next case is Arthur Ernest Bailey Leivers

who died on the 15th March 1988

in Mansfield, aged 72.

Arthur was born on the 24th June 1915

in Stanton Hill in Nottinghamshire.

For over a century, people with the surname Leivers

have been concentrated in the Nottinghamshire area.

Do you have a connection to the Leivers family?

Could you be a relative of Arthur's?

Do you know anything that could help solve the cases

of Arthur Leivers and Mary Jane Aljovin?

Perhaps you could be the next of kin.

If so, you could have thousands of pounds coming your way.

Hello?

In London, the team at Fraser & Fraser

were up against it in the search for John Robinson's heirs.

Update, have we got an update?

But with no living relatives on John's father's side of the family,

the pressure was on for case manager Gareth Langford.

Occasionally when you're looking at an estate and each stem is

dying out, we are getting no heirs from no matter how much research we do, the pressure increases.

It becomes a bit more stressful because without any heirs, we're not going to get paid,

no matter how much work we undertake.

John had lived in the West London district of Chelsea Green.

He rented a flat in an Edwardian apartment block that is used for

social housing and sits in the heart of a very exclusive area.

It's a very smart area, and so a very expensive area.

But I think you need to balance it with people that are just normal.

It can't all be posh in an area.

There's got to be a balance, and it's nice to have characters around.

And according to his neighbours, John was certainly a colourful character.

-WOMAN'S VOICE:

-He liked dancing.

But not the boogie-boogie stuff,

you know, a nice waltz or ballroom dancing.

He could be a laugh sometimes.

He was kind, helpful, pleasant.

I never, ever heard him having a cross word with anybody.

John had passed away in 2009, aged 82.

He had left a will, but it hadn't accounted for his entire estate,

which meant the heir hunters needed to find relatives who could inherit

the £30,000 John had left behind.

A big case, the money's going to go to the Government.

There's nothing anybody can do, it doesn't matter whether you're a more distant relative,

you're not going to get it back from them and it goes

to the government coffers.

So the race was on for Gareth and the team to find John's heirs.

But their research into John's father's side had been in vain.

So, the paternal side had died out, there were no heirs.

Which meant we were relying completely on the maternal side of the family.

They were now pinning their hopes on his mother,

Grace's size of the family.

We're obviously reliant that there's going to be some heirs here.

Grace's parents, Frank and Jemima Adkins,

had been found on the Census records to have nine children.

But research had shown that six of them had died without any

living descendants.

Gareth began to worry.

At this stage, we're starting to get worried.

We've got lines of enquiries leading to absolutely no heirs.

See if any come up...

With only two stems left to research,

Gareth turned his attention to John's Uncle Arthur.

So we're now looking at Arthur Joseph Adkins

and we're running out of options at this point.

So, Arthur married Bessie Wortley.

Arthur's marriage certificate from 1896

showed that he was a glass embosser,

which was a booming industry in Victorian London.

This is an example of Old English country embossing,

or emboss and ground, as is its descriptive name.

Glass embossing is the process of decorating glass with chemicals,

hydrochloric acid.

115 years ago, in Arthur's time, it would have been a very common trade.

There would have been virtually one on every corner.

There were no plastics in those days.

-Whereas today, no, there's not many of us left around.

-So, she's off the bench.

She's off the bench

to give it a wash over,

just to make sure there's no fingerprints,

anything like that.

It was a dirty, industrial job,

but one which produced delicate works of art.

The materials Arthur used would pose a great risk to him.

He's using dangerous chemicals, he's using hydrochloric acid.

Enough that if you got some on your toenail,

you wouldn't sleep for a few weeks.

The acid takes no prisoners.

It's clear glass at the moment, in a couple of hours' time,

it'll be deep sunk and it will be matte.

The other danger would have been the glass itself.

Nice and smooth, nice and flat, if it was made properly,

but a vicious cut from it if you walked into it.

After two hours, you will see it starting to turn white,

where it's actually corroding away the top layer of the glass

that's been exposed.

But, historically, frosted glass' appeal was more than just decorative.

Certainly, in London, it was to obscure windows of public houses to stop the police coming in.

If a policeman saw something going on inside the pub,

he had a right to enter the building.

If the windows were obscured he couldn't see in,

therefore he couldn't come in.

So the pubs and pub goers could get on with their everyday activities

of gambling, or whatever they chose to do.

It's been through the acid just this morning.

I'm just taking off some of the foil so you can see the pattern.

The grinding process is to obscure the glass that hasn't been etched.

Etched glass is still popular today,

and is frequently used during the renovation of historic pubs.

Everything's been ground away now.

Certainly, if Arthur walked in here now, he'd take over and carry right on where I've left off.

It's exactly the same process.

In the office, Arthur's unusual profession was listed on several records,

which help Gareth and the team track down his children.

