Fehr/Wilson Heir Hunters

Today...

I'll take this one.

Heir hunters race each other to find heirs to a small fortune.

You know we're neck and neck with the other firm now.

While in Kent, a family divided...

It was some sort of argument and we never spoke to any of them again.

..is reconnected after 60 years.

-Hello!

-Hello!

I'm excited, I'm nervous, I don't really know how I feel.

Across the country, the hunt is on.

With millions of pounds waiting to be claimed,

could the heir hunters be knocking at your door?

It's 9am and in London, heir hunting firm

Finders International are working on new cases from the Government's

Bona Vacantia list of unclaimed estates.

We've come in this morning and there's 20 ads come out from

the government, so we're just checking them through now to see

how much they're worth, and then we can start looking into them.

With so many cases,

today will be exceptionally busy for the heir hunters,

and competition between the firms will be intense.

It's the classic buses arriving at the same time scenario.

So we will have a situation where we have to work simultaneously

on several cases, and some of them could be equally urgent.

But case manager Ryan Gregory has identified one case

he thinks will be worth working.

I'm looking at the case of Frances Elizabeth Fehr.

We've just found out she was a spinster when she passed away.

Well, it looks like from the records she never married.

She was born in 1921.

Crucially, it seems Frances owned a property in London

that could make her estate very valuable.

It's always a bit of a panic to begin with, wondering if you're behind the competition.

Every minute does count. It's a bit of a cliche, but it does.

Frances Fehr moved to her flat in Battersea, South London,

when she retired in the 1980s.

Her neighbour, Robin Woodley, remembers her fondly.

I knew Frances for 30 years.

She was quite an individual.

There's Frances.

She was into the arts.

She never missed going to the Royal Academy every year.

I went with her on two occasions.

This was on Christmas Day.

And of course, her friends, Ro and Jim.

We'd always have a Boxing Day afternoon with about six of us,

and she would do the catering.

It was always quite a fun day.

She tried her best to please everyone.

She knew exactly what people liked.

She had a very good heart.

Frances Fehr passed away in June 2016 at the age of 95,

without appearing to leave a will or any children to inherit her estate.

So the search for heirs is on.

First, the team must investigate Frances's parents

in order to see if she has any other surviving siblings.

I've pinpointed the parents on the 1939 register,

which is really good.

It's quite similar to the old census records, but it's more recent.

So I've got both parents on there.

The 1939 register was taken at the outbreak of World War II

by the British Government.

And today, it gives Ryan valuable clues to find Frances's family.

Frances's parents were living in Westminster in 1939.

So, yeah, now I just need to go back. So the mum's maiden name was Underwood,

that's more of a common surname than the paternal side,

which is Fehr, spelt F-E-H-R.

I had a quick look for Underwoods,

but now I'm going to move over to Fehr.

Frances's parents, Joseph Fehr and Florence Underwood, married in 1920.

But when Ryan looks for them on the 1911 census,

he makes a significant discovery about Joseph

that will radically change the hunt for heirs.

The dad, he was living in Brixton.

But it does say that he was born in Switzerland.

With competition on this case likely to be high,

this is a major setback for the team.

It's going to pose a bit of a problem in terms of

we can't necessarily do the research here straightaway,

unless they have family members here.

Could you e-mail this over to Yann?

He was born in Switzerland,

-so I think we might as well get someone looking into it.

-Yeah.

The investigation into Joseph's family must be sent to European researchers.

So while they wait for more Swiss leads,

Ryan has other information on Frances's father, Joseph,

that could help them.

The dad, in 1911...

..was 33.

He was a hotel valet.

Joseph must have moved to the UK before 1911

to work in the booming hospitality industry.

A very large percentage of waiters

before the First World War were European.

Joseph must have been linked to a Swiss waiters' migrant network,

and that's the only way I think he would've ended up in Great Britain.

But Joseph Fehr arrived in the UK at a bad time.

With the outbreak of World War I in August 1914,

Britain was pitted against the German Empire.

Public opinion felt it was legitimate to be hostile to Germans.

