Winser/MacLennan Heir Hunters


Winser/MacLennan

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Transcript


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Today the heir hunters have their work cut out.

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When a whole family tends to change their name,

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this really makes our job difficult.

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And it turns into a numbers game.

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If you can't find someone's marriage,

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you could potentially be dealing with hundreds of marriages.

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Across London, another team take on a case that is almost 30 years old.

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If a person is born illegitimately, and only the mother is named,

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it halves your chances of being able to find any heirs.

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And just when they think they are home and dry...

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Unfortunately, the government legal department rejected the claim.

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It's all in a day's work for the heir hunters.

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It's the autumn of 2016,

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and a new case has caught the attention of heir hunting firm Finders International.

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At the moment we are currently looking into the case of

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Marie Windsor.

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This is a new government legal department advert which was advertised today.

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We've just mapped out the family from the very beginning.

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Actually, we don't know the value of this estate,

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but that's always interesting and it's a good point to work from,

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and we can always find out a bit more

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once it's over with the solicitors.

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Knowing the value of an estate is crucial,

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as heir hunters work on commission,

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earning a pre-agreed percentage of an estate in return for

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finding heirs and helping them claim their inheritance.

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This is a very urgent case,

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and it is going to be very competitive so we have to be quick.

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Marie lived on a council estate in London,

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and although the team don't know whether she owned her flat,

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they think it could be worth a punt.

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Sometimes we may work a case

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whereby the deceased lived in a council property.

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We might do this because we think there is hidden value in the case,

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or that the property was in a place of high value, such as London,

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where the properties are often worth more.

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Believing the case could be competitive,

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the team quickly need to establish some basic facts.

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The hospital should hopefully help us find out a bit more

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about the deceased, hoping to speak to the bereavement office,

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and they should be able to give us any information that they have,

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what she was in the hospital for,

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and also they should be able to help us a bit more with our research.

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Marie Windsor, who was known as Mairi,

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died aged 82 in Guy's Hospital in London in September 2015.

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For over 50 years, she lived on this housing estate in Lambeth,

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and she worked at the local launderette.

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Neighbour Jo Nevins struck up a firm friendship with Mairi.

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She lived on the floor below me, with her parents.

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How can I say it? She was very...

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straight in her answers, there was no messing about with Mairi, she...

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She was lovely. She really was.

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I'm sad because she was lovely, she was a nice, nice lady.

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As I say, we both were the same age so we got on well together.

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She never ever spoke of family at all, except for her mum and dad,

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but she never spoke of any close relatives ever.

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As far as I knew, she was an only child because, you know,

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she never spoke of any siblings.

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With no known family, and no sign of a will,

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it was up to the team in the office to try and find Mairi's heirs.

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They began by piecing together information from Mairi's birth and death certificates.

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It looks like she hasn't married, and so... And she doesn't have

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any brothers and sisters from our initial research,

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so it looks like it's going to go into paternal and maternal family.

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The paternal side of the family is Windsor,

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and there seems to be three living stems on that side on the 1911 census.

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And on the maternal side, the surname is McGill,

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and this side is much larger.

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There's actually 13 stems on this side, with 12 living on the 1911.

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We're just going to start mapping out the family tree,

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and hopefully go from there,

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but I imagine it's going to be quite a large family by the end.

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Mairi was the only child

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of Leo Bernard Windsor and Ellen Josephine McGill,

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who married in St George's, Hanover Square in London in 1932.

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With no siblings,

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the team needed to look to Mairi's parents' families to find heirs,

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and her mother Ellen's side soon caused problems.

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Unfortunately she swapped her first name with her middle name a lot,

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between Ellen and Josephine.

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This meant that through the records we had to look for all these

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different combinations of names to make sure that we found the correct family.

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Things were not looking any better on the paternal side.

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Camilla had established that Mairi's father Leo had two brothers,

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and the search for their descendants wasn't looking good.

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On the paternal side of the family,

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we know that George Thomas Windsor actually passed away

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in the First World War in 1914.

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His brother, Frank Hector Windsor, passed away in 1973.

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However, it doesn't look like he had any children with his wife Irma.

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With the paternal Windsor side out of the equation,

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any hope of finding heirs rested with the McGill side of the family.

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Mairi's grandfather John married Mary Ann Egan in 1890,

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and they had 12 children.

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It was a huge family,

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and initial research suggested they moved around.

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When we initially found the census records

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for the McGill side of the family,

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we realised that a lot of the maternal aunts and uncles

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had been born in different areas of England,

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and also outside of England,

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and that was quite a surprise for us initially.

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The reason for this started to become clear

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when the team dug deeper into Mairi's grandfather, John McGill.

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This is a war record she found, we think it's his record,

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it shows him at 12 years old going into the army.

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So it's quite an interesting record.

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We can't find much else about his army days,

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we do know that he was a sergeant,

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but he was in the Bengal East India Army.

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John seemed to have moved around a lot during his time in the army,

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and met Mairi's grandmother Mary while stationed in Gibraltar.

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John McGill was in the East Lancashire Regiment,

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and rose through the ranks to become sergeant.

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John, as an army child, would have followed his parents overseas,

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and most of his youth

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he was actually in the Far East.

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It was entirely common

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for children to be born wherever the regiment was,

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and the regiment is constantly moving,

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so naturally children would be born all over the place.