So, Arthur married Bessie Wortley and had four issue.

So our hopes were rising at this point that we were definitely going to get a nail on this case.

Arthur and Bessie's four children

were Sybil, Ella,

Muriel and Kathleen.

Gareth set to work to see if any of these four children

had any living descendants.

Of the four issue of Arthur Joseph Adkins, they all married.

Research into these maternal cousins revealed an astonishing coincidence.

So, what was very unusual with this case,

Sybil Adkins and Ella Adkins, the two sisters,

married what appeared to be brothers.

In the same year, probably at the same time.

I imagine it was a double wedding.

So, Sybil married Henry Burley,

and Ella marries George Burley.

Now, that's brilliant, because we've sorted out two stems in one go.

So we're really pleased.

But when Gareth and the team try to find Sybil and Ella's children,

they hit a stumbling block.

Because they both married in 1924,

we're looking at the issue, so we're

looking at marriages with Burley and the maiden name Adkins,

But we have no idea which children belong to which marriage.

So we've got a list of names and no idea who the parents are.

The ages of Sybil and Ella's children meant there was a good chance they'd still be alive.

So that's where it stands at the moment.

Which meant Gareth had a way of finding out who was who.

There's two ways to resolve that problem.

Firstly is to get the certificates and see who the parents are on it.

That's a long-winded way of doing it.

The second option, which is the option we went for,

is to phone them up and ask them.

The two sisters had five children between them.

Gareth and the team were closing in on heirs,

and focused on Ella's children first.

So, Ella Frances married George Arthur Burley,

and she had three issue.

So things were looking promising at this point.

And one of those issue was Pauline Frances Burley.

And she was married to John Norman Pinder.

But Pauline passed away in 1992.

Gareth was on tenterhooks as he checked the birth records

to see a Pauline and John had any children.

That's quite crucial, actually, because we need to counter that.

Pauline had issue as well - Madeline Frances Pinder.

Gareth and the team were tantalisingly close

to finally finding an heir to John's estate.

Bye-bye.

We contacted Madeline.

Obviously, it came out of the blue, quite a surprise.

She's quite distantly related to the deceased.

Madeline is John's cousin twice removed.

And it was a shock to hear from the heir hunters.

It was very exciting.

It's one of those things that don't normally happen to ordinary people like myself.

It gave me something to think about.

I thought about it all afternoon.

I was quite surprised that it was mother's side of the family.

I thought I knew everything about them to be honest.

And, obviously, I didn't.

To Gareth's relief

Madeleine confirmed she was part of the correct family.

If you've been working at a case for a number of weeks without any

beneficiaries, eventually you speak to someone,

and they're actually entitled, there is a sense of relief.

Because the amount of work that we sometimes put into these cases is huge.

-Up to date tree with what we've got so far.

-OK.

To think there weren't going to be any beneficiaries,

it's a lot of pressure on everybody.

So, speaking to that first heir is always a huge relief.

With Madeline's help,

Gareth and the team were able to wrap up the research.

Eventually, we got two stems.

So there's two branches of the family that led to beneficiaries.

So, in total, we've got seven beneficiaries in this case.

And that's brilliant, because all we need is one beneficiary.

The heir hunters were very satisfied with a case which, at one point,

had looked impossible to solve.

But research can sometimes throw up more questions than answers for the

relatives who inherit.

So today, company partner

Neil Fraser is on his way to see heir Madeline,

to show her the family tree for the very first time.

The bit which is most interesting to Madeleine is the family tree.

And the family history, which we were able to uncover,

is far more important to them, personally, then any money.

And I think Madeline was very interested in some of her family.

So it'd be nice to show it to her.

Madeleine. I've come to talk to you about the family tree.

-OK. Come in.

-Thank you.

Firstly, when we're dealing with any case,

where we go back and research cousins, we have two family trees,

the maternal and paternal.

We'll start looking at the side which you're not on.

So we can see from John, his father, is Walter.

Walter has several brothers and sisters.

And as you can see, without us having any other family over here,

they all pass away without having any children.

-Oh...

-So, on the paternal side of the family,

John is the only grandchild.

That's really unusual.

Without anyone to speak on this side of the family,

we don't know what went on in the side of the family at all.

But the fact there are no heirs on the Robinson side of the family

is good news for Madeline and her relatives.

From your point of view, it's better.

-Yes.

-Because the more beneficiaries we would have on this

side, the less money would be coming your way.

So that leads us nicely to the maternal side of the family.

This is the side of the family you are on.

The paternal was two pieces of paper.

The maternal is six.

It looks much bigger.

From the grandparents of the deceased, John's grandparents,

which are your great-great-grandparents,

they had their nine children.

I was surprised at how many brothers and sisters

my great-grandfather had.

