Higgins Heir Hunters

Heir hunters track down families of people who've died without leaving a will.

They hand over thousands 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 show - the heir hunters' confidence is shaken with one of their hardest cases yet.

It's like a flea biting away at the back of your neck all the time.

And a woman discovers an astonishing truth about her father's past.

My parents never told us he'd been married before. I didn't know.

Plus, a list of unclaimed estates worth nearly £300,000.

Could you be entitled and have thousands of pounds coming your way?

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

Nicki's the half sister.

In its 33-year history, the company has tracked down over 50,000 heirs

entitled to a wapping sum of over £100 million.

It's 7.00am Thursday in Fraser and Fraser's central London office.

It's a crucial time for the heir hunters as the Government has

released the weekly list of those who've died with no known heirs.

Running the operation today is case manager Marcus Herbert,

assisted by another case manager, Simon Grosvenor.

Marcus has looked down the Government's list and chosen a case to investigate.

This is a case of Barbara Joyce Higgins, who died in Exeter in 2007, December.

At the start of the case, everything about Barbara Higgins is a mystery, including the value of her estate.

To start the ball rolling, Marcus looks on the electoral roll and finds out Barbara Higgins' last address.

From this, he finds a phone number for a neighbour. It's old-fashioned detective work.

Maybe this person knew Barbara Higgins and can give Marcus his first clue about her life.

It may be 7.30 in the morning, but when Marcus

has the bit between his teeth, there's no time like the present.

I'm so sorry to catch you this time in the morning.

Well, no... What it is, I start at half seven.

We actually start at seven, or just before.

It's a stroke of luck for Marcus. He's managed to get hold of the only neighbour who knew

Barbara Higgins well and she gives Marcus his first facts of the day.

For us, we come across this sort of thing all the time really.

You never know why somebody has decided to live their life as they do.

Barbara Higgins spent her final years at this caravan site in Exeter.

She was an only child and married Wilfred Higgins, a prop master at Borehamwood Studios.

The couple had no children and were married for 25 years, until Wilfred's death in 1990.

Barbara spent the last 18 years of her life as a widow.

But thank you ever so much for your time.

Thank you. Bye-bye.

-She's 86.

-86. All right.

Finding out Barbara Higgins' age is a real breakthrough for the team.

Simon will now be able to use this to help him find her birth record,

and it's not the only piece of tantalising news that the neighbour has given Marcus.

Stock and shares and money in the bank.

Possibly worth between 50 to 100,000.

We're going to fling ourselves with wild abandon at it cos it's worth doing.

In order to find any heirs, the team will have to find Barbara Higgins' living blood relatives.

To do this, they will have to

flesh out her family tree,

working out, generation by generation, who's in line to inherit.

There will be other heir hunting companies working on this

so Frasers need to get a move on if they want to be first to crack it.

But by knowing Barbara Higgins' age, the team may be one step ahead of the competition.

Using this, along with the maiden name on the Government website,

Simon searches Fraser and Fraser's vast database of birth records.

For a Barbara Draper, born in 1921.

But there's a problem.

We were told that she was about 86 when she died.

So, ought to have been born in about 1921.

We had a quick look, there are no births in 1921.

There is a birth in 1920 in Ormskirk, which is not London, obviously.

There is, however, one in Hemel Hampstead, in 1928,

which would make her younger than everyone thought she was.

Then Hemel Hempstead is quite near Borehamwood.

It's a toss-up between the wrong year in the right part

of the country and the right year in the wrong part of the country.

Her husband worked at Borehamwood film studios.

The team have a hunch it's more likely to be Hemel Hempstead.

But hunches aren't good enough in this business, especially with the competition hot on your heels.

Simon looks up marriage records to see if he can find another clue, and he's in luck.

She got married in Barnet as Barbara J B Draper,

which tied up with the birth of Barbara J B in Ormskirk.

So the team were right to dig deeper.

Their hunch was actually wrong.

Because they can identify the right birth record for Barbara,

the team now know she is the child of an Alice Forbes and Henry O Draper.

The name Henry O is easy for Simon to trace.

Between 1865 and 1920, there are only two births for Henry O,

and the other one died aged 32, so it's not that one.

