Adams/Young Heir Hunters

Heir hunters spend their lives tracking down families of people who 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 investigate

the case of a man who was surrounded by friends...

We all liked a good time.

He was one of the lads.

When we all sang, he sang. When we all danced, he danced.

..but kept his family at a distance.

I was upset to think that

Ken had died and nobody told me.

And could an elderly relative be at risk?

The shocking tale of two shadowy figures responsible

for crimes worth £2 million that rocked the world of heir hunting.

This kind of fraud is despicable. It's stealing from the dead.

Plus, we will have details of the hundreds of thousands of pounds

worth of unclaimed estates held by the Treasury.

Could you be due some cash?

Two-thirds of people in Britain have not got a will.

If they die without making one and no relatives can be found,

their money goes to the Government.

Last year, a staggering £18 million went into the pot.

12 million of that was never claimed.

Around the UK, more than 30 probate research companies

compete to find missing heirs and help them claim the cash.

Fraser and Fraser is one of the largest probate research firms in the world.

Partner Neil Fraser knows that there is no room for short cuts in this business.

You have to be a little bit of a perfectionist

to make sure that you have found all the beneficiaries,

we have explored every last avenue.

Sometimes, that attention to detail can be the difference between finding a beneficiary

and the estate ending up in the Treasury's solicitor's coffers.

It's 7:00am on a Thursday morning.

It's the day the Treasury publish their list of unclaimed estates.

Case manager David Pacifico has come across an estate he thinks could be of interest.

This is a new case called Kenneth William Adams who died in Birmingham

only in June this year. It's a recent death.

Kenneth Adams lived in this semi-detached house in Birmingham

but his second home was his local.

The landlady Carol Ann Johnson remembers him fondly.

Ken's pint was a pint of mild.

He used to come through the door

and we used to have it pulled and ready for him.

This was his table he used to sit on.

His pint had to be in the right position for his newspaper.

Open his newspaper and start picking his bets out.

We just knew what he would do.

He did the same very thing every single day.

He used to have a giggle.

We miss him, it is too quiet

without his routine every day.

He was lovely. We loved him to bits and miss him.

And Kenneth had a large group of friends that always hung out together.

When Kenny came out the army, late '50s,

he met up with his old friends who he met before the army.

But then, when they all drifted,

it left him on his own so us being a gang,

he drifted in with us.

And he stayed with us right up until the end which was 45 years.

He was a smashing kid. Quiet.

He liked to do the things he liked to do.

You couldn't tell him anything.

He knew in his own mind what he wanted to do.

But he was a good lad.

We had been together 45 years, a long time.

In all the time Dennis knew him,

Kenneth never talked about his relations.

He was on his own.

He used to say, "No, I've got nobody.

"Nobody at all."

Despite his close links to his mates,

Kenneth left no will when he passed away,

leaving an estate of an estimated £110,000.

It's a big sum of money. The team will have to act fast

if they're to solve the case ahead of competing heir hunters.

They've already sketched out some details.

It looks like he might be an only child.

We think his mother died in 1992.

Born 1901 in Birmingham so it's all locally based.

Using the records they have on file,

the heir hunters are trying to find Kenneth's parents.

Research director Gareth Langford thinks he may have found Kenneth's mum, Matilda, on a census.

We've got a Matilda Harriet, born in 1901.

The only census we've found so far is of Harriet Neale,

who's born sort of in the right area

but there's potentially another birth.

So, we wonder if it is the right one, really.

In the meantime, we need to work the census we have found

but there's always that nagging doubt, is it the right one?

The census is a national survey taken every ten years.

It takes the essential details of every person

at every address in the UK.

It's a valuable tool for the heir hunters.

Kenneth's mother's maiden name was Neale,

which can be spelt several different ways.

That can be a problem. Neale with an E at the end or without an E.

The researchers need the right spelling off Kenneth's birth certificate.

The company employ a group of travelling heir hunters based around the UK.

They spend their days ready to sniff out clues and chase the facts

that will lead them to the heirs.