And, obviously, he has a Swiss German accent,

which is not that different from a German accent.

People who don't know him would automatically assume

it's a German name.

As the war became more savage,

British public opinion would swing even harder against anyone German.

In May 1915,

the British cruise liner the Lusitania was sunk

by a German submarine off the coast of Ireland,

leading to the deaths of almost 1,200 civilians.

And that was followed by mass anti-German riots.

The first riots occur in Liverpool,

and then it spreads to the whole of the country.

I have no hesitation in saying that every German shop in Britain

was destroyed in that week.

They are the worst riots in 20th-century Britain, essentially.

Now, anyone with a Germanic connection in Britain

was under threat.

People were obviously terrified.

You know, you could be attacked on the street or in your home.

Back in the office, the team are still racing to find heirs.

The key question is if Joseph was from Switzerland,

might there be European heirs to find us well?

While Ryan waits for more leads from the researchers abroad,

he starts to pursue Frances's mother's family,

hoping it will be more straightforward.

-I've moved on to the maternal side, thinking it would be easier.

-Yeah.

It isn't, massively.

Why have I put 1911?

I haven't found her for sure on any census, or any definitive birth.

The mum is the problem for me, really,

because I've got her date of birth here in the 1939 register,

but I'm struggling to then take it back to finding her birth

and/or her on the census.

I mean, Underwood, it's not a really common surname,

but I don't really have anything to go on.

I don't know where she's from.

It's vital that the team find a birth record for Frances's mother, Florence.

If the date of birth's wrong, there's loads of...

Exactly, if it's wrong, but there's nothing that makes it look right.

-No.

-Which is frustrating.

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

-Yeah.

I think there's a Florence M in Pancras.

I mean, the thing is, we don't know if she was registered late.

-It could be June quarter, September quarter...

-Yeah.

-December quarter.

So, the very nature of these urgent cases that we work with quite often,

working without the documentation we need to be 100% certain it's correct.

So we need to check whether there was a plain Florence Underwood born near Wood Green.

So, therefore, we need to go with hunches.

I mean, this is when it helps, working in a team.

-But there is one in Edmonton.

-There's that one in Edmonton, yeah.

-Is that plain?

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

The team can't find Florence's birth record,

so they only have one hope left.

We really need the deceased's parents' marriage.

It will give us... Just verification, really.

Names of the both the parents, ages of both the parents.

Father's name of each,

which is going to be really useful not only from the research in

Switzerland, but also trying to figure out who

Florence Underwood is.

I'll see if I can find anybody else. If I can't, I'll get back to you.

The team need to get hold of the marriage certificate

as soon as possible to have any hope of beating the competition.

OK, also, I spoke to registrars, they've said that we can't...

-They do a 24-hour service.

-Mm-hm.

But we will have to collect it tomorrow,

otherwise we can order it priority.

-24-hour.

-Yeah.

-So, what time is it now?

BOTH: Ten.

I mean, maybe that might be a good option?

I think, just because this is high-value, let's do both.

-OK.

-Let's order it for the GRA,

and order it for 24 hours and get someone there when they open.

-All right. I'll do that, then.

-Yeah, OK. Thanks, cheers.

So they don't do same-day service. They've said 24 hours.

Any bit of time we can make up or get ahead of the competition is great.

So tomorrow morning is at least something to look forward to,

if we don't get anywhere by then.

It goes to show, you can kind of move quite quickly with a case

and then once you get stuck, you can get really stuck.

Sensing the competition will also be looking at Frances's estate,

Ryan and Camilla are exploring every option to try and stay ahead.

And with her father, Joseph, being Swiss,

they're looking further afield.

So maybe she was born in Italy.

Then she wouldn't have been an Underwood when she died.

We're just not getting anywhere at the moment,

so I think we'll just keep going with it for a couple of hours.

But at the close of the day, the team aren't any further on

and there is no news from Europe about her Swiss family.

They need Frances's mother and father's marriage certificate

from the local register office as soon as possible.