From their records, the team work out Henry Draper married Barbara's

mother, Alice Forbes, in 1916, when he was 35-years-old.

This would have been quite a late marriage for that era,

so Marcus asks Simon to check to see if Henry had married before.

Henry O appears to get married for the first time

in September, 1910, in Ormskirk.

To Sarah J Wilde.

Marcus was right, Henry had been married before, to a Sarah Wilde in 1910.

Sarah died a year later.

Now the real problem for the team is that

it's going to be nearly impossible for them to work out whether Sarah and Henry had any children.

That's because the birth records from this era don't give enough information.

Could well be that soon after the marriage, there was a birth, or it could well

be that she died in childbirth.

Did the kid survive?

If there were any children from Henry's first marriage,

as half siblings, they would be entitled to all of Barbara Higgins' estate.

The team will have to speak to a family member to find out more.

But in the meantime they take a punt.

It's a risky one but they have no other option.

They assume Barbara Higgins has no half siblings, and they continue to search for more distant relations.

Simon looks up the name Henry Oliver in the national population survey taken in 1891.

And he strikes gold.

Father, Henry.

Had one, two, three, four, had five siblings.

The tree now shows that Barbara Higgins' father, Henry,

had five brothers and sisters Albert, Dinah, Ada, Maud and Ethel.

These siblings would be Barbara Higgins' aunts and uncles.

But as all of them were born before 1900, they're not likely to be alive.

If the team can find their descendants, they'll be the heirs.

So Barbara's paternal side of the family tree is becoming clear.

But Barbara's mother side is still a mystery.

It was lucky that the father is Henry O - it meant

we could find him on the census and identify his birth.

The other side, Forbes, the mother's Alice, don't know her age,

don't know when she's born, she doesn't appear to be born in Ormskirk.

Can't do much with that until we can get her age and her father's name.

To get more information about Alice Forbes, the team need to get

her marriage certificate and her daughter's birth certificate,

both of which will be held at the nearest register office to Ormskirk,

220 miles away from the Frasers' office.

But as well as its research team, Fraser and Fraser employs a squadron of travelling heir hunters...

Thanks a lot, mate.

..who spend their Thursdays at the wheel of their cars ready to go wherever the search takes them.

Their job is to follow up new leads and sniff out fresh clues.

It's highly competitive, as they need to get to any heirs and make a deal before their rivals.

Marcus calls up Manchester-based Dave Mansell and asks him to find certificates on the Higgins case.

OK, so that birth to start with.

-I'll head off for the if you want.

-OK, mate, yeah, it'd be nice to.

Whilst Dave embarks on his paper trail, Marcus and Simon set to work

trying to find any living relatives from Barbara Higgins' father's side.

They start by investigating Henry's brother, Albert

and work out that he had two children.

He had a daughter, Phyllis, and a son, Kenneth.

She was born in 1912, he was born in 1913 - they're almost certainly dead now.

Phyllis and Kenneth may be dead, but Marcus is hoping they'll have

children who, if alive, will be the team's first heirs.

It looks like the electoral roll has come up trumps.

-The team are closing in.

-Brilliant. We checked the old address that Kenneth Draper,

the first cousin, deceased, was there when he died in 1986.

And you've got there the name of a wife and a son, by the looks of it.

-Stephen Draper.

-Stephen Draper is the son of Kenneth.

And therefore, Barbara Higgins' first cousin once removed.

And the team's first heir.

Feeling quite enthusiastic now!

Things might be going well in the office,

but they're not going so well for Dave Mansell out on the road.

It shows up there, look,

-on the site.

-Oh yes.

-And yet, Preston, Liverpool, Southport and Wigan, can't find it.

-Can't find it!

Right, neither certificate is here.

They've done some ringing round and the birth certificate is held at the Southport Registry Office.

But the marriage, just can't find it anywhere.

Without Barbara Higgins' birth certificate, or her parents' marriage certificate,

the team can get no further with their research on the maternal side of Barbara's family tree.

Dave informs the office of his bad news.

-Neither are here.

-Oh.

And whilst he waits for his next instruction, he uses his spare time wisely.

-Do you know where there is a cafe? Do you know where there is a cafe?

-Er...

As Dave enjoys his cuppa, in the office, Marcus's good mood is fading fast.

