Bestwick Heir Hunters

Heir hunters spend their lives tracking down families of people who've died without leaving a will.

They hand over thousands of pounds to long lost relatives,

who had no idea they were in line for a windfall.

Could they be knocking at your door?

On today's programme, the heir hunters struggle with a missing clue...

What we need is somebody to get somewhere and get something.

..two heirs discover a family link to one of the most shocking events of the 20th century...

Was it the war that made him do things like that?

..and a lucky man finds out about a long-lost relative.

Did you know that she's still alive?

-She is?

-She's still alive.

-Is she really?

-Yeah.

Plus a list of unclaimed estates worth over £2 million.

Could you be in line for a windfall?

Every year, over 300,000 people die without leaving a will.

When no family is found, their money goes to the government.

That's when the heir hunting companies step in.

They race against each other to be the first to track down

any long-lost relatives entitled to inherit.

Fraser & Fraser is one of the oldest firms of heir hunters in Britain.

Nicki is the half-sister.

In its 30-year history, the company has tracked down

over 50,000 heirs, entitled to a whopping sum of over £100 million.

It's 7am on Thursday, in Fraser & Fraser's central London office.

The government's weekly list of those who've died with no known heirs

has just been published, and boss Charles Fraser has picked one out that looks of interest.

We are following the case of Ronald W Bestwick, who died relatively

recently, leaving an estate of about £165,000, so we believe.

So far, all the team know about Ronald Bestwick

is when and where he died and the approximate size of his estate.

Frasers' challenge is to track down all his living relatives

to see who's entitled to a share of his money.

To have any chance of finding the heirs, the team will have to flesh out a family tree,

working out generation by generation, how the family fits together.

Overseeing today's hunt is senior case manager Tony Pledger.

Tony's one of Frasers' most experienced heir hunters, but he's not known for his sunny disposition.

Right.

Have a bad day. Bye.

And the Bestwick case hasn't cheered him up...

although Charles tries.

We had a case without the T in August.

-Well, it's different then, isn't it?

-It's different.

-Right.

It's like having a case called Brown without a B.

Seems like Tony's staying grumpy...

but that's not going to get in the way of his work.

He gets his researchers to look up the electoral roll...

Ronald William Bestwick. 165,000.

..often the first place an heir hunter will go to for clues.

Within minutes they've found Ronald Bestwick's address.

A bungalow in Heanor, Derbyshire.

And they soon discover that his mother lived here with Ronald until she died.

Finding her maiden name is crucial for building the family tree

and with their vast library of records,

it doesn't take them long to get their next breakthrough...

but there's a problem.

Brown is an exceptionally common name.

I would have thought probably about fifth or sixth ranked of the most common names

we have in England and Wales.

With over 2.5 million Browns in the UK phone book, there are hundreds of records

for the team to sift through. This could take hours -

hours they don't have if they want to get to the heirs ahead of rival companies.

As a short cut, Tony calls one of Ronald's neighbours.

If she knew him, she could speed things up by providing him with crucial information.

Um...did his parents live with him, at all?

Was he married, do you have any idea?

Lived alone.

So, would you assume he was a bachelor?

Right.

Definitely a bachelor, born and bred.

Ronald Bestwick, shown here as a 14-year-old schoolboy,

lived next door to neighbour Sue Horton.

He was a really nice likeable chappie.

He was very much a loner.

We never saw any visitors.

Even the people round here that live on their own

do have the occasional visitor.

We never saw anyone at Ron's...

..and we certainly didn't know of any relatives at all.

I feel sad that he never got any joy out of his money.

That makes me sad.

In the office, the team have hit a brick wall.

The phone call to another neighbour hasn't given them any more information.

They didn't know about his mother,

who was of the same address when she died in 1990.

So, obviously, they didn't know him that well.

But the fact he's definitely a bachelor saves us a marriage search, I suppose.

So with a wife ruled out, the team need to widen their search for Ronald's relatives.

To get any further, they need Ronald's birth certificate and his parents' marriage certificate.

Things are getting a little bit more difficult because you've now got to really get the certificates

before you can be sure that you're on the right family.

Both of these vital certificates are held 130 miles away in Derby Register Office.

But fortunately for the heir hunters, distance is no problem.

Frasers' employs a team of travelling heir hunters who spend their Thursdays poised for action...

..ready to go wherever the hunt takes them.