Camilla's going to be at the registry office when they open.

There may be a person, a researcher from another firm there

at the same time.

It could be a race to get the certificate and get back

to the office, or ring in the information and try and find out

exactly who Florence Underwood is.

Will they be able to stay ahead of rival firms?

Oh, OK. And did they contact you all yesterday?

OK.

HE SIGHS

That's the one.

Every case the heir hunters see on the Government's Bona Vacantia list

is a gamble.

It's a constant balance - is it worth it, isn't it worth it?

Shall we work it, shan't we work it?

And that was certainly the case when the heir hunters took on the estate

of John Wilson.

His friend, Martin Beal, thought John was the last of his line.

As far as I'm aware, John didn't have any relatives,

because that's what he'd said.

When John passed away suddenly in March 2016 at age 73,

Martin had to put John's affairs in order.

It was really left to me to organise a funeral for him

and to get most of the estate details sorted out.

It was a well attended funeral for a very popular man.

It's a pity, however, that we had no relatives there.

But he had a good army of friends.

But John never wrote a will,

so his estate passed to the Government legal department.

Mike Powell, case manager at Fraser and Fraser, picked up the hunt.

So because this is on the BV list,

we know we have to look at it relatively quickly,

cos there's going to be other people looking at it at the same time.

We try to work out whether or not it's worth working.

Cases can be worth as little as £500,

so the only way to be certain that a case is valuable

is to find out if someone owned their own property,

and early signs were good.

Bye.

We know from the electoral register that he'd been in the property

for at least 34 years.

When someone's been living in a property for such a long time,

usually it's an indication that the property's theirs,

or it's a family home or something like that.

With house prices averaging over £300,000 in John's home village of

Upstreet in Kent, his estate looked like a case well worth working,

and that meant they'd be facing stiff competition.

There's going to be more than one company looking at it,

so it's imperative that we do all the research

before the other company do it first.

So it's just that birth, then, that we need in?

The race was on,

so researcher Josh helped Mike to start to establish some basic facts.

First off, we have to find out whether or not John was married.

That's because his wife would stand to entitle the estate.

But, obviously, if they were divorced or she was deceased,

and if they had kids, they would stand to inherit the estate.

The team quickly discovered John had never married or had children.

They needed to find out more about John's parents,

Frank and Kate Wilson, who died in the 1990s.

Mike has a box of John's treasured items from his home

full of clues about their lives.

I found a bag with a box with "FWG Wilson" on it,

which is obviously John's dad.

It's got quite a lot of medals and a couple of ribbons,

so it looks like he probably served in World War I and World War II.

In fact, John's father Frank played a vital role protecting Britain's

shores when he served with the Royal Observer Corps during World War II.

So here I am at Dover Castle.

I'm on the roof of the fire command post,

which was used in the Second World War as one of the observation areas.

Frank and his team would be using areas a little bit like this,

of course, during the war.

This part of Dover was all known, of course, as Hellfire Corner.

Many, many shells fell on the old town of Dover.

The town had the highest civilian casualties in Kent.

The Observer Corps had been in existence since 1925

and its role was to spot any incoming attacks from air or sea.

And for men like Frank, it was dangerous work.

They had hats, helmets.

They were just monitoring, they had no form of defence themselves.

Frank would've been stationed somewhere on the Kent coast -

a hotspot for the Nazi planes.

In 1940, with the Battle of Britain,

he'd be watching wave after wave of German planes coming over

from the horizon across to England.

And his work, his activity, was absolutely essential to be able to

scramble our own fighters to be able to take offensive action against

those German planes coming right across the Channel there.

Frank himself, his role was absolutely vital.

All the work that the Royal Observer Corps did during

the Battle of Britain was well, well respected.

So much so that, in fact, it was actually in 1941,

after the Battle of Britain,

that George VI awarded them their royal status.

They became the Royal Observer Corps because of their activity

during the Battle of Britain.

The heir hunters knew Frank had been serving in the Royal Observer Corps

when son John was born in 1942.

But for Mike, something wasn't adding up.