He's found a current phone number for Stephen, but it's bringing him no joy.

No answer. He was born in 1955, he's at work, isn't he?

Even if they do find a family member to speak to,

Marcus has now got a nagging doubt in the back of his mind.

What if Henry's father did have another child?

The other problem that we've got is the fact

that the father, the deceased, was married before he married the mother.

So it's entirely possible that there

were issue off of that.

So everything that we were doing this morning would come to nothing if that were the case.

Though the day started on a roll, the research has now reached a standstill.

Coming up - the heir hunters track down a possible heir, but will she be the person they're looking for?

Was your mother the daughter of George Robert Brown and Dinah Draper?

And who is the mysterious man entitled to the fortune of a GI bride?

And he actually gets 33% of the total estate.

And I've absolutely no idea who he is.

There are cases that the professional heir hunters find impossible to solve and

sometimes it takes a member of the public to provide a crucial clue.

Chung Chim So died in Hackney, London, in 2004.

Chung was 77 years old and left an estate worth £75,000.

Are you related to Chung?

Do you know someone who is?

Elizabeth Stickley died in Hampshire in 2004 at the good old age of 96.

Elizabeth left no will and her £37,000 was taken by the Treasury.

Are you part of her family?

Could you claim back her cash?

Reginald Stroud died in Woolwich, London, aged 84, leaving an estate worth £30,000.

Did you know Reginald? Are you entitled to his money?

If you have any information that could solve these cases,

then take a look at our website:

In central London, the team of following the case of Barbara Higgins, who died in Exeter,

leaving an estate worth an estimated £75,000.

After failing to get hold of one heir...

My attempts to speak to any heirs on his case this morning are pretty dismal, really.

..the team have gone back to the drawing board and have started searching for fresh leads.

Using their birth records, they work out that Henry's sister, Dinah, had a daughter called Freda Brown,

who would be Barbara Higgins' first cousin.

Simon looks up Freda Brown in the electoral roll, but can't find her.

He then checks the marriage records and could be in luck.

I've got a marriage on Freda.

To a Harold C Birch.

1942 in Southport.

And I found Freda and Harold living in Norfolk.

They're there until 2005 and then they disappear.

Neither of them appear to have died. I think they've gone into a home.

With the possibility of 88-year-old Freda being in a home, but no idea where that might be,

Marcus looks to see if Freda and Harold had any children.

And the news is good. He finds a birth record for her daughter, Nadine.

And her phone number.

Hello, is that Miss Birch?

Hello, Miss Birch. I'm so sorry to trouble you.

I'm ringing from a company in London called Fraser and Fraser.

We're probate researchers. Was your mother the daughter of George Robert Brown and Dinah Draper?

She was? Great. OK, well it concerns your grandmother's family.

Now Marcus knows for sure he's got a family member on the phone, he's

hoping he can get contact details and information about other heirs.

Has your mother kept in contact over the years with any of her cousins at all?

Or their children, perhaps?

Nadine remembers her great aunt Ada, who married a Thomas Parkinson.

They had a son, Arthur, who is now dead.

But he had a son, Peter, who is alive.

And therefore, a potential heir.

Nadine then tells Marcus about her Aunty Dorothea, her mother's sister,

who had three daughters, Brenda, Sheila, and Celia.

Have you got addresses for them?

I'm only thinking, I've got a colleague of mine in Southport today.

The call is going brilliantly for Marcus, with heirs Celia and

Sheila just a short trip away from travelling heir hunter Dave Mansell.

I think that's just about it, really.

Nadine throws a spanner in the works.

She mentions an Aunt Hilda, from the same generation as her grandparents.

Auntie Hilda. Oooh. Haven't got her.

Marcus thinks the team know all the family members from that generation.

He decides that Nadine may have got Auntie Hilda confused with an old family friend.

It's what you said before, people in those days were

a bit older than you, you always referred to them sort of in that kind of way.

Marcus presses for no more information about Auntie Hilda

and concentrates on the heirs he's found.

This is brilliant. She sorted out most of that side of the family, which is great for me.

It saved us a lot of work. That's one side.

And the great thing about it is, as well, that we've got Dave Mansell

in the Southport area and there's at least three people that he can be going to see.

Marcus should be feeling happy, but he's still got nagging doubts.

