Hollins/Ashby Heir Hunters

Every year, thousands of people die without leaving a will.

If no relatives come forward, then their estates will go to the government.

Keeping this money in the family is a job for the Heir Hunters.

On today's programme...

Can the travelling Heir Hunters keep up with the pace in the office?

Dave, it's David here in the office. I need to speak to you as soon as possible.

We've got another address. I'd like you to go round as soon as possible.

And the Heir Hunters are contacted by the neighbours of a derelict house which is causing them grief.

We got the council involved because it kept getting broken into.

There were hypodermic syringes and all things like that. It was terrible.

Plus, we'll have information on some of the hundreds of estates still waiting to be claimed.

Could you be in line for a windfall?

Two-thirds of people in the UK don't have a valid will

and therefore no record of their last wishes.

If they die before they've made one and no next of kin are found, their money goes to the government

who last year alone made a whopping £18 million from unclaimed estates.

That's where the Heir Hunters step in.

-Pleased to meet you.

-More than 30 heir-hunting companies make it their business to find long-lost relatives

and it can be rewarding for the unsuspecting heirs.

In the last ten years alone, one of the oldest companies in Britain, Fraser & Fraser,

has enabled a staggering £100 million to be inherited.

-Good morning, Pat.

-Morning.

-It's Thursday, the office's busiest day of the week.

The Treasury has published its latest list of unclaimed estates,

so the team have been up early hunting for cases worth pursuing further.

Company partner Neil Fraser homed in on the estate of Peter Hollins.

We can be looking at an estate value of £150,000 to possibly £300,000,

certainly a good, valuable case,

so we will get straight on to that.

A valuable case like this will attract competition, so the team need to work quickly.

Who's got the Hollins job?

Initial investigations show that Peter Hollins died aged 70

in his home in Croydon, Surrey.

His friend Tom first met him over 35 years ago at a party.

With people around him, he was very bubbly, a very bubbly man, very entertaining.

He loved people round for dinner. That was one of the main things he loved to do. He loved to cook.

Um...parties. But underneath all this, he was very, very lonely.

Peter never married and as he died without leaving a will,

his estate, which could be worth as much as £300,000,

will go into the Treasury's coffers unless heirs are found.

Researcher Simon is put on to the case.

Immediately, he starts looking for the all-important birth record.

Simon knows this is his most important task of the day so far, but already it's not going well.

For our deceased, we can't find a birth for him.

If the address we've got is correct, he should have been born in the March quarter of 1939.

And there isn't one that we can find.

We're trying a few variations, otherwise, potentially, he was adopted.

Without a birth certificate, it is virtually impossible for the team to build up a family tree

as they will be unable to verify the names of Peter's parents.

Hitting brick walls in the office, they start to explore other avenues.

We're going to deploy Dave Hadley.

He's going to head down there, do an enquiry, speak to some of the neighbours.

There's not very much on the phone at the moment, so we'll see where that leads us. Dave's our key man.

Ex-police officer Dave Hadley is one of several travelling Heir Hunters based up and down the country

who are just waiting for a call to be dispatched wherever the case takes them.

They play an invaluable role, picking up vital birth, death and marriage certificates,

as well as gathering information from neighbours,

but their key job is signing up heirs ahead of the competition.

With nothing concrete to go on in the office,

it's down to Dave to see if he can uncover information about Peter.

The idea is to speak to neighbours, speak to friends,

see what they can tell me about the individual

and get some idea of how big the estate is,

where he was born, whether he was married, whether he had children.

The name of his parents if I can get it, brothers and sisters, this type of thing.

As Dave tries to get information for a family tree out on the road...

..back in the office, the team decide to look into other options.

The absence of a birth record for Peter may mean he was adopted,

so the team start to investigate this possibility further.

Being adopted is the same as having a total blood transfusion. You form part of your new family.

The blood family we are now looking for are the adopted family, the father and mother.

But if Peter was adopted, this could potentially delay their search.