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The normal thing often for a soldier's son

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would be to join as a boy in the regiment,

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and we think because he eventually ended up in the band,

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that John joined as a band boy.

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Aged just 12 years old, John followed in his father's footsteps.

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You have to remember, first of all,

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that the army in those days marched almost everywhere.

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And particularly if you're doing a long route march in India,

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day after day,

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every time they went through a village or town

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they'd strike up, and so very good for morale.

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But it seems he had a knack of getting himself into trouble.

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In his youth, say 18 to 23,

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he was probably a bit of a lad.

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They use to get good conduct pay in those days.

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Well, he forfeited it four times for a year at a stretch each time.

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Almost inevitably, it's going to be to do with drink and women,

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possibly in combination!

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And particularly in India, there were long periods

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when there was not a lot happening.

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He then got married, which perhaps could have been

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the trigger to an even greater feeling of responsibility,

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because relatively shortly after that, he was first of all

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promoted to corporal, full corporal,

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then to lance sergeant and then to sergeant,

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and I suspect there was probably a lady behind him

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doing a bit of pushing.

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John served in the Far East and Gibraltar

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before returning back to the UK,

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and wherever he went, his family would have followed.

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Well, this is Burnley barracks,

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and it's the part that the married families lived in,

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so that's where he would have lived.

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If you look closely at it, you will see on the doorsteps of the buildings,

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you will see two little groups of married families there,

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who of course could include John's.

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John's time in the army meant the team had to search far and wide

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to find where his children had been born.

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They actually had a child in Gibraltar as well

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before moving to Dover, so they seem to have moved around quite a lot.

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But by 1902, John was retired and living in Dover, Kent.

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The heir hunters had to find which of his children had married

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and had family themselves,

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as it would be these cousins who would inherit Mairi's estate.

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When we initially started research into the family tree,

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we realised that most of the aunts and uncles of the deceased

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on the maternal side had quite a few middle names,

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which is usually quite helpful for our research.

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So we were hoping that we would be able to find people quite easily.

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But on the stem of Mairi's uncle, Frederick,

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it turned out the middle names were a hindrance rather than a help.

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Frederick William John McGill, he was known by so many names.

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He is listed on the 1901 census as John, the 1911 census as William,

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and passes away as his Christian name.

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So this becomes quite difficult for us,

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because obviously we have to consider so many different marriages

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as a possible for Frederick.

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And it wasn't just Frederick causing issues.

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Elizabeth Ann McGill, who was a maternal aunt of the deceased,

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she obviously used the name Elizabeth

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as she passed away under that name,

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however she also used the name Laura.

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This was completely unknown to us at the beginning of our research,

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and therefore we struggled to find a marriage for her originally.

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It was only when we found her death record that we were then able

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to discover that she actually married under the name Laura,

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and therefore that's why we couldn't find her.

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Worryingly for the team,

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the pattern of name changes continued across the family tree.

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Mary used the name Margaret and May,

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and this was just very hard for us

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to know which name she would have married under,

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which name she would have passed away under,

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obviously we had to consider any children she may have had,

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she may have been using a different name on their birth certificate.

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The research was now looking time-consuming and complex.

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When a whole family tends to change their name,

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this really makes our job difficult because we are then dealing with

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potentially 11 or 12 people who we have no idea what name

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they're going by when they get married, when they pass away.

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At this stage, the team still had no idea if Mairi's estate

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would be valuable enough to cover their costs.

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Would their gamble to take it on pay off?

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Sometimes, the work of the heir hunters can uncover a family secret

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that was taken to the grave.

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Oh, right, OK. Well, that's interesting.

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And that was the case when Celtic Research took on the estate of a man called Colin Maclennan.

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There are some people who live the most unusual lives,

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dramatic lives, interesting lives,

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and you could write whole books on them.

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The company is run by father and son team Peter and Hector Birchwood,

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and they have case managers based around the UK.

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Like most firms, they scour the government's Bona Vacantia list,

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looking for newly advertised estates.

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But they also take on much older cases

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in the hope of succeeding where others have failed.

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Estates often lay unclaimed for many years because nobody has been able

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to solve them, so we like to revisit these cases.

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Perhaps there's a new piece of information has come up recently

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that may be able to help us solve them.

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The estate of Colin Maclennan was one such case.

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He had died on April 23, 1989, and time was running out

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to find heirs to his estimated £12,000 estate.

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If an estate has been unclaimed for 30 years, it becomes irrecoverable.

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And it will fall to the Crown.

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Because Colin had died in 1989, the deadline was looming,

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so I knew that if nobody presented a claim

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it would fall to the government forever.

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Colin died in a hotel in the Lake District town of Windermere aged 63.

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He had lived in Paddington in West London for much of his life,

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and rented a flat in this tower block.

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He worked as a porter, but little else is known about him,

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and sadly no photos of him have survived.

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Brenda Flynn has lived in Paddington for over 50 years,

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and saw the area change a great deal during the '70s and '80s,

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when Colin was also living there.

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It's changed a lot.

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When I first moved here, there was a bakery,

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two fishmongers,

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but it's mostly the business side that has changed so much,

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and there weren't as many children and dogs there

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then as there are now.

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Hector had very little information to go on,

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and Colin's surname was a cause for concern.

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The surname Maclennan, spelled M-A-C, is not particularly common.