That's quite a big gap between when his parents married in 1928 and his birth,

which would indicate to me that there's possibly more children.

You can never be too careful.

If John had siblings, they would inherit the whole estate.

So the team had to find out - and fast.

We spoke to a couple of neighbours

who referred us on to a friend of his who knew John

for most of his life.

The friend in question was Martin,

who was able to give the team precious information.

Frank and Kate had John quite late in life.

Frank died and then a few years later Kate died.

1995 or 6, something like that.

Then, of course, John was left on his own.

That was his home, he'd never been anywhere else.

The team were confident John was an only child

and he had inherited the house from his parents.

But Martin was about to drop a bombshell

that would seriously impact the value of the estate.

He told us that the property they resided in was a rented property,

which they started renting, I think, back in the early '30s,

which is obviously a very, very long-term rent.

John didn't own the property, and neither had his parents.

It was a disaster for the team.

Having thought the estate could be worth hundreds of thousands,

they now had no idea if there was any value in it at all.

And the big question was, should they carry on?

It's 50-50 when you're in that situation.

Every year in Britain,

thousands of people get a surprise knock on the door

from the heir hunters.

It was a complete surprise to me.

I had no idea that we had a branch

of the family that we knew nothing about.

A visit from the heir hunters can bring life-changing news.

And I was quite shocked because I didn't realise that there was

anybody in the family that we could inherit from any more.

But there are still thousands of unsolved cases where heirs need to be found.

Today we've got details of two estates on the Government legal

department's Bona Vacantia list that are yet to be cracked.

Could you be the heirs they are looking for?

The first case on the list is Nathan Isaacs, who died in Leeds,

West Yorkshire, on the 1st of November 1999, aged 92.

Nathan was born in Sunderland on the 31st of August 1907.

Are you related to an Isaacs

and have connections with the north of England?

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

The next case is Charlotte Raven,

who was born on the 1st of March 1900 in Nottingham,

and died aged 88 also in Nottingham.

Charlotte also sometimes used the middle names Elizabeth and Lock.

Do you recognise the unusual name of Lock?

Could you be a relative of Charlotte's?

Do you know anything that could help solve the cases of Nathan Isaacs

and Charlotte Raven?

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

In London, heir hunting firm Finders International

are trying to beat rival companies to find the relatives

of Frances Fehr.

Which doesn't make sense.

We still need to figure out how they're related.

The team believe Frances owned her valuable London property,

and neighbour Robin Woodley thinks she may have left a sizeable inheritance.

She used to be in the accounts department in Allied Dunbar.

She worked there all her life,

and they paid her very well when she left, and also a very good pension.

It's vital information for the team.

I think we need to order her birth and her marriage.

And they estimate the case is worth around £400,000.

There's going to be loads. There's going to be loads.

They've discovered her father, Joseph, was Swiss,

and her mother, Florence, was English.

Research into her father's family has to be done by European agents,

so the London team can only hunt for heirs on Frances's mother's side.

Competition between the firms is fierce,

and case manager Ryan is struggling.

It's like two steps forward and two steps back.

They haven't been able to find any trace of Francis's mother, Florence,

before 1920.

So in terms of competition on the Fehr case,

I'm assuming that everybody kind of had the same problem

with finding the deceased mother's birth.

Order any other possibilities as well.

The team needs the marriage certificate of Frances's mother, Florence,

to find out what her father was called

and unlock the rest of the case.

I feel like I'm close, but not close enough.

Suddenly there's a breakthrough.

-She's got two parents.

-We were literally...

-What's her parents?

Henry and Agnes.

-So Agnes Smith and Henry Underwood.

-Henry?

-Ah! That's good news.

Thank you.

The team can swing into action looking for Frances'

aunts and uncles, and get ahead of the competition.

You know, we're neck and neck with the other firm now.

They'll just now know that her dad is Henry.

So if we may still be a step ahead...

The marriage certificate gives the team Florence's father's name -

Henry Underwood - who was Frances' maternal grandfather.