There is still the problem, were there any children from the father's

first wife, who died very young, about a year after they were married.

It's possible that they had a child very quickly, or she died in childbirth and the child survived.

Probably, there's not going to be anything.

But it's one of these things, it's like a sort of flea biting away at the back of your neck all the time.

Coming up -

the heir hunters' hard work finally pays off.

You, Sheila,

-and Brenda, are three of those heirs.

-Good grief!

Have I?

But was Marcus' right to worry.

Strange turn of events.

Sometimes it only takes a couple of calls to get to the bottom of an unsolved case.

But sometimes a case is so difficult, it takes years of research before clues come to light.

A particularly difficult case was the estate of Norah Brinkerhoff,

who died in 2001, leaving approximately £200,000.

Norah's estate was not dealt with by Fraser and Fraser but

by a company called Census Searches, that is altogether different.

Census Searches is run from a family home in the leafy suburbs of Burgess Hill.

In charge is Mary Teviet, who is often assisted by her husband, Charles.

I know, about ringing up West Yorkshire to find out where the Newby Hall archives have gone to.

-I'll do that.

-Today.

-Yes.

-Thank you very much.

We share things, we share the microfuse readers, we share the computers,

and sometimes we get cross with each other!

Also try and start sorting me out a bridge partner tomorrow night now she's gone sick.

-OK.

-Please.

-Yes.

-Have you been watching the telly when you talked to me?

Well, I might! Not really, out of the window, actually!

Charles and Mary are not your average Joe Public.

In fact, they're a lord and lady, although they don't stand on ceremony.

If you're not "gorblimey",

it might help a little bit, but then, very often, one wouldn't say one was Lord or Lady Teviet.

Charles and Mary share an interest in genealogy,

and for the past 30 years have been making a living from heir hunting.

It's like a form of detective work without having any hassle with criminals.

Whether it's cos we're both only children and we are interested in other people's families, and

that other people's lives are always interesting.

-Well, they are.

-So, that's...

I mean, they can be boring, but basically they're interesting!

Mary Teviet was delighted to land the case of Norah Brinkerhoff.

I was contacted about three or four years ago from a trust

in America, I think it was Arizona, and they wanted me to find anyone who's related to somebody called

Norah Brinkerhoff who'd gone out there and married an American serviceman just after the war.

All that Mary knew about Norah Brinkerhoff was that she was born in 1910 in Birkenhead, Merseyside.

In her early 30s, Norah had met an American GI

who'd been based near her home in the Second World War.

Norah left her family and country in 1946 and went to America to marry him.

Norah never had any children and died many years after her husband without leaving a will.

In the early 1940s, over 1 million American GIs were

stationed in Britain and over 70,000 British women sailed to America to marry their GI boyfriends.

'British wives, eager to join GI husbands in America, demand space on boats.'

We don't want to go for America for all the glamour that we see on the movies.

We want to go to be with them, we love them.

Alden Ferguson, from the RAF Burtonwood Heritage Centre, explains the appeal of the GIs.

The GI was the colloquial name given to American servicemen because

all their kit had GI written on it, standing for "Government Issue".

They were young, they all knew how to dance, they were great at jitterbugging.

It was the first time they'd left home and they were a group of guys together,

they were out to have a good time

and the girls were attracted to them big-time and a lot of romances came from that.

Mary was impressed by the courage of Norah

who must have left behind everyone she knew to start a new life in America.

I think that she might have been slightly dazzled by it and obviously

decided that it was really worthwhile making that very long journey across the Atlantic to get back and find...

Whatever he was, Sergeant Brinkerhoff!

There are few details about what happened to Norah once she arrived

in America and it is thought she never came back to the UK.

When she died, Norah's estate was worth around £200,000.

As she hadn't left a will, Mary was asked to track down any relatives in the UK.

First thing that I did was to get her birth certificate to find out when she was born, and the names of

her parents, and also found out that she had no brothers and sisters, and from that I then had to go

back to her, the brothers and sisters of her father and mother, of which there were quite a few.

Mary plotted out Norah's family tree,

working out that her parents were Ellen Houghton and John Porter.

Ellen had six brothers and sisters and John had five brothers.

The children of these aunts and uncles and their children

would be Norah's blood relatives and entitled heirs, if only she could find them.