These travellers cover every corner of the country and aim to get to any heirs in record time

and sign them up before the competition.

The nearest heir hunter to Derby is Birmingham-based Paul Matthews, whose office is his car.

PHONE RINGS

Tony puts in a call.

-'Hello.'

-Hello, Paul.

The mother, Evelyn Bestwick, she dies in Feb '90.

OK.

OK. So what we really need is the marriage of the parents out of Derby

-and the birth of deceased out of the auction.

-OK. Cheers, Tone.

-Speak to you later. Bye.

As Paul sets off for Derby on the hunt for the precious certificates,

he's all too aware that time is of the essence.

Frasers' are not the only heir hunters who will be chasing the Bestwick case.

I would expect to have competition on this case

from probably three to four companies.

So you have to be on your game,

otherwise you get there second and you're not going to get the business.

If you don't get the business then that's when you get problems.

But for heir hunter boss Neil Fraser, competition is what he thrives on.

This is one of the joys of the game.

Not everything pans out. Not everything's easy.

If we were able to go on to the internet and download a family tree, partly we wouldn't need all these

people behind me, but secondly, anyone else could do it and there would be no joy in doing it at all.

There would be no thrill of the chase.

But if Neil knew what was going on out on the road,

he might not be too thrilled at the way this chase is going.

-In his makeshift office, Paul's experiencing a technical hitch.

-Abrahart.

He's meant to be heading for Derby City Centre,

but his satellite navigation system seems to be having other ideas...

Uh-oh.

..and has led him into a supermarket car park.

A ship at sea without a rudder and I'm a car without a rudder.

This GPS.

Of course, Tony's in no mood for waiting around.

He knows that time is money and if they don't get to the heirs first, Frasers' will lose out.

Nothing, as far as I'm concerned, is still happening of any use.

Until you get some certificates, it's very difficult to know really where you're going.

GPS: 'Take the next left turn and then take the fourth exit off the next roundabout.'

That's quite interesting. GPS strikes again.

Is there anything you want done? I can't think of anything.

What we need is somebody to get somewhere and get something.

'Tony...?'

Hello. How you doing?

-I'm all right. I'm still going to Derby, but am I?

-Yeah. Where is that?

Why is it taking you so long?

That postcode in the book,

-it doesn't recognise it. I've had to put it in manually somehow.

-What postcode in what book for what?

Well, our little book to get me to the Registry Office,

but the postcode's right but it's not in the GPS.

-I thought you'd been there before.

-I've been a lot of places before, Tone.

I don't know what the postcode is,

cos I don't work on the postcode for the Registry Office.

No, so hopefully, if this is right, I should be there in five minutes.

-End up in Derby Registry Office and then give us a bell.

-OK, then. Cheers, Tone. Bye.

Jesus Christ.

It's time for a mid-morning pick-me-up.

We're getting desperate.

The team have reached a dead end.

Until they get more information, they can't move on with their search.

Tony has been doing this sort of work for the best part of 30 years.

I've been doing this for ten years which makes me seem a bit of an amateur, really,

but we've put all of our ideas together and no-one's come up with anything,

apart from to wait for the marriage certificate, so that's what we're doing.

Here at last. Wish me luck.

At last, three hours into the search, Paul finally gets Ronald Bestwick's birth certificate.

Will this give Frasers' the information they need to track down

the heirs to his £165,000 estate?

Go on, what you got?

It's not just companies like Fraser & Fraser who can track down missing heirs.

You, too, might be able to help with the detective work,

if you have any information about any of these unsolved cases.

David John Hugh Roberts died in Kingston upon Thames,

Surrey, in August 2005.

David was 74 when he passed away and left an estate

worth a massive £2 million.

Are you related to David Roberts?

Could you be entitled to his fortune?

William Mason died in his 70s in Middlesborough, in April 2006.

William left £19,000, which is currently in government coffers.

Are you part of William's family?

Should you be the one to get his cash?

Edgars Martins Sprogis died in Tooting, London,

at the ripe old age of 100.

Edgars died in December 2006, leaving an estate worth £450,000.

Do you know Edgars?

Is his money rightfully yours?

If you think you're related to any of these people,

and entitled to inherit their money,

then please go to our website for information about what to do next.

At Fraser & Fraser, the Heir Hunters are trying to track down

relatives of Ronald Bestwick,

who died leaving an estate worth around £165,000.