Henry married Agnes Smith in 1881.

I think I've found her.

With this vital information,

Camilla quickly finds Frances's aunt and uncle.

Elizabeth Underwood and Walter Underwood.

Yes. It's quite a nice feeling.

It doesn't necessarily mean you're ahead of the competition, per se.

Let's go with this for now.

But it's nice if it turns out to be correct.

No-one would've found this as well.

They've discovered Frances had an aunt, Elizabeth Underwood,

and an uncle, Walter Underwood.

We just need to order anything, cos I know there's going to be a lot.

Yeah. So need to do it now.

The team need to see if Walter or Elizabeth got married

and had children, and Ryan quickly finds some positive results.

I found out Elizabeth Underwood married George Brown in 1905.

They had children by 1911, so we could have cousins.

What I'm going to do is split up some of the research with some other

members of the team, just to get some more hands on deck.

Elizabeth Underwood married George Brown.

This is the 1911 census.

So we obviously want to descend these lines.

The team are hoping Elizabeth's family will be small

and easy to research, leading them to heirs before the competition.

I think Elizabeth might have had...

-About ten kids.

-Jeez!

-We could do with it.

-Everybody's on the case.

I think we're going to be all right.

-Yeah.

-I'm going to need a hand. It's going to be a nightmare.

Florence's sister Elizabeth has married a Mr Brown,

which is quite a common surname.

In addition, we think she may have had up to ten children,

so this would be ten cousins of the deceased, if they were still alive.

If all of them have passed away, we will be dropping down another generation,

but we could have quite a few heirs,

particularly just on this one stem of the family.

This is the sign of some good workings out, and rubbings out, and re-doings.

Yeah, cos my page looks very dirty.

The team are quickly able to trace descendants,

and Camilla thinks she may have found her first potential heir.

Time to make the crucial call to see if she's right.

So I've got here that your mother would be Elsie Mary McCarthy,

formerly Brown.

Is that correct?

She wasn't Elsie? OK.

And was your father William McCarthy?

He wasn't William McCarthy?

So, unfortunately, the woman I just spoke to was the incorrect person.

OK, thanks. Bye.

I think we're probably going to come across that a lot

with the Brown family tree.

The one main thing that can hamper a search is a very common surname.

Yes, the Brown name is...

..interesting.

It could mean that we'll end up looking for a few days

as opposed to a few hours in terms of just trying to find

the entitled heirs.

It's turning into a long day for Ryan and the team.

Common surnames, and we haven't had lunch.

It's kind of testing us. I know it's testing me.

You need to just focus. That's what I mean.

I'm going to carry on until we get a break, basically.

A break as in a break into the research. Erm...

But, yeah, it's hard.

The team are clinging onto the hope they're still ahead of the rivals.

So anybody we can speak to is good.

And researcher Holly soon has a number for another heir.

We're looking into the estate of a lady named Frances,

and her surname was Fehr.

But there is worrying news.

Oh, OK. And did they contact you all yesterday?

Oh, OK.

Yeah.

Yeah, no, of course.

Of course, that's fine. Erm...

Yeah, no. These things usually are very competitive,

which is why you would've been contacted by other companies.

It's a hammer blow for the team.

They're all very wary of answering questions over the phone.

-Because they didn't want...

-Yeah, that's the thing.

So whoever it was yesterday will probably have all that information by now.

Yeah, it just means they would've been more likely to give information

to the other firm and what we need is that information.

I mean, obviously, we still need to get some signatures

because we've worked so hard on it.

I'm going to have some lunch.

Disappointing news on the Fehr case.

I think we're a day behind the other firms.

It's not the end of the world.

Ryan knows if they can find more heirs and visit them in person

before the competition,

he will stand a chance of salvaging something from the case.

The following day the team pick themselves up and continue the hunt.

My brain is frazzled.

With no new leads from their European agents about the father's

Swiss family, they keep looking into her mother's relatives.

In that situation all you can do is either carry on or give up.

Crucially, the team have managed to speak to more descendants

of Elizabeth Underwood and George Brown, who had not been contacted

by the competition.