Adoptions are indexed by the parents' married surnames only,

so there are no Christian or, more importantly, maiden names on these records.

The only way to acquire these names is via the adoption certificate,

but these records can take 24 hours to arrive, so in the meantime,

they'll need to go down a different route.

We're going to try and do a lot more enquiries

and try and work back the address of Peter

and see if we can get a name.

If we can get one person living with him at one time, we may be able to get a Christian name

to be able to work out either the mother or the father, and therefore we can roll from that.

The team discover that Peter lived in the same house for many years,

so Simon goes through all the records connected to the property

to see if there is anyone else associated with it, and one name keeps cropping up.

A Rose Florence Moon.

Born in 1901.

It's all a bit of spec on the basis that it was an adoption.

We can't be 100% sure that Rose is the mother of the deceased.

It just looks the most likely marriage to go with...

Although everything points towards Rose Moon being Peter's mother,

until they get it confirmed, the team can still only speculate.

They need hard evidence and are relying on travelling Heir Hunter Dave Hadley to come up with it.

Right, we've arrived at the address. It looks like a private house.

I'm going to knock at the neighbours first.

On a case like this, any clues the neighbours can give will be invaluable.

-I'm making enquiries about Peter, Peter Hollins that lived at Number 12.

-Yeah.

-Did you know him at all?

-I only know him...

-As a neighbour?

-Yeah.

Do you know where he was born, was he adopted or anything like that?

-We heard that he was adopted.

-Right.

-I know he came here 30 years ago.

-Did he?

-Yeah, he lived here for 30 years.

-You don't know if he had any children?

-He definitely had no children because he was gay.

-Right.

Dave is already starting to build up a picture of Peter's life

which, according to his friend Tom, is pretty accurate.

He was brought up in a time when being gay was quite taboo.

And not accepted, nowhere near to what it is now.

And I think this reflected in his personality.

I think this is probably why he was so withdrawn, if you like,

because he was obviously worried about people's response about being gay.

Peter lived a lonely life and never found his soul mate.

The trouble with Peter was he used to...

He used to set his expectations high.

He used to see a personality, a good-looking man on television

and he wanted to be with somebody like that.

I used to say to him, "Peter, you've got to set your standards a little lower, if you like,

"because if you take that attitude, you're never going to get anybody."

And sadly, that was the case. He didn't.

Peter became more isolated as he got older

and towards the end of his life, he refused to see anyone, even his close friend Tom.

He told no-one about his last wishes, so the search for his beneficiaries goes on.

We're trying to find relatives for Peter. Do you know what his parents' names were?

-Rose.

-Definitely Rose?

-Rose.

-That's great.

-That's what we thought. Rose Moon?

-That's it.

-Lovely. Thank you very much. That's confirmed it.

It's the breakthrough they've been after.

Dave's street enquiries have been able to confirm Peter's mother was as they suspected - Rose Moon.

So finally, back in the office, the team are able to start to draw up a family tree.

Senior case manager David Pacifico comes on board.

As Peter was Rose's only child,

they need to look towards the extended family for heirs.

Investigations show that Rose was the daughter of Charles Moon and Ada Penfold.

They had two other children, Herbert and Leslie.

Herbert was married twice, but died without any children.

Leslie had two daughters, Josephine and Christina.

Christina died without having children,

so it appears that Josephine is the only heir on this stem, but there is a snag.

Born in Croydon, she now lives up in Angus in Scotland

and unfortunately, the office has no travellers based up there.

Neil can only phone her, but he's not the only heir-hunting company in contact with her this morning.

Take care. Goodbye.

She has been contacted by the competition. They phoned her very early this morning.

They are going to visit her. I do not want to visit her as well.

I don't think it's fair to put the family under undue pressure to sign any agreement.

This time, Neil has decided to go for the softly, softly approach and only write to the heir.

But he knows he is taking a risk as the heir may end up signing with the competition.

The office's painstaking detective work may have led them to their first heir,

but further digging by Simon shows that Josephine might not be the only heir on the Moon side after all.