Ex-policeman and travelling heir hunter Paul Matthews

has been Fraser's representative in Birmingham for the last eight years.

He's been doing a spot of detective work and he's come up trumps.

Hello, Dave, Paul.

You have got the right family.

Excellent. It starts with the marriage of the parents.

OK, he is William Harold Adams.

Although Paul hasn't actually got a copy of the certificate yet,

through careful research at his end, he's found some names to work with.

I'll catch up with you later.

I'll be in the registry office at 9 o'clock when it opens.

And take it from there.

Cheers. Bye.

That's a good start. Paul has come through with some information about the deceased's parent's marriage,

the deceased mother's birth and the deceased's birth.

It all ties up with what we thought it could have been.

All this information means the team can now put together a family tree

starting with Kenneth's parents.

His father was William Adams.

William was born in Swindon

and he married Matilda Neale in Birmingham in 1929.

When she had Kenneth, her one and only child in 1938, Matilda was 37.

This was quite unusual for the time

but it's not the only thing that stands out.

The deceased, Kenneth William Adams,

was actually born in the house that he died in,

which is incredibly unusual.

He was born in 1938

and he has just absolutely gone nowhere. He died in the same house.

As their research shows, Kenneth is an only child.

The heir hunters know they now need to look for cousins

as they are likely to be his closest living relatives.

They really need more information from the certificates at the Birmingham Register Office.

Travelling heir hunter Paul is on the case.

Hello, Paul.

I've got a bit of a luxury that because the kids are off school,

I've flown right the way through to the registry office.

I'm sitting outside, kicking my heels,

just seeing if there's any more updates for us?

We've got two deaths, which I would like you to get.

We've got George Frederick Adams.

And there was also, William had a sister, Rose Florence Adams.

We've got Jean and Raymond G H Keeble,

born March 1929, Birmingham.

-Thanks, Paul. I will speak to you when you can.

-Cheers, Dave. Bye.

The office team are making progress

mapping out Kenneth's father's family tree.

Kenneth's grandad was Frederick Adams.

He was a master painter and decorator.

His skills were so in demand that he was one of the team

that refurbished Queen Victoria's royal railway coach.

Frederick married Florence in 1894

and the young couple went on to have nine children

who were Kenneth's aunts and uncles.

Case manager Simon Grosvenor is looking at the eldest

Edward Adams' death records.

He died fourth November 1918, I think in France, but it could be Belgium.

That means if he survived another seven days,

he would have made it through the war. That is quite unlucky.

Born in 1896, Kenneth's Uncle Frank would have been 18

when World War I began in 1914.

After four years of service, he had risen to the rank of Lance Corporal

only to die just days before the end of the war.

It's 10am and Simon is now looking for Kenneth's Aunty Rose

who had two children.

Raymond and Jean are the children of the deceased of Rose Florence

who married a George Keeble in Birmingham in 1924.

If either of them are still alive,

the heir hunters could have found their first heirs.

Simon has been looking at the electoral roll.

We found Raymond and his wife living in Solihull.

Because Raymond is still alive, he is a first cousin.

If anyone's going to know things about the family,

it's going to be him.

In the Birmingham Register Office,

Paul is up to his neck in certificates

so he's asked for some help.

-Yep?

-Elsie May Neale.

-Yep.

-Daughter of William Neale.

-Yep.

-And Alice Neale, formerly Sheldon.

Right, yes.

With Paul busy gathering evidence,

the office have called in a second travelling heir hunter,

David Hadley, to track down possible beneficiaries.

I've just had a phone call from David Pacifico and it looks like he's got

a possible heir to be contacted in Solihull,

which is just outside Birmingham.

I'm on the M1 at the moment, heading towards Luton.

It will probably take me an hour to get there, I would think.

He's going to ring me back once he's got more details

and a firm appointment.

So, fingers crossed,

I might get to see an heir.

But there's a lot at stake here.

The team have thrown all that manpower

into solving this £110,000 estate.

It's vital that Dave finds the heirs ahead of the competition.

Still to come, the sad truth of why the Adams estate

ended up on the Treasury list.