But the race to get ahead of the competition has been thwarted

by a technical hitch.

SATNAV: 'Take the fourth exit off the next roundabout.'

That's quite interesting. GPS strikes again.

And to make matters worse, Ronald's mother's maiden name is far from unique.

Probably about fifth or sixth ranked

of the most common names we have in England and Wales.

But finally...

Here at last. Wish me luck.

Three hours into the search, heir hunter Paul Matthews has got his hands on Ronald's birth certificate.

Could this be the breakthrough they've been waiting for?

-Hello. You're the secretary, are you?

-No, I'm the monkey.

-You're the organ grinder. Go on, what you got?

-Right.

This is Ronald William Bestwick.

Born 16th October 1939.

Dad is William Bestwick.

The mum is Evelyn Bestwick, formerly Brown.

So Paul's now confirmed the names of Ronald's parents.

Evelyn Brown and William Bestwick.

Finding Ronald's mother's birth certificate

-could prove even more useful.

-Father's William Brown.

Mother's Rebecca Brown, formerly Fowkes.

Ronald's mother's birth certificate is a godsend.

It gives the team the names of Ronald's maternal grandparents,

meaning they can work down the tree and identify any uncles,

aunts and cousins on the mother's side.

Paul knows Frasers' needs to get a move on as Heir Hunters

from other companies are also trying to track down Ronald's relatives.

Yeah, we know that there's another company doing this particular case,

because he actually showed up at the Register Office.

I've met the gentleman before.

But this day and age, most of the estate should know anyway

that other companies will be looking at it.

First one there wins the prize, normally.

With their rivals hot on their heels,

the Frasers' team sift through reels of birth records to find

the names of any children who had a father with the surname Brown

and a mother with the maiden name Fowkes.

They find ten children who fit the profile.

One is Evelyn Brown...

but who are the others?

It's either a very prolific family or,

there's again, more than one Mr Brown marrying a Miss Fowkes.

Because Brown's a very common name and I rather think somehow that Fowkes is going to be

fairly common up there, as well, you obviously get lots of possibilities.

Neil double checks to find out if there is more than one Brown to Fowkes' marriage in that period.

The news is bad.

There's three. And that one's...

We've just actually found out there are three marriages of Fowkes

to Brown, so of all the births we've got,

none of them could be right, or all of them could be right.

It's a bit hit and miss, at the moment. There's absolutely no way of identifying without

speaking to someone and then we may find out they're totally wrong.

The Frasers' team need another clue to move the search forward.

And they might just have one.

One of the ten Brown and Fowkes children has an unusual name.

How do you pronounce that name?

-I think it's Jubal.

-Jubal.

Right. So, the name we have is Jubal.

J-U-B-A-L.

If Jubal is the son of the right Miss Fowkes and Mr Brown, he'll be an uncle of Ronald Bestwick.

With time ticking away and no other leads, the team decide to concentrate on the name Jubal Brown.

They work out that Jubal Brown died in 1992, but that he had a son, also called Jubal.

And finally, luck is on their side.

They find this Jubal's number in the Derby phone book.

Could this be Ronald's cousin,

and Frasers' first heir?

But their luck doesn't last long.

Might be a cousin of the deceased. He might not be.

Either way, we're not going to know, cos he's not going to answer the phone.

Is he a member of the family, or are we dealing with pure coincidence of name?

Untill we speak to him, we can't tell.

And unfortunately, I've heard that although the person's on the phone, there's no answer there.

If he has gone out, I hope he hasn't gone out for too long, really.

CONTINUOUS RINGING TONE

Coming up, Tony's using unusual tactics to pin down his heir.

Well, yes, if you can stop him driving off, then I could call you back in a second.

And an elderly aunt reveals some errors in Frasers' research.

I think we may have to redraw the tree.

A knock on the door from an Heir Hunter is always a life-changing experience.

But often, inheriting money from a long lost relative can be just the beginning.

In the last series of Heir Hunters, sister and brother Susan Hallett

and Arnold Penny inherited thousands of pounds from their cousin Jeffrey.

We can't give you an exact figure on how much the estate is worth.

I'm led to believe that it's round about £150,000. OK?

But the money faded into insignificance when they discovered

a family link to one of the most shocking events of the 20th century.

Jeffrey Penny died alone and without a will.