Although their initial investigations showed that Herbert Moon didn't have any children,

Simon has now discovered that he had a son Desmond from his first marriage.

So we have another heir on the Moon side which we didn't know about,

so there's now more than one stem that are entitled.

Hopefully, we might be the first to this one.

With competition hot on their heels, it's vital that the team get to Desmond first.

David Pacifico finds an address for him and puts in a call to Dave.

Dave, it's David here in the office. I need to speak to you.

Looks like we've got another address. I would like you to go round as soon as possible.

Coming up - as the hunt for heirs hots up,

things aren't as straightforward as they first appear.

When did he die?

Research into cases advertised by the Treasury is only one part of Fraser & Fraser's business.

Some estates are referred to them directly from members of the public.

In November 2009, Neil Fraser was told of a vacant property falling into disrepair.

It's an estate which came from a slightly different source for us.

It came from someone who lives in the neighbourhood and referred the property to us,

not the deceased's estate.

They're interested in us trying to find out who owned the house

and from who owned the house, where they are now and if they're going to do anything about it.

Value-wise, I think we're looking at probably in the region of £200,000.

When we look at the street, the house stands out. It's the only one with boards up on the windows.

It's the only one with a garage next door which looks like it's falling down and it's certainly unpainted.

So it stands out as being the eyesore in the road

and you can understand now why the neighbour or the neighbours around wanted to sort out this house.

The house is a three-bedroomed, semi-detached property in Birmingham.

Part of a 1930s development, the house has been vacant for over two years

and is in a very shabby condition.

Next-door neighbour Robert Fereday has always found the area peaceful,

but recently, the house next door has become a constant nuisance.

We got the council involved because of the break-ins. It kept getting broken into all the time.

The council came along, we went in there and there was hypodermic syringes all over the floor.

I don't know what it was used for, but they were breaking in on a regular basis.

It's awful because you don't know what's going on.

You hear a noise in the night. They would come over the fence into here.

We're completely vulnerable at the back. At one stage, it was every other week. It was terrible.

Robert had reached the end of his tether as he had heard nothing

about how much longer it might sit vacant for,

so he contacted the Heir Hunters to see what they could do.

It's important for us to identify who owns the property.

It's owned by two different people which gives us a slight headache to start with. It's shared ownership.

In this case, we got some enquiries that it was about a John Ashby.

When we get the document, it says actually, "John Durham Jocelyn Ashby,"

so straight away, we've been able to extend his name out by giving two extra middle names,

which makes it very easy to identify.

John Ashby was the last resident at the address

and Robert knew him well before he passed away in April 2007.

John was a very private man. He liked his snooker. We used to talk snooker quite a bit.

If you went out with him socially, which I did on a couple of occasions, I went to his club, he was fine.

He was very talkative, but round the houses, round here, no, he didn't want to talk.

One thing John did speak affectionately about was his time in the army.

Friends recount that he worked as an interpreter for a number of years,

even mentioning working under General Montgomery,

the man fabled for leading the Allied troops in North Africa against General Rommel in 1942.

John was said to later have requested a transfer to the Royal Artillery

where he eventually reached the rank of Major.

He was in Burma and all those places, you know.

He served in the war quite a bit.

As he had died, it would be John's beneficiaries that had an interest in the property,

so Neil needed to do some more enquiries.

As far as we're aware at the moment, Mr Ashby didn't leave a will.

We've still yet to search the property and it may well be in the property

and there's a few more enquiries which have still got to come back,

but we cannot find a will, so we treat him as intestate,

and we draw back his family tree to find the next of kin, as we do on most of our other estates.

Unlike other cases, however, Neil knew that this property was jointly owned.

The other owner was a Mr Prior who had also already passed away.

In Mr Prior's case, a will has already been discovered,

so his portion is in theory very straightforward to redistribute.

We know exactly where the property is going to go because he has left a will.

From that point of view, we will just contact the executors or the beneficiaries

and we'll make them aware of the existence of an additional asset really.