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Unfortunately we can't rule out other variants,

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using Mc, for example, which is much more common,

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because that is an acceptable way of spelling the name

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and people can alternate between one or the other,

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so given that, we knew that it was going to be difficult

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to search for this particular family.

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And that was not the only potential problem Hector faced.

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If a name sounds Scottish or Irish,

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it can lead to many different avenues of research.

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If it's Irish, sometimes the records won't be available.

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But both for Scottish and Irish estates,

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because of the migration patterns, they may have gone

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to the United States or even Canada,

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so we then have to keep in mind

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that we may have to look elsewhere to find a family.

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Undeterred, Hector begun the search

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and he was quickly able to rule out immediate family.

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We looked through the marriage indexes,

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all throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland for Colin

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and we didn't find any that matched.

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Given he had no known children,

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that meant that we had to search through his parents

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for any siblings or any other cousins that might be able to claim.

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But having found a record of Colin's birth,

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the case suddenly became even more complicated.

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It showed that his mother was Mary Maclennan.

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He was born in a women and children's hospital,

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and he was born illegitimately. There was no father listed.

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It was yet another bad sign for Hector.

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If a person is born illegitimately and only the mother is named,

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it halves your chances of being able to find any heirs,

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because you can only trace the maternal family.

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Colin's birth certificate had also revealed that, at the time,

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his mother Mary was working as a domestic servant -

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a common career choice for young girls back then.

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People hired domestic servants

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because looking after houses in an age where domestic technology

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was still something that was emerging

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was an awful lot of hard work and extremely time-consuming.

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It's more than a full-time job for one person,

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even in the smallest household.

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The people that would be hiring domestic servants in the late 1920s

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and then the early '30s varied from town to town and place to place,

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but in London, you run the whole gamut between the royal family,

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right the way down to lower-middle-class families.

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The address of Mary's first job suggests

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she was working for a very wealthy family.

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Mary would have been working a very fancy household in London.

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Hyde Park Gardens is a street which is just off Hyde Park itself

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and that has been for many hundreds of years

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one of the most exclusive addresses in London,

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so these houses are so big, they have separate accommodation for their servants.

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But whatever the house,

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the life of a domestic servant could be very tough.

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In London households, you would have been up at the crack of dawn,

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around 5am, 5.30am, because a lot of the work

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and the particularly dirty work like cleaning,

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setting fires, cleaning doorsteps,

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would have been expected to be finished by the time that the family

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were awake and up in the house.

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And you're never really off-duty if your employer is ill,

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if their children need you in the middle of the night,

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you can't very well not answer a bell.

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You have to go down.

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It seemed Mary had gone into service aged just 14,

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but soon afterwards fell unexpectedly pregnant.

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It definitely wouldn't have been uncommon

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for girls employed in domestic service to get pregnant.

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However, if they did become pregnant, they would lose their job,

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so they would have had to try and hide it,

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or quit their job before they started showing.

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The actual people she could turn to would have been very minimal

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and also, just depended, obviously, on who the father was.

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I mean, if the father was, say, you know, the master of the household,

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then certainly she wouldn't want him to know.

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The likelihood is, if relatives and work colleagues would have found out

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she was pregnant,

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they would have publicly shunned her because it was shameful.

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It would have been a daunting time for the young Mary.

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During this whole process, it's likely

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that Mary would have felt anxious, scared, nervous,

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her body's changing, she's so young and, you know,

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you don't know the circumstances of how she got pregnant.

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When it came to having her baby, Mary really only had one option.

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Women's hospitals were starting to become more common in the 1920s.

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These hospitals were for women that were pregnant,

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that were out of wedlock.

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Conditions for childbirth during this time

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would have been very basic,

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so the likelihood is, for somebody so young,

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you would have been very scared.

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There wouldn't have been all the equipment and machines.

0:18:450:18:48

It just would have been a midwife,

0:18:480:18:50

very little in terms of pain relief.

0:18:500:18:53

You would have had that attitude of, right, you just get on with it.

0:18:530:18:56

"You've got pregnant, you get on with it and you give birth."

0:18:560:19:00

The circumstances surrounding Colin's birth were significant for Hector.

0:19:050:19:10

The fact that Mary was so young when she had Colin made us think about

0:19:100:19:13

what happened afterwards. He could have been living with his mother,

0:19:130:19:17

as many children did, however,

0:19:170:19:20

he could have also been fostered out to another family.

0:19:200:19:23

Hector also had to consider the possibility

0:19:230:19:26

that Colin had been adopted

0:19:260:19:27

and if he had, this would have a huge bearing on the research.

0:19:270:19:31

When adoption laws were brought in in 1926,

0:19:310:19:34

it changed inheritance rights

0:19:340:19:36

so adopted children gained all the inheritance rights

0:19:360:19:39

from the family that they were adopted into and they lost

0:19:390:19:43

all the inheritance rights for their biological family.

0:19:430:19:46

Hector needed to know what had happened to Colin.

0:19:460:19:49

He finally found a record of him on the 1946 electoral register.

0:19:490:19:54

We found him living in Willesden with the Parker family.

0:19:540:19:57

But unfortunately, he wasn't there living with his mother.

0:19:570:19:59

Was this a clue that Colin had been adopted?

0:19:590:20:02

And if so, would Hector be able to find heirs

0:20:020:20:06

and finally crack a 26-year-old case?

0:20:060:20:09

In the UK, every year,

0:20:120:20:14

thousands of people are informed of a completely unexpected inheritance.