We've made some good communication with the family.

It's looking like it's heading definitely in the right direction.

With the stakes higher than ever, the team need to get travelling

researchers out on the road to meet heirs face-to-face.

Hiya, it's Camilla calling from Finders.

I've got a visit, an urgent visit in Surrey,

in Woking, if you would be available to go?

So they've dispatched representative Peter George

to locate one of Frances's heirs.

Yeah, so I got a call from the office this morning

to see whether I could go to a job in Surrey,

where they've identified a potential beneficiary

to an estate.

They believe the job is competitive,

so speed is of the utmost importance.

So I've left as soon as I could, and I'm on my way there now.

But it is a cold call. She has no idea we're coming.

It's just up here on the left-hand side.

So it's just a play it by ear.

We'll see what reception we get when I knock on the door.

The office team have made even more progress.

We're really now speaking to the beneficiaries,

which is the key thing for us.

We've refined all of the research down

and it seems as though there may just be seven heirs.

You know, the best case scenario would be all the beneficiaries

sign with, us and it's looking like it's a possibility at least.

But back in Surrey, Peter is struggling.

It's a new block of flats with a very high security

and there was no reply, unfortunately.

So I've reported it back to the office already

and I'll just make my way home.

It may be a disappointing outcome for Peter,

but back in London the team have been more successful

and have managed to visit and sign up the first heir - Barbara.

She's the daughter of Nellie Jepps, one of Frances's maternal cousins.

The news has come as a shock.

I always thought this will never happen to me,

simply because I thought I knew all my family

because I've been investigating my genealogy for a very long time

and this person has never come up.

I was amazed that we had a family member,

especially since she lived not too far from here.

I was a bit upset that I never got to meet her.

But it's also had an unexpected benefit for Barbara.

I've spoken to other cousins, who I haven't spoken to for a long time.

So in a way it's been good, because it's brought us all together again.

I'm going to print of the original record, actually, just to check the transcription.

A few weeks later, and finally there's news from the European researchers.

I've got his date of birth.

Managing director Daniel Curran is able to visit Barbara

with the final family tree.

OK, take a seat, Danny.

Thanks very much.

-As you know, we've been doing some research in Switzerland.

-Yes.

And quite a few more documents, which you might find of interest.

We have the Underwood family, so...

Wow! That looks huge.

It looks... Probably looks more impressive when it's drawn out.

But, as I say, it's not a final version yet,

so we'll get you a copy when we do the final version.

Danny explains that researchers in Switzerland have found there is no

living family on Frances's father's side.

Oh. OK.

So Barbara's side of the family will be the only source of heirs.

Well, it's kind of good news for you, because the whole estate

will now be divided amongst the surviving heirs

-on the Underwood side.

-OK.

So that's good news for you.

You can order the Ferrari.

Well, hang on a minute, we haven't found the will yet!

THEY LAUGH

But a few days later, Barbara's joke is no laughing matter.

-Whoever says yes can order the set.

-Yeah.

There's been a dramatic twist in the fortunes of the case.

We received a bit of a surprise.

The solicitor who the family had appointed

to conduct the administration of the estate,

they found a will at the property.

It will affect everyone,

and undermine all the heir hunters' struggles over the last month.

So, I mean, it's never a good conclusion to a case

that we've put a lot of hard work into.

It also ultimately means that the family members we've located

previously are no longer entitled to inherit from this estate.

But there is still a bright side.

Turns out that the sole beneficiary in fact of the will is a charity

called Cats Protection.

Well, personally, I love cats.

I'm happy that the money is going to cats in the end,

but I know there's some dog people in the team as well!

Frances's friend Robin isn't surprised.

Yeah, she was absolutely fond of the cat.

In fact, she used to spend more money on the cat than herself.

Frances will not be forgotten.

I miss her intellect.

It was always a pleasure talking to her,

because she was so worldly wise.

You could have chats for hours on end.

HE CHUCKLES

In Kent, John Wilson had passed away without a will

or close living family in March 2016.