However, whilst Mr Ashby's part remained unsolved,

Number 94, Shirley Road would remain a thorn in the neighbours' side.

Fraser & Fraser decided to investigate properly

and case manager David Pacifico took over the task of finding heirs to the estate of John Ashby.

We needed to start somewhere and therefore used our guy in Birmingham, Paul Matthews,

to see if he could obtain more information,

as well as obtaining the death certificates and other local enquiries.

Paul Matthews is a regional Heir Hunter who travels around the country to pick up certificates.

That's great. Thank you very much.

And make local enquiries, all in the quest to sign up heirs.

Was that George?

OK, cheers. Thank you.

He has made his way to Solihull Register Office to pick up the death certificate.

It should confirm John's full name, date of birth

and might even name a close friend of John's as an informant.

I've now got the certificate of the deceased who is John Durham Jocelyn Ashby.

We've got an address where he used to live.

We were hoping for a good informant.

Unfortunately, it's a coroner's job,

so, basically, there's no informant on this one and we can't get it at this moment in time.

So we'll have to go to the property where the deceased used to live.

It's not all we wanted, but it's a start.

A coroner informs on a death when the cause is unclear, sudden or even suspicious.

John died of a coronary heart disease,

exacerbated by bronchopneumonia and infected sores.

Although initially uncertain, the inquest established that this was the result of natural causes.

Unfortunately for the Heir Hunters, a coroner rarely knows the deceased personally,

so this information will be of little help to their investigation.

However, research in the office led by Gareth Langford progressed

as they found records indicating who John's parents were.

What we were looking at was we had an Edgar Ashby and a Nora Badham.

Once we had established the parents' marriage, we had to see if the deceased had any brothers or sisters.

It turns out he did - Hugh. Hugh was born in 1926 in West Bromwich.

Unfortunately, it looks like he died a bachelor and he didn't have any issue,

so from our point of view, that was a dead end for us.

Neither John nor his brother Hugh ever married.

They remained close to each other and lived around the corner from one another for most of their lives.

A lady who knew them both for over 25 years was Dallas.

They were two very different people.

Physically, and their attitude.

But they always did things together.

If one had come down here, the other one would come down here. They always did things together.

The thing I remember most about both of them is Hugh complaining to me

that John wasn't domestic, not domesticated in any way.

So Hugh used to go home whenever he could

to at least maintain the front garden because he worried about the neighbours.

That wasn't important in John's life. He was his own person.

Quite happy to be doing what he wanted to do.

John might not have put a high value on appearances, but as well as being a major in the army,

he was an accountant by trade, so Dallas never expected his final affairs to be so disorganised.

I'm very surprised that John, who struck me as being efficient,

didn't make his will, but then maybe, particularly after Hugh died,

he would have been on his own.

Maybe he didn't feel that he knew what to do

or what sort of will... what he was wanting to do.

As neither John nor Hugh had any children, the office had to look for cousins or their descendants

to find heirs on the estate.

Back in Birmingham, Paul has made his way to the house where John lived.

His first port of call is to visit next door neighbour Robert

to see if he can shed any more light on John's estate or family.

I came to see your husband about the house next door. Can you spare us a few minutes?

Got the grandkids in?

See, what happened was there were two brothers, both willed each other.

One died first leaving everything to his brother.

Then before it was all done, before he changed his will, he died.

-So the two brothers died.

-So in effect there's no will at all.

It turns out John did leave a will and left everything to Hugh.

Unfortunately, Hugh died in 2005 so the will is invalid

as there are no provisions for what happens in the event of his death.

It is, after all, an intestacy case so Fraser's need to find heirs.

Robert has also mentioned that when Hugh died, he left everything to John

so all of his possessions, including a house, will add to John's estate.

-So basically the brother has left John a property.

-That's right.

And John was an accountant, a major in the army, never married.

Oh, right...

-So you think it's a large estate.

-I think so.