0:20:140:20:19

It was exciting when I got the call,

0:20:190:20:21

cos then I could now find out that I have got relatives out there

0:20:210:20:24

that I didn't know anything about that.

0:20:240:20:26

The heir hunters often unite

0:20:260:20:27

relatives who weren't aware of each other,

0:20:270:20:30

as well as handing over surprise windfalls.

0:20:300:20:33

Family account with £320,000 in it.

0:20:340:20:36

No way!

0:20:360:20:38

But there are still cases that have left the heir hunters baffled

0:20:390:20:43

and today, we have details of two.

0:20:430:20:46

First is Minnie Needle, who passed away on the 6th of October 1989.

0:20:460:20:51

She was born in Carlisle in Cumbria in 1908.

0:20:510:20:55

And her parents were Charles MacDonald Needle and Annie Dobie.

0:20:550:21:00

It is believed Minnie may have had a son.

0:21:000:21:02

Do you know who this could be?

0:21:020:21:04

Next is the estate of James William Galway,

0:21:040:21:08

who was born in Belfast in 1921.

0:21:080:21:11

James never married and sadly passed away in Lambeth in 1997.

0:21:110:21:16

Could Minnie or James be a relative of yours?

0:21:160:21:19

If so, there could be a surprise inheritance coming your way.

0:21:190:21:23

Heir hunting firm Finders International were searching for

0:21:280:21:32

beneficiaries of Mairi Windsor, who had died in London.

0:21:320:21:35

This case was advertised by the government legal department,

0:21:350:21:38

so we've picked up on it from there.

0:21:380:21:40

While the value of her estate was unknown,

0:21:400:21:43

the case was proving to be riddled with complications.

0:21:430:21:47

The challenges on the maternal side were the name changes, mainly,

0:21:470:21:52

and also the fact that everyone moved around quite often.

0:21:520:21:55

We were dealing with so many different countries,

0:21:550:21:58

and places within England, we were unsure as to where people were.

0:21:580:22:01

So it affected more of our early stages of research.

0:22:010:22:05

Mairi Windsor had passed away in September 2015

0:22:090:22:14

without leaving a will.

0:22:140:22:16

She'd lived on this Lambeth housing estate for over 50 years,

0:22:160:22:19

where she became good friends with her neighbour Joan Evans.

0:22:190:22:23

We were of the same age and we sort of got on well together.

0:22:250:22:31

You know, she was...

0:22:310:22:34

She was a good neighbour. Really good neighbour.

0:22:350:22:38

You know, I used to go out shopping

0:22:380:22:41

and she'd be on the balcony with her cat and we'd have a chat

0:22:410:22:46

and, yeah, we were quite friendly.

0:22:460:22:49

Having established there were no heirs

0:22:540:22:56

on the paternal side of the family,

0:22:560:22:58

the team were pinning all their hopes on the maternal side.

0:22:580:23:01

And it was proving tricky.

0:23:010:23:03

So many people are using their middle names

0:23:030:23:06

rather than their first names,

0:23:060:23:08

and this has caused us to doubt

0:23:080:23:10

a lot of the information that we've found.

0:23:100:23:14

The team knew they were under pressure from the competition.

0:23:140:23:17

We have come across two other companies

0:23:170:23:19

who are also working this case, so it's now become highly competitive

0:23:190:23:23

and we need to make sure that we're being quick with our research.

0:23:230:23:27

When dealing with a large family, obviously, you have you have to

0:23:280:23:31

keep in mind the competition may be working on a different stem

0:23:310:23:34

and therefore, they may be able to contact someone before you do,

0:23:340:23:37

because you've been occupied with another family member.

0:23:370:23:40

Mairi's mum Ellen was one of 12,

0:23:410:23:44

which made it a huge family to look into.

0:23:440:23:47

Research had shown that four of Ellen's brothers

0:23:470:23:49

and one of her sisters had died without having children.

0:23:490:23:53

But there were still five stems of the family

0:23:530:23:55

that could potentially lead to heirs.

0:23:550:23:57

-Have you had any luck finding a death for Evelyn?

-No.

-No, nothing.

0:23:570:24:02

No. Because I don't know whether she's under...

0:24:020:24:04

-Evelyn or Alice.

-Evelyn or Alice.

0:24:040:24:06

With most of Mairi's aunts and uncles appearing to change names,

0:24:060:24:10

Camilla had to order certificates to be certain who was who.

0:24:100:24:14

We also received a few birth certificates back,

0:24:140:24:17

especially the one of Alice Evelyn McGill and that may help us with

0:24:170:24:21

finding what Alice...

0:24:210:24:24

What name Alice passed away as.

0:24:240:24:27

We know that she married and she had three children.

0:24:270:24:30

However, we are struggling at the moment to find that marriage

0:24:300:24:33

and to find the children.

0:24:330:24:35

But while some stems were still proving tricky,

0:24:350:24:38

there were signs the team's research

0:24:380:24:40

was finally starting to pay dividends.

0:24:400:24:42

We'll keep working with the maternal side.

0:24:420:24:44

We know that there's five possible heirs now on another stem.

0:24:440:24:48

We were told that there's two heirs,

0:24:480:24:50

so we'll hopefully find someone within the next few hours

0:24:500:24:53

and let them know of the inheritance.

0:24:530:24:56

And it wasn't long before that research paid off.