If Frasers' hadn't tracked down Susan, Arnold and two other heirs,

Jeffrey's money would have gone to the government.

I think his whole estate was worth just over £200,000,

but by the time you've lost all the fees and everything, the four of us

inherited about £30,000, just over £30,000 each.

Jeffrey Penny lived with his parents his whole life, and made his living as a printer.

One day, the News of the World, the next day,

the Chronicle, or the Daily Mail, or whatever it is now, and the Telegraph and various other papers, the Times.

I think he went round them all.

I understand that all the money came in cash and in plastic bags under the bed, you know.

He never spent very much.

Finding out about Jeffrey's death

refuelled Arnold's interest in tracing his family's roots.

I tentatively started to look at family history before Jeffrey,

but not with any great enthusiasm.

Arnold suddenly got the bug

to do the genealogy of the family.

Why he got further with the Penny side

is because he found that the easiest.

The people came out of the woodwork easier than the other side

and yes, he found some very interesting things.

It's like you found a pot of gold,

-you know. Look, I've made it.

-Arnold's research led him

to a Baron William Penny, who'd played an important role in World War Two.

He found that we've got a relation that...

was the inventor of the atom bomb.

The atom bomb was created during the Second World War.

Expert Professor Brian Cathcart has researched William Penny's involvement.

Penny had two functions in relation to the actual bombings of Japan.

One was that he helped to calculate

the height at which the bomb should be detonated, and indeed helped...

He sat on the committee which chose which cities would be bombed.

ANNOUNCER: 'Now the take-off. Bound for Nagasaki. Terrifying bomb!

'From a great altitude we see the atomic explosion.'

But he also saw the bomb dropped on Nagasaki, watched from

the window of a following plane and the explosive plume,

the smoke, the dust, rising into the sky.

Penny was shocked by the scale of destruction,

even as it were, the expert was shocked and he was very soon on the ground.

Japan surrendered. He was one of the first groups of people

into the country to look at the damage on the ground.

Made a lifelong impression on him.

'The phantasmal swirl of atomic energy soars upward in a column capped by a mushroom shape...'

Arnold and Susan have mixed feelings about their relative's achievements.

Why did they have to drop it on a town?

But I mean, they really didn't know, the people below, what was going to happen, did they?

I wonder, you know,

what made him think,

even having an idea in inventing something that would destroy...?

But then, presumably, he was part of a team.

Was it the war that made him do things like that?

Penny was very concerned, himself, about his legacy.

There's a story told about his years

soon after the first British bomb,

in which he was travelling with a friend in a car

and they got to talking about how they would be remembered,

another important friend, and Penny said, you know,

I think I'll be remembered

as the man who made atomic bombs, and it's not what I ever wanted.

For his services to Britain, William Penny was awarded a life peerage.

If I had known it in the '50s,

I would have been really proud of him because, you know,

that was the sort of trend in those days. It was the Cold War,

and people wanted to see this sort of thing and security,

but I think now, atom bombs are

a bit bad news really,

aren't they?

Today, Arnold and Susan want to say farewell to a Penny who has more immediately touched their lives.

Well, it's a pity about this weather, though.

It would have been nice to have paid our respects to him in nice weather, wouldn't it?

Arnold and Susan last saw their cousin 14 years ago, but his death has changed their lives.

Not only have they inherited £60,000,

but they have also found out more about their own family history.

-Well, Jeffrey...

-Jeffrey, we're sorry it's such a sad, rainy day,

and we cannot get closer to the spot where you are...

but we hope that this will compensate you and wish you a happier life than you had...

-wherever you are.

-Hope you're happy wherever you are, that's right. God bless you.

Well, I hope he can see us now wherever he is.

He knows he's not forgotten.

Every day there are dozens of people who die, like Jeffrey Penny,

without leaving a will.

It could be that you're entitled to an unclaimed estate, or could

help crack a case that the Heir Hunters haven't been able to solve.

Francis Ryan died in Coventry on Boxing Day 2006,

leaving £55,000. Are you related to Francis?

Do you know of anyone who is?

Frank Reeve died in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, in February 2007.

Frank was 86 years old and left £40,000.

Are you part of Frank's family?

Should you be the one to get his money?

John Leslie Law died in Kingsley, Northamptonshire, in February 2007.

John was 87 and died leaving £23,000 and no will.