And also that, out of all that family,

there weren't that many children.

But Madeline has learned about many relations she never knew she had.

Yes, very, very interesting.

-Thank you very much.

-Thank you.

-Take care.

And you.

For Madeline, becoming an heir to John's estate

has been an eye-opener.

Well, obviously, the money was interesting to begin with.

But, actually, it was more the family history I was interested in.

I've got a picture of Ella, that's my nanny,

who was cousin of John Robinson.

Finding out about John and her wider family will open a new chapter for

Madeline in her family history.

I would like to find out a bit more detail now.

I've always been quite interested, I haven't really had the time,

but now I've got the bare bones of everything,

maybe I'll be able to find out a bit more about occupations and more

interesting things like that.

They're our best hope at the moment.

In London, the team at Finders International are struggling with the case of Stuart Harrison.

Brick wall after brick wall after brick wall.

We've just had bad luck with finding anything.

They have no idea of its value, which makes it a big gamble.

But despite this, Ryan is still worried about the threat from rival firms.

There is a strong chance this could be competitive, yeah.

I mean, if we've picked up on it,

there's a strong chance someone else has picked up on it.

The team have found some information about Stuart's life.

He was a builder and lived for at least ten years

in the Merry Hill suburb of Wolverhampton.

We have a lot of options.

Stuart died aged 69 without appearing to have left a will,

so the hunt is on to find his heirs.

But Ryan and Camilla are struggling to locate any descendants

of Stuart's seven paternal aunts and uncles.

There is, at the minute, a lot of outstanding research we're going to have to go back over.

Ideally, we would have had more people looking over it,

but we're quite busy in the office today. So we're doing what we can.

How many marriages was there?

-A lot.

-We have to assume that we're ahead,

but we can't be too confident that we'll stay ahead, really.

I'll let you know if we can both...

-If we get a breakthrough.

-If you find anything.

So far, it's been assistant case manager Camilla who

has had the most success, and Ryan's playing catch-up.

I haven't really had any luck, to be honest.

Um...

It's not good.

Once again, it's Camilla who makes the first breakthrough

on the Harrison side.

So, I think I've got the right family. Thanks, bye.

I wasn't having much luck with the female Harrisons.

So I decided to move on to one of the male Harrisons.

And found one of them born in 1939, with most of his family.

One of Stuart's uncles, called John William Harrison,

married a woman called Laura Drane,

and they had five children together prior to her passing away quite young.

Using the 1939 register,

taken at the beginning of World War II,

Camilla has found that Stuart's paternal uncle, John Harrison,

lived in Seaham in County Durham.

He worked as a builder,

but was also a volunteer member of the Air Raid Precaution

rescue and demolition squad,

a unit that played a vital and often unsung role

as German bombs rained down on Britain in the Second World War.

Typically, a party of the rescue and demolition service

comprised of six to eight men

from a number of different trades, including bricklayers,

electricians and plumbers.

While London saw some of Britain's heaviest air raids,

the shipbuilding towns of the northeast were another major target.

Many civilian homes were caught up in the bombing,

meaning regular call-outs for John and his team.

In order to extricate civilians,

the rescue party often had to shore up walls

or tunnel through in order to reach those civilians

that had been trapped by bombing.

John would risk his own life in order to save others.

It was a dangerous endeavour,

with members of rescue parties often having to work in difficult

conditions, where they might be close to a wall on the verge of collapse,

or around broken pipes where water might be causing flooding,

or, of course, gas leaks.

Over 7,000 civilians were killed or injured by bombing

in the northeast alone.

While John survived the war,

his work might have taken a heavy psychological toll on him.

Members of the rescue service also had to deal with issues such as

tiredness, and the stress that came about with trying

to rescue civilians from bombed-out buildings.

As well as revealing John's heroism during World War II,

the 1939 register has given Camilla the names of his children.

It's vital progress in the search for Stuart's relatives,

and Camilla's hopeful they're closing in on heirs.

I've got some names and dates of birth for cousins now.

So there's a possibility that we could potentially find a cousin today.

It's another breakthrough for Camilla.

Can you sprinkle some good luck over the rest of the family?

And Camilla soon thinks she's cracked another stem.

So I think I've found someone, but I don't know how she's related.

Explain?

I can't find a death for him, but he's living here until '98.

And then there's this woman called Deborah Claire Harrison

living there.

-1963, right.

-But I don't know if she's maybe a daughter?

She could be daughter-in-law, because she's Mrs.

The Deborah Camilla has found lives in a house where one of

Stuart's cousins used to live,

and the team are trying to work out if she's related.

It would be a weird coincidence, wouldn't it, if it was just some Harrisons?

Yeah, really weird.

What have you looked at them on...?

When were they resident there, these younger Harrisons?

So, she's a resident now.