0:24:570:25:00

One of the aunts who was causing problems for the team

0:25:010:25:04

was Mary McGill.

0:25:040:25:06

It does become quite difficult if you can't find someone's marriage.

0:25:060:25:09

You could be potentially dealing with hundreds of marriages,

0:25:090:25:12

if it's a common surname or even a common first name.

0:25:120:25:15

After many hours of research,

0:25:150:25:17

the team finally got through to someone who could help.

0:25:170:25:21

Thanks, bye.

0:25:210:25:22

When speaking to family members,

0:25:240:25:26

we discovered that Mary McGill married a Parker

0:25:260:25:29

and whilst we couldn't find a Mary McGill marrying a Mr Parker,

0:25:290:25:34

we were able to find a marriage certificate for a May McGill.

0:25:340:25:37

Mary had been going under the name May and she had married a Mr Parker.

0:25:370:25:43

And we believe they had three children together

0:25:430:25:45

who would have all been cousins of the deceased.

0:25:450:25:48

They started with the eldest child first.

0:25:480:25:50

One of the siblings who has passed away, called Frida,

0:25:500:25:54

she actually went on to have seven children herself

0:25:540:25:57

and these will all be cousins once removed of the deceased.

0:25:570:26:00

It was a crucial breakthrough and the team could now begin

0:26:000:26:04

trying to contact these seven potential heirs.

0:26:040:26:07

One of them was Eileen,

0:26:090:26:11

a keen amateur genealogist who knew of Mairi's mum as Josephine,

0:26:110:26:15

but, worryingly, her research didn't fully match Camilla's.

0:26:150:26:19

When I spoke to them, they told me they were looking for relatives of

0:26:190:26:25

Marie Windsor.

0:26:250:26:27

And I said I'd never heard of Marie Windsor.

0:26:270:26:31

She'd never come up on any of my research that I'd done.

0:26:310:26:35

And I was unsure whose child she would be.

0:26:350:26:39

Had they definitely got the right person?

0:26:420:26:45

Then they sent me some details for me to look at

0:26:460:26:51

and I found that she was born in 1933,

0:26:510:26:56

which I thought, realised, that she must...

0:26:560:26:58

could only be the child of Josephine, because all the others,

0:26:580:27:03

I knew their children, and they were a lot older.

0:27:030:27:06

Having understood her connection to Mairi,

0:27:070:27:09

Eileen still couldn't understand why she hadn't known about

0:27:090:27:13

her cousin once removed,

0:27:130:27:15

but a possible answer seemed to lie on the other side of the world.

0:27:150:27:19

From the mid-1940s,

0:27:190:27:20

the Australian government introduced a variety of initiatives

0:27:200:27:24

to try and encourage Brits to emigrate.

0:27:240:27:27

This included the famous £10 Pom scheme,

0:27:270:27:30

where people only had to pay £10 for their sea fare to Australia.

0:27:300:27:34

With opportunities in post-war Britain limited,

0:27:350:27:38

thousands of people made the move down under

0:27:380:27:42

and it seems Mairi Windsor was among them.

0:27:420:27:44

In 1950, aged 17,

0:27:440:27:46

she boarded a boat bound for Sydney and she was listed as a housemaid.

0:27:460:27:51

Mairi returned to Britain shortly afterwards, but by then,

0:27:530:27:56

it appears she and her parents had lost touch with their family.

0:27:560:28:00

I really didn't know, we missed out of knowing her, because in London,

0:28:010:28:06

we have quite a few... three other cousins

0:28:060:28:09

and I'm surprised that they didn't know about her,

0:28:090:28:12

unless she didn't know that she had relatives in London.

0:28:120:28:15

When Eileen was doing her own research into the family,

0:28:150:28:19

Josephine had always been a mystery.

0:28:190:28:21

If we could have traced Josephine,

0:28:210:28:24

then we would have probably known about her, but unfortunately,

0:28:240:28:28

only having her maiden name,

0:28:280:28:31

if you put that into a site, it very rarely comes up

0:28:310:28:35

with their connections to marriage or anything else.

0:28:350:28:39

The only thing I can think of is that if she went to Australia,

0:28:390:28:42

she came back and didn't contact anybody.

0:28:420:28:46

And you know, I don't say they were a close family

0:28:460:28:49

but I think that they were in touch with one another in general.

0:28:490:28:53

So I just don't know how that happened.

0:28:530:28:57

But Eileen can recall seeing her other relatives while growing up.

0:28:590:29:03

I mean, the fact that I knew some of them when I was young, very young,

0:29:030:29:06

a child, because I used to stay with my grandparents.

0:29:060:29:09

I mean, I think I saw my Auntie Connie twice

0:29:090:29:12

and she only lived seven miles away.

0:29:120:29:15

Of course, in those days,

0:29:150:29:17

you didn't have the transport to get around

0:29:170:29:19

and the only reason I know of my aunt Evelyn in London

0:29:190:29:23

is because we used to stay with her sometimes in London,

0:29:230:29:27

so we knew her and her children.

0:29:270:29:30

And I was quite surprised to find

0:29:300:29:33

that so many of the children didn't have children.

0:29:330:29:37

It's unusual in a family not to know you've got cousins,

0:29:370:29:42

you know, within a stone's throw of you.

0:29:420:29:45

For Eileen, it's been an unexpected revelation

0:29:450:29:49

and one she wishes had come sooner.