This is an important new piece of information. John's estate now comprises of two houses

and other possessions, so it's currently estimated to be worth £500,000.

With such a valuable case unsolved, the heir hunters desperately need to find uncles and aunts

who might have had children.

The focus of the investigation has switched back to the office.

Can Gareth find an heir or will the £500,000 estate go to the government?

For every case that is cracked, many thousands remain a mystery.

When someone dies, their assets are kept for up to 30 years

in the hope that, ultimately, someone will remember and come forward to claim their legacy.

The estates can range wildly in value from £5,000 to many millions

with the rightful heirs unaware of the windfall they could claim.

Today we've got two cases heir hunters have failed to solve.

Could you have the answer? Maybe you're entitled to a windfall.

James Mackin Currie Hutchison died in Bristol on 6th July, 1999.

So far, every effort to find his rightful heir has failed,

but could you be in line for a share of his legacy?

Paul Jules passed away on 12th May, 2001

in Stepney Green, East London. Do you recognise his name?

Did he live in your neighbourhood? Maybe you're even related to him and one of his heirs.

If no next of kin are found for James Hutchison or Paul Jules,

their cash will go to the government, but could it be meant for you?

Heir hunting company Fraser and Fraser has been looking into the case of Peter Hollins.

He died in 2009, leaving behind an estate that could be worth

anywhere between £150,000 and £300,000.

But this will end up in the Treasury's coffers unless his rightful beneficiaries are found.

As Peter was adopted, the team initially found it tricky to trace his family tree.

I can't see any Peter D Hollins.

But by pulling together evidence discovered door to door,

the team were able to establish who Peter's adoptive parents were

and started to look towards his extended family for heirs.

Now Dave is searching for the final pieces of the puzzle and heads to the last known address of a cousin.

-It's not good news.

-When did he die?

Unfortunately, Desmond passed away earlier this year, but he had four sons.

One lives at this address, but is at work. Another son is on his way.

As Desmond has died, his share of Peter's estate passes on to his four sons

and so all Dave can do now is wait.

Meanwhile, back in the office, senior case manager David Pacifico has been relentless

in searching the paternal side.

Haven't had a stop for a drink yet!

Investigations show that Peter's father Frederick was was the son of Frances Hollins and Edith Simmons.

They had eight children in total,

so David is painstakingly looking for their children as they would all be potential heirs.

I'm looking for the descendants of this Doris Irene Hill, formerly Hollins, who married back in 1919.

We're still not certain how many children they had. We're certain of one son called Frederick.

They may well have had a daughter, Kathleen.

While David Pacifico continues in the office, back on the road David number two has just finished

a successful meeting with one of Peter's first cousins once removed.

We had a good interview. He's given me a little bit of information about one of his brothers

and I've got an appointment to see another brother tomorrow.

So it was really useful and it went really well. He's happy to sign an agreement.

I'll pass that to the office.

Dave will return to Desmond's house later to meet another heir.

Due to all of his hard work on the road, back in the office things are now coming together, too.

We've been quite lucky because of the surname, the Hollins surname.

With that, it's enabled us to speculatively find the deaths of the parents.

We found the deaths of the parents and got on to the family

and they've been able to confirm about Peter being adopted.

David Pacifico has been working through the paternal side of the family tree

and has just got hold of one of Peter's cousins.

That's a very interesting call.

She had two siblings. Frederick, who died in Aberdeen - that's why we couldn't pick him up for certain -

who has got a son living up there in Aberdeen. We'll get his address.

And a sister Joan. She's had no contact for some 40-odd years.

It seems Joan didn't want to know about her family and disappeared.

So we've got to track her down.

Doris Hollins married Frederick Hill and had three children, Peter's first cousins.

They will all be entitled to a share of the estate.

By speaking to Kathleen, David has discovered that Frederick's share will be passed down to his son

but the whereabouts of their sister Joan remains a mystery.

The team will need to find her, though, as she, like Peter's other heirs, could be in line

for a life-changing sum of money.