18 months ago, Mary managed to track down Bob Porter in Telford, Shropshire.

My father was Norah's first cousin,

and my father actually died in 1990.

Bob is one of seven children and Bob's father is also one of seven,

which means that Bob's entitled to only a very small percentage of Norah's estate.

But there's a mystery man on the family tree who's entitled to a whole lot more.

In the letter, the tracing of the family tree, there's one guy

on there called Cyril, and he actually gets 33% of the total estate.

And I have absolutely no idea who he is.

Cyril is entitled to a much larger sum than Bob because he is the only child of an only child.

If only Mary can find him.

He would however by now be in his, well in his mid-80s, because his mother was married in 1923 and he was

born within the next couple of years, but all the records that one actually pulled up on the computer

and on other methods have so far failed to find him.

And of course once you fail to find a missing link, it does rather hold up the distribution of the estate,

which is rather irritating for all the other people who are entitled to their share.

If Cyril can't be found after every possible lead has been exhausted, then his share of the estate

will go back into the pot, and Bob and his sisters will be entitled to a larger share.

But before this can happen, Mary still has one avenue to chase.

Whilst Mary continues her hunt for Cyril, Bob and his sister Pam try to

find out more about the GI brides and what life must have been like for their father's cousin, Norah.

The trip to the RAF Museum in Cosford

gives them the opportunity of seeing fighter planes and a reconstruction of a typical 1940s family home.

It's the kind of thing Norah would have lived in.

Sort of radio she would have heard the news on.

Yeah, you could just them imagine, can't you? Just huddled down there.

Medicated toilet roll!

Say no more!

Back at Mary's house, a new search through old copies of the electoral roll

has given Mary a number she had previously overlooked.

It's for a man called Cyril Abbott living in London.

I'm going to ask him if his middle name is Howard.

Oh, good afternoon.

I don't know if you could help me.

Am I telephoning a number where a Mr Cyril H Abbott lives?

Oh, you're his carer? I see.

The carer goes to get Cyril.

But will he be the missing Cyril that Mary has been looking for?

Norah, she was originally...

She was originally Norah Porter.

Is that ringing a bell now? It does ring a bell.

Cos I believe that you were the...

You are the son of Louise Howard-Abbott, is that right?

That's correct.

That means that you are related to Norah Porter. You were a cousin...

Cyril's answers convince Mary that he is the cousin of Norah.

Bye-bye.

What a bonus!

Cyril is actually still alive.

He is the right man.

He did... His job, or his work, was in Brussels.

And he does remember, he remembers more things

perhaps in the past now than he does, cos obviously he was born in 1924, so he will be coming up to 84 this year.

But he is, shall I say, alive and kicking, perhaps?

But I really am very thrilled that one's actually found him and that he's still with us.

It's a massive stroke of luck for Mary. She's found another of Norah Brinkerhoff's heirs.

But it's bad news for Bob and his sisters.

Their share of the estate will not be topped up by Cyril's.

It will remain as small as ever.

But, for Bob and his sisters, the whole experience was never about the money.

No, I think it's been a very interesting experience, actually.

I mean, the money's been secondary.

It's been nice to find out some details about Norah.

It's brought all the family a lot closer together because we've all

had lots of discussions about it, so it's been a very interesting saga.

Nice to have all the sisters together.

We must do this more often, so let's just say cheers to Nora.

Cheers!

Thanks to Mary's detective work, the £200,000 estate

of Nora Brinkerhoff will be divided between over 30 heirs.

In London, Heir Hunters Marcus Herbert and Simon Grosvenor

are trying to track down the rightful beneficiaries of the £75,000 estate

of the late Barbara Higgins.

It is now 2:00pm, and travelling Heir Hunter Dave Mansell has just reached the home of his first heir.

Peter Parkinson is the son of the late Arthur Parkinson who was Barbara Higgins' first cousin.

Peter wants to know how he's related to the person whose money he's in line to inherit.

Henry Oliver Draper.

He was married twice

and there was a child of one of those marriages, and it's the child from one of those marriages of Henry.

So you've never heard of this person?

No, not at all.

The unexpected visit is a great excuse for Peter to

take a trip down memory lane with some old family photos.