0:29:490:29:51

I was amazed to find that we had got another relative

0:29:510:29:56

and that we knew nothing about her, which I find very sad, really,

0:29:560:30:00

that she, you know, didn't know that she had

0:30:000:30:03

other relatives and I think that's quite a sad thing, really.

0:30:030:30:07

And that she only died last year and if we'd known about her,

0:30:070:30:11

we could've got in contact.

0:30:110:30:13

In addition to Eileen,

0:30:150:30:17

the team in the office had signed up a further 16 heirs

0:30:170:30:21

and they were pleased they'd been able to solve a case

0:30:210:30:24

that at times looked complicated and daunting.

0:30:240:30:27

If you begin a family tree which you know is quite large,

0:30:270:30:30

especially if you're dealing with something

0:30:300:30:33

within the double figures of 10 or 11 stems, for example,

0:30:330:30:36

you always must keep in mind that potentially quite a lot of these may die out.

0:30:360:30:40

So initially your research may seem like quite a lot,

0:30:400:30:43

however, especially with children born in the 1800s,

0:30:430:30:47

there were quite a few infant deaths or people died quite young

0:30:470:30:50

before they had children,

0:30:500:30:51

in which case your research is suddenly quite small in comparison

0:30:510:30:54

to what you thought it might be.

0:30:540:30:57

But there was a key question still outstanding for the team.

0:30:570:31:01

They'd taken on the case without knowing its value

0:31:010:31:04

and when the size of the estate was eventually revealed,

0:31:040:31:07

it wasn't quite what they'd hoped for.

0:31:070:31:09

The estate was worth just under £7,000 in the end.

0:31:090:31:12

In terms of its worth for working, there was a lot of research

0:31:120:31:16

and it involved a lot more than we initially hoped.

0:31:160:31:18

We hoped that it would be of higher value, but we did locate

0:31:180:31:22

all the beneficiaries who will be entitled to a share in her estate

0:31:220:31:26

so we solved the case in the end.

0:31:260:31:28

Whilst it may not have been the company's most lucrative case,

0:31:280:31:31

it has certainly been very satisfying for Camilla and the team.

0:31:310:31:35

When you resolve a difficult case, it does feel very rewarding,

0:31:350:31:38

it's when you've been tracing a certain line for weeks, potentially,

0:31:380:31:42

and you've ordered lots of certificates

0:31:420:31:44

and knowing that you've put a lot of time into it,

0:31:440:31:47

because it's a really good feeling when you've found someone

0:31:470:31:51

and located the right beneficiaries to the estate.

0:31:510:31:54

And as a result, it's spurred Eileen on

0:31:540:31:58

to find out more about her large and long lost family.

0:31:580:32:01

I'm now trying to get in contact with the cousins I know of,

0:32:010:32:06

unfortunately they've all moved from the addresses that I had,

0:32:060:32:10

so that's another job that I've got to try and do now.

0:32:100:32:15

So I'm hoping that somehow they could get the other people

0:32:150:32:19

who are still surviving to be able to contact each other,

0:32:190:32:24

would be nice, so that we know where people are.

0:32:240:32:27

Right, do you know what family that was from?

0:32:320:32:36

On the £12,000 estate of Colin Maclennan,

0:32:360:32:39

heir hunting firm Celtic Research were trying to crack a case

0:32:390:32:43

that had lain unsolved for 26 years.

0:32:430:32:45

If an estate is unclaimed for 30 years,

0:32:450:32:48

it will pass to the government and it will become irrecoverable.

0:32:480:32:52

I knew that because Colin had died in 1989

0:32:520:32:55

that deadline would be looming

0:32:550:32:58

and if no claim was made, the government would keep the money.

0:32:580:33:01

Colin had passed away on the 23rd of April, 1989.

0:33:010:33:06

But it was his illegitimate birth to domestic servant Mary Maclennan

0:33:060:33:10

that was causing headaches for Hector.

0:33:100:33:13

Many girls who had no other skills went into domestic service.

0:33:130:33:17

They would sometimes fall pregnant

0:33:170:33:19

and illegitimate births would then ensue.

0:33:190:33:21

Because Mary had been just 15 when Colin was born,

0:33:220:33:26

it was possible he'd been given up for adoption.

0:33:260:33:29

If we think that there's an adoption,

0:33:290:33:31

we have to find out either way whether it's a legal adoption

0:33:310:33:35

or an informal adoption.

0:33:350:33:36

When Hector searched adoption records, nothing came up.

0:33:360:33:39

This meant that any heirs to Colin's estate

0:33:390:33:42

would come from his mother Mary's family.

0:33:420:33:45

In order to find out what happened to Mary,

0:33:450:33:48

we looked for her marriage from the date of birth of the deceased,

0:33:480:33:51

we looked under all spelling variants throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland

0:33:510:33:55

and we were lucky enough to find one marriage to a Farquhar Maclennan,

0:33:550:33:59

and through that information, from the marriage certificate,

0:33:590:34:02

we were able to find her in the 1911 census living in Scotland.

0:34:020:34:07

Mary and Farquhar married in February 1938

0:34:080:34:12

in a register office in London.

0:34:120:34:14

But the marriage also revealed a remarkable detail.

0:34:140:34:18

Both Farquhar and Mary had been born with the same surname.