Being conservative, and without really looking into it,

I'd hope for a value of around £200,000. £200,000 over the five stems is £40,000 per stem.

On two of them there's only one beneficiary, so it's a pretty good situation for them.

With all the twists and turns and the sheer number of heirs,

they have to take the case into a second day.

So early the next morning Neil gets another travelling heir hunter, Ewart Lindsay, on the road.

He's off to see one of Peter's cousins, Kathleen.

I've got an appointment to see an heir, a first cousin to the deceased on the paternal side of this case.

I'm hoping I'll be on time.

The traffic's looking pretty good.

Also out and about this morning is another one of the team's experienced probate researchers.

Mr Moon? Hello. David Hadley. Pleased to meet you.

Dave signed up one of Peter's heirs yesterday, his cousin Desmond's son,

-and now hopes to get another one onside.

-I work for a company called Fraser and Fraser.

We're probate researchers. We trace missing heirs and beneficiaries.

So we picked up a case yesterday of a gentleman that passed away in Croydon earlier this year.

-We believe that you and your brothers are related to this person through your father.

-Right.

While Dave Hadley is passing on news of a potential windfall to an unsuspecting relative,

in the office the team's detective work has solved the mystery of Kathleen's long-lost sister.

Case manager Frances Brett calls Ewart to pass on the news.

-The heir I'm going to see now, this is her sister?

-That's right.

-And she dies in Kent as Raeburn.

-Right.

When you get there, you'll be able to tell her that we have established that her sister Joan is dead.

Right.

Ewart now has the unenviable task of passing this sad news on to Kathleen.

Meanwhile in south London, Dave's finished a meeting with Christopher.

-Any questions, just give us a bell.

-Will do.

-Thank you. Bye bye.

Right, well, I've just finished an interview with Christopher Moon.

It was a good interview, actually.

'He confirmed a lot of the information that we'd already got.'

Didn't have any new information for me, but we're pretty much up to date on the tree.

And he's agreed to sign an agreement with us. So it was a successful day.

140 miles away in Nottinghamshire, Ewart arrives at Kathleen's home

-and his first task is to pass on his news.

-Before I start interviewing you,

seeing as we are talking about your brother and it is going to go on to your sister,

-I know you wanted to find out what's happened to your sister.

-Yes.

I've just been told that she has passed away.

-Oh, really?

-Yeah. 2004.

-Right.

-OK?

-Yes.

We're not too sure at the moment if she had any children, but she got married when she was about 21.

I think she possibly did remarry as she died under a different name.

-Right.

-But we're not too sure about children. That's what we're looking into. OK?

-Right.

Before discussing the inheritance, Ewart puts in a quick call to the office

to double check if there isn't any more information he can pass on.

While he has been travelling to visit her, the office has been working hard to find out

if Joan had any children, as they would also have a claim.

They've found out she had a son

This is not the only interesting information about Joan that the team are eager for Ewart to pass on.

Yes, I will, I will.

Em, Mrs Shepperton,

we have now established that your sister did indeed have a son.

-Yeah. One son just...?

-One son, yeah.

-Right.

-Yes.

-From her second marriage.

-Oh, right.

-To a Mr Raeburn.

Raeburn.

And it looks like she was actually a Lady when she died.

Kathleen's sister rejected her family after she married Edward Raeburn,

the 3rd Baronet of Helensburgh. Kathleen had no idea that Joan had married nobility

or had had children, so the news that she has a nephew comes out of the blue.

It's made me feel a lot better. I don't feel so lonely and so alone in the world,

as if there's just me and no one else about,

no one I can maybe contact if they ever want to contact me.

It's a very nice surprise.

Very.

Unfortunately, Kathleen never met her cousin Peter,

but his legacy means not only that she is in line for a windfall,

but maybe she will now get a chance to meet a nephew she never knew existed.

It will be like having someone of my own, which I've never had,

except for my son and my daughter-in-law.

Oh, it would be magical.

It's been a busy couple of days, especially for the travelling heir hunters out on the road.