Are you a relative of John Law?

Do you know someone that is?

If you think you might be entitled to any of these unclaimed estates

and can prove it, take a look at our website.

At Fraser & Fraser, the Heir Hunters are investigating

the case of Ronald Bestwick, who died leaving around £165,000.

After a frustrating start...

What we need is somebody to get somewhere and get something.

..there's been an important breakthrough,

and senior case manager Tony Pledger thinks he's got the phone number to his first heir...

-a cousin.

-RINGING TONE

But he's not having any luck getting through.

He might be a cousin of the deceased. He might not be.

Either way, we aren't going to know, cos he's not going to answer the phone, is he?

The team are getting desperate.

If he has gone out, I hope he hasn't gone out for too long, really.

It's important they contact Jubal as soon as possible.

If he's not going to answer the phone, they need to try other people who live on the street.

-Can you raise the neighbours of this bloke?

-In the hunt

for Jubal, the team start calling every single house on the street.

Let's try 16.

The right side of the road.

-Let's see if they've heard of him at number 12. We've rung eight, ten and 12.

-But will anyone answer?

Somebody's got to. They can't all be out.

At last, Tony strikes lucky.

Hello. Sorry to trouble you there.

I don't know if you know number ten, at all.

I assume it's on the other side of the road.

Yeah. Hopefully, it's a Mr Brown. Is he?

From her window, Jubal's neighbour can see him getting into his car.

Tony needs her to stop him.

Could you just sort of cover him and I'll call you back in a minute?

Well, yes, if you could stop him driving off then I can call you back in a second.

All right. Thank you. Right. Thank you.

If Jubal comes to the phone, this speculative call could be the one to solve this call.

Hello, Mr Brown. Hello, Mr Brown. Sorry to trouble you.

I was ringing you a few minutes ago and I couldn't get any reply.

Four hours into the search, and Tony's got a potential heir on the phone...

but he needs to be certain that Jubal is related to Ronald Bestwick,

so he quizzes him about the family, but doesn't reveal who has died.

We've been researching the family out of Brown and we're trying to contact

the children of a William Brown and a Rebecca Fowkes.

F-O-W-K-E-S.

Right. OK. That's what I was hoping.

Now, we know that he had several children and one of whom, I think, was your dad, born in 1912.

And I think there was also a sister,

your father would have had a sister Evelyn who was born in 1907.

Did Evelyn have any children, do you know?

Jubal names his cousin Ronald, convincing Tony they found their first heir.

The decision to research his unusual name has paid off.

From what you told me about your Aunt Evelyn, OK, I'm pretty sure that we have got the right family because

the Evelyn that we have did have a child Ron, OK, but what I was hoping was that

one of our researchers, it would be a Mr Paul Matthews,

-could perhaps call and visit you later on today...

-They may have found their man, but

until he signs on the dotted line, any other company could get to him.

If they want their commission, travelling Heir Hunter Paul needs to move fast.

With a meeting set up, Tony uses the opportunity

of having Jubal on the phone to find out if there are any other heirs.

Well, the problem that we have is that we've got to establish

your father's brothers and sisters and then what became of them as well.

Well, I don't mind, sketchy's better than nothing at all.

Can you remember any of the names?

Jubal's not only convinced Tony that he's a cousin of Ronald Bestwick,

but he's also provided the team with another clue. The name and surname of an aunt Beulah Strange.

That's lovely.

Thanks ever so much. Bye.

Rang the next-door neighbour. He's just about to get in his car.

She's gone out, given him the phone.

He's got an Auntie Evelyn and a cousin Ronald, so I think he's right.

Feels like I now need a cup of tea.

So while Tony celebrates, Paul makes his way to Jubal's home, 30 miles away.

Jubal lost touch with his cousin Ronald over 50 years ago, yet

by a strange twist of fate, looks set to inherit a share of his riches.

People don't keep in touch with their cousins

and that's where the large majority of these estates end up going.

A lot of the time, you don't know the person exists,

but haven't seen them for 30, 40, 50, 60 years.

They don't regard cousins as family cos they never see them.

That's why they don't end up making wills.

With no time to waste, Tony is straight on the trail of his next heir.

He's talking to Jubal's aunt, Beulah.

I've recently been speaking to your nephew, the son of your brother Jubal.

Yeah.