But after discovering he hadn't owned his property,

Fraser and Fraser case manager Mike Powell was struggling

to find any money in John's estate to pass on to heirs.

When there isn't a property involved,

you're obviously more anxious to find out what it is, because,

obviously, it will decide whether or not you carry on,

or you stop any work into the estate, because it's not worth continuing.

Mike needed to quickly decide whether to continue

with John's case.

He still may have had some money saved up.

We have no way of finding that out.

He could have had something, he could have had nothing.

We just don't know, so... It's 50-50 when you're in that situation.

Desperate to find out more,

the team got in touch with John's dearest friend, Martin,

to find out if his parents,

Frank and Kate had any money that could have passed down to John.

Frank was a chauffeur for this lady who happened to live at Upstreet,

but owned a hotel in Margate.

Kate was, I think, a domestic or a cook in the same establishment

and that's where the two of them met.

Although John's parents wouldn't have earnt much,

Martin had a vital clue from their past that changed everything.

And as a wedding present, the Lady of the house said,

"I will give you this bungalow."

And when the Lady died, in her will,

she'd made a provision that Frank and Katie could live there

for the entire duration of their life

for a rent not exceeding ten shillings a week.

John inherited this right, and so in today's money

that meant John was only paying around £20 a week.

But there were even more hints that John had money to spare.

He'd had a long and successful career.

John started at East Kent Bus Company

at virtually his 16th birthday.

Just as a junior clerk to assist in the bus routes.

He worked there then till the time he was eventually retired,

which was after 50 years and one day of service, I think it was.

Martin and John's other friends, Richard and David,

from East Kent Buses, remember his love for the job.

If we're talking about him, we ought to really get the old lady out.

Look at that! Number eight.

Yeah.

And 100 years of East Kent and 50 years of John working for them.

-Yeah.

-A great guy.

John travelled on buses like this for most of his working life.

There she goes!

This would have taken him to work and back home every day.

Yeah, she's still as good as new.

John was a bus scheduler in head office his entire life.

And had a passion for travelling on the buses he timetabled.

-He'd sit down here...

-John always used to sit downstairs.

At the front, because he could never make it upstairs at the end.

In his older days.

But in his younger days, he went up to have a cigarette anyway.

That's right!

After retirement, John and his friends had many happy hours

travelling on vintage buses -

something they still do in his honour.

It's a celebration of John's life

and the friendship that we all had together.

Especially when I take the bus out and if I go past Upstreet,

I look at Fred's house and I say, "We're thinking of you, mate."

"Thinking of you."

I just want to check with you two things...

Not only had John spent 50 years at the East Kent Bus Company,

it seemed he liked to save his cash.

Well, the information we got from his friends,

suggested he was very frugal.

He kept himself to himself,

he worked for a bus company all his life, so probably had free travel.

If he wasn't someone to go out and spend big every weekend

or something like that,

it's just going to keep building up and building up.

It was enough to convince the heir hunters they should take the gamble,

and go full throttle looking for John's heirs.

We know there'll be some value there,

we just don't know exactly how much it will be.

But they still needed to beat the competition to John's family.

Mike needed help.

So quickly recruited colleague Roger

to dig further back into John's family tree.

Roger started with John's mother's side of the family.

Mum is Kathleen Maud Ownsworth,

so we had to look the Ownsworth family to see how many

brothers and sisters she has got.

And Ownsworth itself is a really good name to research,

because all the years I've been doing it,

I've never come across one before.

The team were pleased with the family name, and hoped for a quick

breakthrough finding John's aunts and uncles.

Bit by bit, they pieced together the Ownsworth family tree

and found Kathleen's siblings.

She has five brothers and sisters.

But because they had nice initials and nice middle names,

it made it easier. It's a godsend.

The team were hoping they'd now quickly find descendants.

But they hit upon a major stumbling block...

..when looking for one of John's uncles.

The only fly in the ointment is John Norman.

We have got a record of him leaving to go to Adelaide.