Their investigations and detective work have been instrumental in solving this case.

'You know,'

it's quite pleasing to know that we've actually now put...

..her in touch with her nephew, her sister's child,

who she'd never known existed. It's fabulous.

Fraser and Fraser have been referred the case of John Ashby

by a neighbour who was worried about the derelict house he lived in.

It's been terrible for a long time,

but it's getting progressively worse in this bad state.

One of these days, the whole lot will come down.

The value of the estate is estimated to be a staggering £500,000

and comprises not one, but two properties in Birmingham.

It was really a big estate and therefore important for us to trace any of the blood heirs.

Research director Gareth Langford has been leading the team who built up the family tree.

His mother's maiden name, Badham, that's a brilliant surname. We were quite excited about that.

Ashby isn't the best of names, but Badham, that's an amazing name to look up.

A good name can make the difference between solving a case in two years or two hours.

Gareth had hit the jackpot.

When you have a good surname, it makes things a lot easier. We're looking at a lot less records.

If you had the surname Smith, there's a lot of records.

Ashby is quite a good surname. Badham is exceptionally good.

The marriage was in Islington, which was completely out of area,

but it was the only Ashby-Badham marriage, so we felt sure that was the correct one.

John was the son of Nora Badham and Edgar Ashby.

The research team already knew that John had a brother, Hugh.

However, he died without having children, so the next port of call was to find uncles or aunts.

With a name like Badham to work with, it wasn't long before Gareth found just what he was looking for.

The next step was to look for the census of the mother. We quickly found that.

She was living with her parents and two siblings. On the 1901 census, they were called Richard and Jack.

Because the surname was so good, Badham,

we weren't confused by the names on the census, so that gave us something to work with.

We had a good name. I was quite confident we would get an heir.

It was just a question of doing the research.

The office discovered that the Badham children spread across the world in later life,

with Jack eventually passing away in the Bahamas a bachelor.

Richard married Doris Courtney in Lewisham before settling in Brighton to have two children,

but despite their adventurous lives, it was never a problem to track them down.

With regard to the research, it was relatively straightforward, even though they moved around.

We didn't miss anything. There was no problem with research.

So it was quite satisfying. A dream case. Perfect case, really.

One of John's cousins was Trevor Badham. However, he had already passed away.

So Gareth's research led to his two children, Katy and her brother.

They are John's cousins, once removed, and will both inherit a share of John's estate.

I was surprised to get a call from Fraser and Fraser. It's not the sort of thing you expect,

but I was more surprised to find out it was John that hadn't left a valid will, as he was an organised chap.

Katy had met John at many family gatherings, although it was over 10 years since she had seen him last.

I remember John from my youth. He used to come and visit my parents once or twice a year

with his brother, Hugh. They always were wearing a suit and tie and were always a little bit serious.

And they used to come and play bridge with my parents. I remember the two brothers being very, very close.

I never saw one without the other and always think of them as a pair.

Over the years, Katy lost touch with both of the brothers.

After hearing that John had passed away, she also learned that Hugh had died two years before him.

All of a sudden, it made sense that John did not have a valid will.

I think after John's brother Hugh died, a part of John probably died as well. They were devoted.

So I suppose it doesn't really surprise me that for the last two years of his life, he was a lost soul

and didn't think about that.

The puzzle of John Ashby's estate has been solved,

as the heir hunters have successfully tracked down seven beneficiaries in total.

We're absolutely delighted that we've traced some blood heirs to what is a very large estate.

It's good news all round, I think.

Now the case is settled, the heirs can attend to the property

and John's old neighbours might finally be able to return to a peaceful life.

I'm more than pleased that they've found relatives. At one time I thought they'd never find anybody

and it would go on for years, but happily it's all sorted and I'm more than pleased.

At last we'll be able to get something like normality back and a nice house next door.

If you would like advice about building your family tree or making a will,

go to bbc.co.uk.

Subtitles by Subtext for Red Bee Media Ltd - 2010

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