Ken, he was set in his ways and you couldn't tell him,

"You've got to do a will"

because if you told Ken that, he wouldn't do it anyway.

Heir hunting can often reveal surprising secrets

but when Fraser and Fraser began working the estate of Violet Young,

they revealed a lot more than that.

They helped uncover a multi-million pound crime

that sent a seismic shock through the world of heir hunting.

This one event, or this series of events,

has changed probate research and genealogy and heir hunting forever.

This large but now derelict property in Ilford, Essex,

was the home of Violet Young.

Neighbour and fellow church goer Sheila Leek knew her well.

She was very pleasant and she liked...

absolutely loved coming to the chapel

and being present there every month at the open days.

When I took her home, mostly after the open days, in the car,

and delivered her to her door,

she would never allow anybody to come in the house.

When Violet died in 2006, her house sat derelict and empty for months.

With no known relatives,

a neighbour decided to get in touch with Fraser and Fraser.

Partner Andrew Fraser was cautious to begin with

as there is a possibility

there could still be a will hidden somewhere.

All of our contacts and research

is about working out whether this is a viable case for us to take on

or whether it's going to be an economic loss for us.

But Violet's estate promised to be large.

The value of the house and the assets were in the region of £300,000.

It's a huge sum and when the nursing home where Violet died

confirmed she hasn't left a will,

the heir hunters decided it was worth taking the case on.

The case began like any other,

with the team putting together a family tree in search of heirs.

Senior researcher Gary Langford was on the investigation.

We basically established where the birth was, the birth of Violet Young,

and then we looked for her parents,

which turned out to be, well, her father was George.

So, not only did we have the surname Young to contend with, we also had George, George Young.

There's an awful lot of George Youngs out there.

But eventually, we found the parents' marriage and we discovered

that Violet didn't have any brothers or sisters.

So, we were off to cousins straightaway.

And that's where things started to get a bit tricky.

It looked like Violet's dad George came from a sprawling family.

It turned out he had seven brothers and sisters,

so eight, including George.

But all of those people, all of his siblings

had four or five or six children themselves

and all of those people had four or five or six children.

So, we started to get a very large tree together.

As the research went on,

Gareth was overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the family tree.

It really is huge.

This table is nowhere near big enough to look at the entire thing.

It goes on and on and on and on.

Faced with the daunting tree,

Gareth and the team started at the top

with Violet's grandparents and worked down.

We were quite lucky with the uncles and aunts of the deceased.

They were all born in the 1860s, 1870s, which made it quite easy to find them on the census.

That gave us an awful lot of information.

But the more they uncovered, the further afield the family went.

What became apparent was that the family were going to spread around the globe.

We've had heirs in Australia, America,

New Zealand, China, South Africa.

They really went everywhere that they could go.

That's when started having problems because, obviously,

it is very difficult to track down people overseas.

Luckily for Fraser's, however, a few heirs did remain in the UK.

Violet's father George had a brother called Edward.

His daughter, Marie Young, was Violet's first cousin.

Tim Daniel is her grandson and Violet's first cousin twice removed.

Tim is a lawyer living in west London.

The call from Fraser's came as a bolt out of the blue.

It was a surprise.

It was somebody whose existence none of us had ever been aware of.

I've spoken to quite a number of my cousins

and none of them had heard of her.

So, I don't know, she must have lived,

as far as we were concerned, quite a reclusive life.

As it turns out, there are about 90 of us who were related to her,

um, and we're all potential beneficiaries under her estate.

The heir hunters had invested thousands of pounds into solving the case of Violet Young.

But a new piece of information was about to come to light

that could shatter their work.

Having undertaken a large amount of research

and in the final preparations

for a grant of letter of administration to be made,

a further check on the probate registry

revealed that a will had been filed.

It was devastating news for the heir hunters.

The will left Violet's entire estate to a man by the name of Francis Fallon.

Its existence meant Fraser and Fraser

would earn nothing for all of their hard work.

In this case, the Young case,

we'd worked so hard and had such a huge tree.