So, they were living with him at some point?

-Yeah.

-Give them a call and find out how they're linked.

But it's always nice to try and pad out the family tree a bit

before we call someone, so that we know where they fit in.

Can you just check and see if there's any other kids that are missing on this?

Camilla looks into Deborah Harrison,

to see if she can prove a link to Stuart.

I don't know how to approach it though, because...

Well, we know she must...

Unless there's massive coincidence, she has a link to him, doesn't she?

She has a link to both of them.

Ryan thinks Camilla is on to a good thing.

I would just give them a call. I'd just go for it, yeah. I mean, look,

we know we're coming down from John William Harrison.

If we just mention some names, they'll go, "Yeah, that's my uncle,

"that's my aunt..."

Yeah. See what she says.

It's an important first call to a potential heir on the Harrison family.

It could be the one which finally helps them crack

this difficult-to-trace family.

But their hopes of a quick resolution are dashed,

as no-one is picking up.

Unfortunately, the woman who I was hoping

would be related to this family wasn't in.

I've left her a telephone message.

It's unusual for the team to have spent so long looking at a family

without having managed to speak to a potential heir.

It's just getting to the point

where I really want to find someone, really.

For myself and for the fact that there is some beneficiaries

out there to be found.

And as the day draws to a close,

Ryan and Camilla are no closer to speaking to heirs

on the Harrison side of the family.

Kind of done what we can do today, I think.

We've exhausted everything we can.

I'm going to go back over it before I leave today.

I was hoping we would find some more Harrison beneficiaries, really.

But just as the team are packing up for the day...

PHONE RINGS

..the Deborah Harrison Camilla phoned earlier has called the office back.

Yeah, yeah, hope so.

Deborah has been able to confirm that she's part of the Harrison family,

and a potential heir to Stuart's estate.

Cheers, bye-bye.

Yes.

I managed to speak to someone,

and she's happy to receive a visit from one of our reps.

It was really nice to talk to the potential beneficiary and just confirm

the information on this line of the family.

After a frustrating day, with little going his way,

Ryan can go home happy.

And, a few days later,

heir Deborah is reflecting on receiving the surprise call

from the Heir Hunters.

He told us the name of the person,

it was Stuart Christopher Harrison, who I'd never heard of.

We're quite a close-knit family...

..so it was a shock to know there was other Harrisons out there

that I didn't know about, that my family had never told us about.

I thought there was just myself and my brother left.

I knew I had a couple of cousins,

but it was just another branch of the family I didn't know about.

In the office, the team think

they've broken the back of the research,

and are now in the process of speaking to all of the heirs.

Hi there, I was just wondering if you were free to do a visit for me this morning?

One of them is another possible cousin called Valerie,

and the team have sent one of their travelling researchers, Dave,

to see her.

I'm on my way to meet Valerie,

who is a potential beneficiary to an estate of Stuart Harrison.

And we think that she is a cousin

once removed from Stuart.

With some of Stuart's relatives still left to trace,

Dave hopes Valerie can help confirm her branch of the family.

So, I've got a bit of a family tree.

I've got some documents.

And I'm going to go through those with Valerie and see if she recognises

any of the names.

-Hello, is it Valerie?

-It is.

Hi, Valerie, my name's Dave.

I believe you had a phone call from the office?

-Oh, yes, I have. Please come in.

-Thank you.

Bit of a shock, getting the call from the office?

It was, very surprised, yeah.

So, do you know much about this matter at the moment?

Not really. I'd never actually heard of Stuart at all.

-Stuart.

-Yes.

I really didn't know very much about my father's family at all.

Not even their names or what they'd done for a living,

where they'd come from.

Well, we've got a bit of a tree here, and it's...

Perhaps we can... you hold one end and I'll hold another.

So, the family tree, even just going two generations back,

which I didn't know any of the people who were on it.

That's really interesting.

It's amazing to see all these people.

Once we've finished all the research, we'll send you the full tree.

-Excellent.

-And if money's coming your way...

All the better!

-A better surprise, isn't it?

-It is.

So, are you able to take a look for me?

Back in the office,

Ryan has managed to piece together

the final parts of Stuart's family tree.

We've progressed the research to a place those where we're very happy

with the number of beneficiaries we've found.

We've located at least 31 beneficiaries to date, which, you know,

is kind of on the large side of things.

There's still no word on the value,

but Ryan feels he's done his best on the case.

At the very least, we've done a nice family tree for everyone,

so there'll be a positive to it.

Although the team don't yet know how much heirs will inherit,

their research is already paying dividends for the family.

Just to know and think, all these years,

I could have had knowing it wasn't just me and me brother.

I thought that was my family that I had left.

And just knowing there's others.

The most important thing is family.

I could get £5 out of this,

but family, that's priceless.