That's all right. Don't worry. So, basically, what we're saying is that one, two, three, four...

there were six children in the family. You were one of six.

Yeah. Yeah. That's right. OK.

Aunt Beulah is a brilliant find.

She's the only remaining child of the right Rebecca Fowkes and William Brown.

The names she gives identify all of the aunts and uncles on Ronald Bestwick's mother's side.

It means they're getting closer and closer

to finding all of Ronald Bestwick's surviving relatives, narrowing down

the heirs to his £165,000 estate.

Thank you ever so much, indeed.

Thank you. Bye.

She's, in theory, filled us in on that side of the family which means

that if what she said is right, all this other stuff was all wrong.

The breakthrough was picking up the birth of the mother of the deceased, which we did three hours ago.

This is the second breakthrough.

PHONE DIALS

They always ring me up quite regular

on jobs day, about every 30 seconds.

-Hello.

-Hello. Are you talking to Mr Brown?

-No, no, I'm still on the way.

-Oh, good, cos when you get there, tell him that I've spoken with his Auntie Beulah. Right.

-Yeah.

She's still alive and well, aged 91.

-Yeah.

-But she's run through the top line with me.

-OK.

-If you want to prompt him, there's a Mary and a Winifred.

Hang on, I can't write it down at the moment.

Well, listen, you'll remember this. Mary, Winifred and Doris.

That's the only other three. All right. Mary, Winifred, Doris.

Evelyn the mother and Jubal the father.

So it's Mary, Winifred and Doris.

-Yeah.

-And Beulah's still alive.

-Yeah.

Ta da. Talk to you later. Bye.

Something else to remember.

It's 1pm and Paul's now been on the road for six hours.

SATNAV: 'You have arrived at your destination.'

But he's finally got to where he wanted to be...

with the first of Ronald Bestwick's heirs.

Yep. Paul Matthews from Fraser & Fraser.

I believe I am expected.

Right. I've got a quick interview to do, ask you a few questions, explain a bit more.

-Yes.

-Is it OK to...?

-Unfortunately I can't get in at the moment. I have a house full of people.

-Oh, right.

Could do it in the car, it would help. It would certainly help me.

Yeah, if it suits you. Yeah, why not. Yeah.

That's a first for me there. No problem.

Unless he can get Jubal to sign their contract, all these hours of work will have been for nothing.

This is unusual. Right.

OK. Right.

It was Jubal's name that enabled the Frasers' team to crack this case.

An unusual name, Jubal. Where's that originated from?

It's a very old biblical name.

-Oh, right.

-Fourth chapter of Genesis, verse 21.

Oh, right.

It's not long after Cain and Abel.

The verse goes something like...

"And his brother's name was Jubal,

-"handler of the harp and the organ."

-Oh, right.

Basically, that's what it says.

It's an old family name that my father did tell me once had been in the family for 400 years.

Oh, well, that's why, they've got to keep that in the family, haven't they?

Paul then explains how Frasers' work.

What I'll do, as I've explained...

you've talked to the office already...

a distant relative of yours has passed away.

They haven't made a will.

Under those circumstances, that estate would normally

end up going to the government and the way we run the business is if we put forward your claim we get

a commission at the end, so basically, if you receive something,

we get a slice of your cake at the end.

Paul goes through the family tree with Jubal to find out which of the aunts and uncles he remembers.

He needs to do this to double check that Jubal is part of the right

family and is therefore entitled to inherit some of Ronald's estate.

Forgotten until he mentioned it...

Beulah, Aunt Beulah.

Yes. One of my dad's sisters.

Beulah's still alive.

Did you know that?

I would have thought so, but I wouldn't have been sure,

cos again, with the family being so disjointed...

She's about 90 now, I think.

-She must be.

-She's doing very well.

-She must be.

The family may have lost touch a long time ago, but Jubal reveals

-that he still remembers Ronald's mother.

-I know I've got

an Auntie Evelyn.

Did Evelyn have children?

As far as I know, there was one son.

And what was his name?

Ronald. He lived with my Aunt Evelyn. He lived with his mother.

So we've got Evelyn. We know she married. We don't know who to.

Know she had a son, Ronald.

Paul's careful not to let slip that Ronald has died.

That's company policy until all the heirs have been found and the family tree is complete.

Have you heard of a Winifred?

No.

You've not heard of the name?

No. Yes. I can now.