0:34:180:34:22

It's unusual for somebody to marry somebody with the same surname

0:34:220:34:25

and that may bring up the question of whether they are marrying

0:34:250:34:29

someone that they are related to, but that's not necessarily the case.

0:34:290:34:33

And in the case of Farquhar and Mary,

0:34:330:34:35

it seemed it was pure coincidence.

0:34:350:34:38

But the big question was whether the couple had any children

0:34:380:34:41

who would be Colin's half siblings.

0:34:410:34:43

Hector began the search.

0:34:430:34:45

The obvious place to start was in London

0:34:450:34:47

because that's where they got married

0:34:470:34:49

and unfortunately we couldn't find any there.

0:34:490:34:51

In fact, we couldn't find any in all of England and Wales.

0:34:510:34:54

So I thought, as she was from Scotland,

0:34:540:34:57

perhaps she went up there to have additional children.

0:34:570:35:00

Hector's hunch turned out to be spot-on.

0:35:000:35:02

When we looked in Scotland, we found that she had four children.

0:35:020:35:06

Hector found that between 1940 and 1946,

0:35:060:35:10

Farquhar and Mary had three sons and a daughter called Chrissie.

0:35:100:35:14

Having found a number for her, Hector got straight on the phone,

0:35:140:35:18

knowing it could be a delicate call.

0:35:180:35:20

Making sensitive calls to potential heirs is part of our daily routine

0:35:200:35:25

and this has to be dealt with some tact,

0:35:250:35:27

particularly because some of the information that we're going to be

0:35:270:35:30

sharing with that person may not be something

0:35:300:35:32

that they'll be pleased to hear.

0:35:320:35:34

It just dropped like a bombshell.

0:35:360:35:38

I was just...I couldn't believe it.

0:35:380:35:41

I said, "No," I said, "you must be making a mistake."

0:35:410:35:44

Until the call from Hector,

0:35:450:35:47

Chrissie had had no idea about her half-brother Colin.

0:35:470:35:51

I felt sad because I wanted to see what he looked like,

0:35:510:35:54

what sort of person was he, you know, and I was really...

0:35:540:35:57

Oh, I just couldn't stop thinking about it.

0:35:570:36:00

You know, I went to bed that night,

0:36:000:36:02

and even now I'm still thinking about him, I still can't...

0:36:020:36:05

you know, I can't get over it. It's amazing.

0:36:050:36:08

It was a secret her mum Mary had taken to the grave.

0:36:080:36:11

She never mentioned Colin, never at all.

0:36:110:36:14

But I know that she used to go off to have little holidays

0:36:140:36:17

what I thought was, you know, going...

0:36:170:36:20

I never would've thought where she was...

0:36:200:36:22

Never said, really, where she was going or who she was seeing.

0:36:220:36:26

But she just used to go off for a few days

0:36:260:36:28

and I do have a feeling she was probably...she knew where he was.

0:36:280:36:32

Chrissie and her mum Mary were very close.

0:36:320:36:35

My mother was absolutely amazing.

0:36:350:36:37

She was an amazing lady.

0:36:370:36:39

She was very gentle,

0:36:390:36:41

very kind and she always would do wonderful food for everyone.

0:36:410:36:46

Whoever came in the house, she'd always put a spread up for them.

0:36:460:36:50

She loved to cook, she was a wonderful cook.

0:36:500:36:53

But discovering what had happened to her mother at just 15

0:36:530:36:58

has been hard for Chrissie.

0:36:580:36:59

Oh, my mum was so young, it must've been a difficult time for her

0:36:590:37:04

because she was so lovely and it was hard, it must've been really hard,

0:37:040:37:08

she wouldn't have known what to do because she was just a child.

0:37:080:37:12

It was frowned upon, you know, to be pregnant at such a young age.

0:37:120:37:16

Knowing the truth has helped Chrissie

0:37:180:37:20

to better understand her mum.

0:37:200:37:22

In my mum, I did see sadness

0:37:220:37:24

because she used to warn me all the time when I was growing up

0:37:240:37:29

because she used to say to me, "No, don't marry or don't go with that,"

0:37:290:37:32

and, "Be careful what you're doing," because she knew the hardship

0:37:320:37:36

of you going to a wrong relationship.

0:37:360:37:39

And Christie believes her mum's experience as a teenager

0:37:390:37:42

had a big impact on her throughout her life.

0:37:420:37:45

And when she came back from the Lake District, you know,

0:37:450:37:47

she'd go into her bedroom and she was private,

0:37:470:37:51

but very private, you know.

0:37:510:37:53

Keep herself to herself.

0:37:530:37:55

I don't think she wanted to burden us with it.

0:37:550:37:58

After 26 years,

0:37:590:38:01

it seemed Hector had finally solved the case of Colin Maclennan

0:38:010:38:05

and all he had to do now was help his heirs claim their inheritance.

0:38:050:38:10

Well, he was entitled to a share in an estate which we were researching.

0:38:100:38:16

But there was about to be a sudden and unexpected twist.

0:38:160:38:20

We made a claim on behalf of Chrissie and her surviving siblings.

0:38:200:38:23

Unfortunately, the government legal department rejected the claim.

0:38:230:38:27

It was a bombshell for Hector.

0:38:270:38:29

The department didn't think

0:38:290:38:31

there was enough evidence to back up the claim.