And it also mentions later on,

that he was, in 1934 he was living in Adelaide still.

So if someone moves from the UK to another country,

it makes life slightly difficult for us.

With research on that stem having to go to the other side of the world,

closer to home, Roger had established what happened

to the other aunts and uncles.

Three more of John's maternal aunts and uncles all died

without having children.

It looked like there might be no heirs.

But his youngest uncle, Robert,

appeared to get married very close to John's birthplace.

Each stem seems to have self-contained in one area,

which makes life easier.

Which leaves us with Robert Stanley Ownsworth,

who married Nellie Edith Kathleen Ball.

Robert and Nellie had one daughter.

So, on this side, there's only the one heir, which is Susan.

This was a major breakthrough.

The team were confident there was value in the case,

so they wanted to get to her first.

The team immediately dispatched a travelling researcher

to Susan's home, but she wasn't expecting a visit.

He had come to find Mrs Wallington, Susan Ownsworth,

so I said, yes, that was me.

He said he had information about John Gordon Wilson.

I didn't realise who he was talking about at the time.

But then I suddenly realised that he meant my cousin John.

I'd forgotten about him.

I knew about him, but I didn't know what it was all about, you know?

I was surprised. Very surprised!

This is my father, that's Auntie Kate's brother.

Susan had never met John and, with a sad irony,

it was all due to a family dispute over inheritance.

It was some sort of argument over who got what

when my grandmother died.

So I just know there was a fallout with the family

and we never spoke to any of them ever again.

I didn't see Auntie Kate,

or Uncle Frank, or John, or anybody.

Back in the office, the team had discovered that as well as Susan,

there were four more heirs.

All right, thank you very much for your time. Take care, bye-bye.

On John's estate, there's a very small amount of beneficiaries.

There's only five who would be entitled to a share.

And Mike's confidence that there was value in John's estate has paid off.

There was at least £100,000 in bank accounts,

shares and things like that.

For Susan, having been separated from John's family

due to a dispute over inheritance,

it will be bittersweet to receive money from John.

Inheriting it, well, it's surreal.

I don't expect anybody to sort of leave me anything.

I mean, we could donate something in John's name, couldn't we?

-Yeah.

-You know?

Never knowing John has left a gap in Susan's family history.

We just sort of slipped past one another.

It would be interesting to speak to somebody that actually knew him.

And today, Susan has a precious chance to make up for lost time.

She and her husband are on their way to meet John's friends

at his local pub.

Yeah, so that was taken in '79.

And find out more about the cousin she never met.

I'm excited, I'm nervous, I...

Don't really know how I feel!

John would have loved that.

-Oh, hello!

-Hello! Hello.

I'm Sue.

-David.

-Nice to meet you.

This is him as a toddler, outside of the bungalow in Upstreet.

It was actually sitting on his sideboard

right up until the day he died.

For Susan, memories of the family she lost come flooding back.

I vaguely remember seeing...

Not seeing a person, but maybe a photo of Auntie Kate,

because I could remember the hat.

-That's Kate, yes.

-THEY LAUGH

It's sort of a lady with a hat.

She always wore hats, yes.

That's amazing, isn't it?

Susan can see how John lived life to the full.

Here we go, and this is John being presented with a big can of beer.

Now, John loved beer.

He looks like a really happy person, doesn't he?

John was a happy person.

He was a fantastic friend.

He was my best man at my wedding.

-A fantastic guy.

-Yeah.

-And I think it was an honour and a pleasure to know him, really.

-Yes.

-And to work with him.

-I wish I had known him.

Hearing about her long-lost cousin has gone a long way to healing

the divide in her family's past.

Overwhelmed, really.

It's been an experience, because I never, as I say,

I never knew John before,

and his friends have really sort of brought him to life for me.

This is the invitation to his 65th surprise party.

I thought the poor bloke was going to have a heart attack!

It's great to connect with a missing part of John's life.

It is very much... The family resemblance is there.

And it's nice to see, very nice to see.

Coming out today and being in the pub with some beer

and some fine people, it's been great fun.