What do you know about her, when she was born, married?

-No. Crikey.

-It's taking you back a bit, isn't it?

It is.

Seems to pull...

people I've only met either once or twice, or only heard of distantly.

Unexpectedly, Jubal gives Paul a piece of information that could prove priceless.

She married a man called Abrahart.

-I think the man she married, his name was Charles.

-Charles.

Abrahart is not a common surname and can therefore be researched easily.

But it doesn't stop there.

I know they had two boys.

Alan and Keith.

Jubal has just given the team the names of two further heirs.

Yeah. I know. It's very difficult taking you back.

Jubal's information is crucial for Frasers'.

All that's left now is for him to sign the contract.

The company will now help him put in a claim for his share of Ronald Bestwick's estate.

Nice meeting you. I'll leave you to get back to your friends. Very nice.

Hope you get a nice sum of money.

Nice to get a call like this, isn't it?

It is. Very nice.

Yeah. It's unusual. A bit of a surprise.

Although one heir's been signed up,

there's no rest for the Heir Hunters.

They set to work on the new leads Jubal gave them.

Hello, lads.

Hi.

Winifred was meant to marry a Charles Abrahart.

-Right.

-A-B-R-A-H-A-R-T.

And has two children.

Within minutes, the researcher's tracked down an address for Keith Abrahart.

Look. It's this proximity in Sinfin.

-Only round the corner from old Jubal.

-They've discovered another twist to this case.

All of Ronald's living relatives live within 20 minutes of where

he died, yet none were in touch with Ronald at the end of his life.

It's something that saddens heir-hunting supremo Neil Fraser.

It always... Makes you think twice that some people have been separated

away from their family, so it always makes you think back, why did he pass away alone?

Is there something which someone could have done at some time to mean he died with company?

Over in Derby, Paul's been sent to visit Keith Abrahart,

but this visit isn't going to be quite so straightforward.

Keith's ex-directory so the office haven't been able to contact him to pave Paul's way.

It's a cold call.

So we're going to persuade him that we are above board

and that we're not here doing some sort of elaborate hoax.

-Keith's wife answers the door.

-Hello. Sorry to bother you.

-Is Mr Abrahart at home, please?

-He is.

-Some money basically, from a distant relative.

No, it's worth it.

Is he in at the moment?

-Yeah.

-Hello. You must be Keith.

-Hello.

-Pleased to meet you. Paul Matthews, from Fraser and Fraser.

-All out the blue.

-It is out the blue, yeah.

I'll explain what it is I'm doing, why I'm here.

But basically, we're dealing with a new estate.

Somebody who's passed away without making a will,

but what I need to do first is ask you a few questions about yourself

-to make sure we've got the right person.

-Paul starts by asking about Ronald's mother, Evelyn.

She married a chap named Bestwick.

-Did they have children?

-Yeah. A son, Ronald.

So, you've got Evelyn, married to Bestwick.

Keith's recollections convinced Paul that he is a genuine relative of Ronald Bestwick and a definite heir.

Paul now needs to find out more about Keith's brother Alan.

OK. You say Alan passed away.

-When did he die?

-1966.

-On the 13th of November.

-Yeah. 1966.

So he was only 37.

What happened to him?

One Sunday morning he collapsed and died, in the garden.

Did Alan have any children?

-Yes. Geofrey.

-Just the one, is it?

Yeah.

Geofrey and his uncle Keith will both inherit around £15,000.

With the interrogation over, Paul remembers the good news that Tony asked him to pass on.

Did you know that Beulah's still alive?

-She is?

-She's still alive, yeah.

-Is she really?

Yeah. Yeah. She's still alive,

-in her 90s.

-Crikey.

-I think we've written to her...

she's got a son called John.

Keith signs the contract, making Paul a happy man.

Always good to get the signature, especially in front of competition,

-so we've got here first, again.

-There will be months of legal work

before the heirs can receive their share of the £165,000.

But for Keith and his wife, it will be worth the wait.

It's going to open some doors for us. When you retire,

you have to think...

are you going to manage your money, and it would be nice to go without worrying about the cost of it.

And, of course,

Neil's pleased with the day's events.

We've found seven heirs.

They're all maternal heirs.

There's two cousins once removed, so they're a generation below what the deceased would have been.

We'll sign a couple of beneficiaries.

We've had a good day, yes.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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