These are a while ago - my father and great-grandparents, people born in 1860,

my sister, my father driving a speedboat...

Dave is interested in the photos, but he can't stop long.

He's got Peter's cousins to visit.

-I'm going to go and see Sheila and Celia after...

-Are you?

Yes, like you, they're heirs.

Peter is in touch with his cousin, Celia, and shows Dave a photograph.

That's Celia's mother and father.

That's the mother on there, and although I have never seen this, that's my sister.

Right.

Dave decides to take a photo with him.

It may be helpful in convincing Celia to let him speak to her.

The family history lesson over, Dave asks Peter to sign a contract with Frasers',

enabling them to help him put in his claim for his share of Barbara Higgins' estate.

Dave heads off in high spirits and puts in a call to the office.

-Hello.

-Hi, are you all right?

-Hello, mate, all right?

I've seen Mr Parkinson, he signed up and I got documents of identification from him.

-Good stuff.

-We're off to see Celia and Sheila now.

And Peter's feeling rather pleased, too.

The money is almost irrelevant because there's only going to be £1,000-£2,000.

I just find it very interesting.

It's now 3pm and Dave has reached the house of his second heir.

We're now going to see Celia Dale. She's a cousin

of Mr Parkinson that we've just been to see.

Celia is the daughter of the late Dorothea Brown who was a first cousin of Barbara Higgins.

Celia is ex-directory, so Dave has not been able to call her in advance.

But he's hoping the photograph from her cousin, Peter, will open doors.

-You Celia?

-I am.

I was told, if I show you that photograph, you would let me in.

I'd just been to see

Peter Parkinson.

Yes, that's all right, come in.

With the photograph working its magic, Dave's in from the cold.

He now explains the reason for his visit.

You, Sheila and Brenda are

three of those heirs.

So, who was it?

I'll come to it all in due course and see if you know who it is.

It's purely and simply...

fascination, isn't it?

Although Celia is more intrigued by the family history,

she also wants to know how much she's going to be inheriting.

Well, it's very nice if you only get...

-Tuppence.

-Precisely.

Plus the fact that I do find it very interesting.

Dave goes through the inheritance paperwork with Celia and wends his merry way.

Well, thank you very much.

Very nice to have that knock on the door, I have to say.

-Good, good.

-Dave updates the office.

I just signed Celia

and I'm off to see Sheila now.

-OK, mate.

-Then that'll be it for the day.

But the end of the day comes early for Dave, as Sheila isn't in.

Despite this, case manager Marcus is chuffed to bits.

I think it's been a cracker today.

We've got two signatures, we found most of the people we needed to find.

As Marcus leaves the office on a high, an outstanding development is about to change everything.

-I've never had contact. I mean, I've never met her.

-You've never met her?

-Never met her, no.

Now it's your turn to play Heir Hunter.

Do you have any clues that could solve any of these cases?

Peter Evans died in Coventry in 2004, aged 62, leaving an estate worth £60,000.

Are you related to Peter?

Do you know anyone who is?

Peggy Bateman died in London in 2006, aged 91.

Leaving an estate worth £50,000.

Is Peggy part of your family? Could you be entitled to Peggy's money?

Gerald Ford died in Portsmouth and 2006, aged 78,

leaving an estate worth £20,000.

Was Gerald one of your relatives?

Do you know anyone who could claim his cash?

If you have any information on any of these unsolved cases

then take a look at our website for details of what to do next.

In central London, it's one week after Fraser and Fraser started

tracking down heirs to the estimated £75,000 estate of Barbara Higgins.

The team were quick to work out Barbara Higgins' aunts and uncles,

and this research led travelling Heir Hunter Dave Mansell to sign up two heirs.

But there's always been a question mark over the number of children

Barbara Higgins' father actually had.

And today, Marcus has received a phone call from a family member that is planting more seeds of doubt.

Yes, thanks, Mrs Hurd. I will contact Diana and see what she says.

OK? Bye-bye.

Very strange turn of events. I have just been phoned up by a lady called Sheila Hurd.

She's a cousin once removed on the paternal side of Barbara Higgins' estate.

She told me that she's run into a cousin of hers whilst out shopping in

Southport and that the cousin is the daughter of her uncle, Harry.