0:38:310:38:34

We could not prove that the Mary Maclennan

0:38:340:38:36

who was the mother of Chrissie was the same Mary Maclennan

0:38:360:38:39

who was the mother of the deceased, Colin.

0:38:390:38:42

Having been tantalisingly close to completing the case,

0:38:420:38:45

everything was now in jeopardy.

0:38:450:38:47

But Hector wasn't about to give up that easily

0:38:470:38:51

and set about proving the connection.

0:38:510:38:53

I tried to compare the signatures between the mother

0:38:530:38:56

that was listed on Colin's birth certificate

0:38:560:38:59

and the mother listed on Chrissie's birth certificate.

0:38:590:39:02

To my untrained eye, they looked almost exactly the same.

0:39:020:39:06

However, the challenge was to prove

0:39:060:39:08

that they were both written by the same person.

0:39:080:39:12

Today, Hector is on his way to get an expert opinion.

0:39:160:39:21

I'm meeting a handwriting expert,

0:39:210:39:22

and I'm going to be taking the birth certificates that I have on the case

0:39:220:39:25

for her to look at and hopefully,

0:39:250:39:27

through her expertise and through her experience,

0:39:270:39:29

she'll be able to confirm that the signatures that we have

0:39:290:39:32

for the mother of the deceased and the mother of our heirs is the same.

0:39:320:39:36

Graphologist Emma Baich is able to offer a detailed analysis

0:39:360:39:40

of a person's handwriting and Hector is keen to know

0:39:400:39:43

if she agrees with his opinion on Mary's signature.

0:39:430:39:47

I have a hunch and I'm hoping you'll be able to confirm my hunch,

0:39:470:39:51

which is that two people share the same mother -

0:39:510:39:54

the deceased and what I believe to be his half-sister, Chrissie.

0:39:540:39:59

This is the copy of the deceased's birth certificate,

0:39:590:40:05

with his mother signing it.

0:40:050:40:07

She would have been about 30 when she had Chrissie

0:40:070:40:11

and I believe that she signed this document.

0:40:110:40:14

And maybe you can tell me whether the signatures that we have taken

0:40:140:40:18

from the original registers

0:40:180:40:20

match the same person.

0:40:200:40:23

OK, let's have a look.

0:40:230:40:25

Obviously, 15 is quite a young age anyway,

0:40:250:40:28

whether it's having a child or not,

0:40:280:40:30

so there will be quite a few changes between being a teenager and 30s.

0:40:300:40:34

If I was to play devil's advocate,

0:40:340:40:36

can you tell me what the differences are between the two signatures?

0:40:360:40:39

The way she's actually signed it is different.

0:40:390:40:41

She's written her full name here and here, she's just put M Maclennan.

0:40:410:40:45

This has been written more speedily than that one.

0:40:450:40:48

There's more hesitation there

0:40:480:40:50

and there is altogether more feeling of formality.

0:40:500:40:53

However, I can see immediately

0:40:530:40:55

that there are similarities in that she has

0:40:550:40:58

quite a long starting stroke here on both of the Ms.

0:40:580:41:03

This is a little bit straighter.

0:41:030:41:05

Also the L, she does a very obvious rounded loop to the L,

0:41:050:41:10

which she does here as well.

0:41:100:41:12

Handwriting does change, obviously,

0:41:120:41:14

from almost hour to hour depending on how you feel.

0:41:140:41:19

However, your main characteristics are unlikely to change

0:41:190:41:22

unless you've had traumas in your life.

0:41:220:41:25

Although it could be said that having a child

0:41:250:41:28

at a very young age yourself is a form of trauma.

0:41:280:41:31

Well, given the information that you have before you,

0:41:310:41:35

what would your conclusions be?

0:41:350:41:37

Well, my conclusions would be

0:41:370:41:39

that she was feeling very differently about her situation

0:41:390:41:43

and really her personality was different

0:41:430:41:46

at different times of her life.

0:41:460:41:48

However, I believe it is the same person,

0:41:480:41:51

simply because there are so many characteristics

0:41:510:41:54

that would be extremely difficult to forge.

0:41:540:41:57

I would say, yes, this has been written by the same person.

0:41:570:42:00

Well, I'm very pleased with Emma's conclusions.

0:42:020:42:05

I think we're both agreed that it is the same person,

0:42:050:42:08

signing the same signature for a birth certificate

0:42:080:42:11

at two different stages in her life.

0:42:110:42:13

After the initial rejection, Hector resubmitted the claim,

0:42:130:42:16

arguing that the handwriting on both documents was from the same person.

0:42:160:42:21

Having demonstrated that the two signatures

0:42:210:42:23

were written by the same person,

0:42:230:42:25

we were able to prove the claim to my immense relief.

0:42:250:42:28

It was a great result for Hector and the team

0:42:280:42:30

and meant he had finally solved the case.

0:42:300:42:33

Cases that have been unsolved for nearly a quarter of a century

0:42:330:42:36

or more present a real challenge for any genealogist.

0:42:360:42:40

So I like to pride myself on being able to solve cases like that,

0:42:400:42:43

because there's nothing more satisfying.

0:42:430:42:46

But for heir Chrissie,

0:42:460:42:47

the discovery of her half-brother is the start of a whole new chapter.

0:42:470:42:52

I would love to do research into Colin.

0:42:520:42:54

I would really love to know more.

0:42:540:42:57

I just wish I'd met him and I really mean that.

0:42:570:43:00

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