Marcus knows that Harry is often used as a nickname for Henry,

and this leads him to an astonishing conclusion.

The only Uncle Harry or Henry that I can see that she had, unless she's getting a bit confused,

is a great-uncle, Henry Oliver Draper,

who would be the father of the deceased.

So, is this new cousin actually the daughter of Henry Draper and his first wife, Sara Wilde?

This would make her Barbara Higgins' half-sister, and would mean she's the only one from

Barbara's father's side of the family, entitled to any money.

Marcus needs to find out more.

He digs out all the documents he has on Henry Draper and notices

something on the death certificates that had slipped past him before.

The mother was Alice Forbes,

and the informant on the certificate is something Draper, the widow of the deceased.

Looking at it, it's really badly written, so we thought

it was possibly an A but badly written, but it could be a W or a H.

The person who informed the authorities about Henry's death,

is possibly not Barbara Higgins' mother, Alice Forbes, and definitely not his first wife, Sarah Wilde.

But now, Marcus is wondering if Barbara Higgins' father, Henry Draper, actually had a third wife.

Spurred on, Marcus looks up marriage records for Henry Draper.

And he finds out that he did indeed marry a third time, to a woman called Hilda.

The name Hilda sounds vaguely familiar.

Then Marcus remembers his conversation a week ago with Nadine.

..Haven't got her...

Things are now beginning to fall into place.

Marcus had always been worried about the existence of a half sibling but

he thought this would be the child of Henry's first wife, Sarah Wilde.

Now it appears he was right to be concerned.

Two half siblings do exist, Diana and Peter, but they're the children of Henry's third wife, Hilda.

Travelling Heir Hunter Dave Mansell is called into action once again.

He thought his work in Southport was done and dusted

when he signed up two heirs, Peter Parkinson and Celia Dale.

But now he's heading back to the same area, this time to meet

another family member, Diana Draper, the half-sister of Barbara Higgins.

Unfortunately, the people that we saw last week are no longer

heirs to the estate because these people are priority, being half blood to the deceased.

Diana is 22 years younger than Barbara and will be entitled to

share the entire estate with her brother, Peter.

Good morning, I'm David Mansell, you've been expecting me.

Good morning. Hello. Nice to meet you.

Dave starts by explaining the twists and turns of the hunt for Barbara's heirs.

We discovered that there was a third marriage to the deceased's father,

to Hilda Chesney, of course, that being your mum.

What is the name of the person who's died?

Who do you think it would be?

-Well, I've wondered if it was my half-sister, Barbara.

-Correct.

-Is that who it is?

-That's who it is.

Amazingly, Diana has gone through her entire life without ever meeting her half-sister.

We only discovered her existence after my father died.

We found some papers which referred to his second marriage and there was a daughter, Barbara.

I mean, I've never had contact with her. I've never met her.

-You'd never met her?

-No, never met her.

My parents never told us he'd been married before. Neither Peter or I knew.

Which is probably why we never had any money because he was probably keeping...having to pay...

This is probably why we were always so poor!

Sad, isn't it?!

Now Barbara's money can help make Diana's later life a little more comfortable.

Diana signs the Frasers' contract.

-All the best.

-Thank you very much.

-Pleasure.

And Dave makes his way home in a reflective mood.

Make you wonder about life, in many ways. Their father had been married

three times altogether and had this child, the deceased, with his second wife,

and the lady I saw today was the result of a third marriage of the deceased's father...

and they never met.

But they were all born in the Southport area.

So, it's a good result for Barbara's half siblings, Diana and Peter, but not so good for Barbara's cousins.

All the cousins that we saw, we're going to have to contact them

and say, "Sorry but we have found closer kin." It does happen.

Three weeks later, Diana finds out some even better news.

About the amount she's going to inherit.

I thought, how much it will be, there might be 20,000,

might be 50,000, and you go into amounts that it might be.

So when I heard that it would be about £93,000,

I was amazed, you know.

But the visit from the Heir Hunters has also made Diana wish she had

had a chance to meet her half-sister, Barbara.

When you're going to inherit something from her, it seems a shame that we never, ever met her.

We can't do anything about that now,

it was something that just didn't happen.

Maybe it's one of the regrets you would have,

but life's too short for regrets, I think.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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