To discover very late in the day that there was a will was,

you know, that was a real problem for us.

It was also bad news for the many people who had been told

they were heirs to Violet's £300,000 estate.

None of my relatives would obviously get anything,

I wouldn't get anything,

and all the work which Fraser and Fraser had done

in researching Violet and her background

and who her relatives were would all have completely gone to waste.

But there was something fishy about this new will.

Violet's neighbour Sheila felt that its very existence

was completely out of character for her friend.

I felt that she wasn't too interested in what was going to happen

because she was never interested in the house, as such.

Otherwise, I think she would have at least tried to maintain it.

She wasn't interested in

any sort of monetary things.

Even more surprisingly, the beneficiary on the will,

Francis Fallon, was not a member of Violet's family

and no one knew who he was or how he was connected.

We'd heard from family members that the deceased didn't leave a will.

Social services were involved and they said there was no will.

So, alarm bells started to ring.

So, who was Francis Fallon

and why was he the beneficiary to Violet's £300,000 estate?

The answer was a shocking revelation

that would shake the world of heir hunting to its foundations.

For every heir the heir hunters find,

there are still thousands that need to be tracked down.

Right now, there are 3,000 estates

on the Treasury's unsolved case list.

Today, we've got two cases that so far have had the professionals stumped.

Could your knowledge be the key to cracking the case?

Ronald Hart died in Ashford, London, on the fourth of May 2003.

Did you know Ronald?

Could you even be related to him and entitled to his cash?

Arthur Kelso passed away on 21st November 1999

in Bebington, Merseyside.

So far, every attempt to find his rightful heir has failed.

If no relatives can be found, his money will go to the Government.

But could it be meant for you?

If you know the names Ronald Hart or Arthur Kelso,

you could have a fortune coming your way.

Still to come, can heir hunters solve the riddle

of why Kenneth Adams, who grew up surrounded by family...

It was a family that was very close. They lived next door to each other

and in their wills they're all talking about each other.

..chose to lose touch with them.

We used to go down to my grandmother's who lived next door to them.

But even then, there was a certain amount of aloofness or shyness,

I don't know which it was with Ken.

In 2005, Fraser and Fraser began work on the estate of Violet Young

who died alone in Ilford in Essex.

She died with more than £300,000 in assets but she hadn't left a will.

She didn't ever speak about family

so I really wasn't quite sure what the situation was.

In fact, I was very surprised to hear that there were 90 members,

not close members, of the family.

Believing that Violet Young had died intestate,

Fraser and Fraser invested thousands of pounds researching the family tree

and tracked down an incredible 90 heirs.

But just when they thought their work was done, a will appeared, rendering all of their work useless.

The fact that a will had turned up meant that none of the heirs we had traced

would be entitled to benefit from Mrs Young's estate.

One of the heirs and the administrator of the estate is Tim Daniel.

It was obviously something that was quite unknown,

obviously, to Fraser and Fraser or indeed to any of the rest of us so it came as something of a surprise.

A bit of a shock, actually.

All of Violet's estate had been left to a Francis Fallon.

But there was no obvious link between the Violet and this man.

When they discovered some discrepancies in the paperwork, it was enough to arouse suspicion.

Andrew Fraser decided to consult a specialist, probate litigation expert, Clare Ainley.

The allegations were simply that the circumstances of the execution of this will all pointed to the fact

that it wasn't a document that Violet Young had signed.

At that point, it had become apparent that

a grant of probate had been taken out in favour of a Mr Francis Fallon.

Everyone I spoke to in the course of my evidence gathering

who had known Violet Young had never heard of Mr Fallon at all.

She had one quite close friend who visited her both at the care home

and subsequently in hospital and he had never heard her speak of this person at all. Um...

So, I think again, the fact that she had, on the face of it,

made a will in favour of someone that nobody had heard of

and left her entire estate to this person, again, it just heightened everyone's suspicion.

Clare was convinced something wasn't right and the fact that Francis Fallon's solicitors

had begun to liquidate Violet's estate and put her property on the market rang alarm bells.

I wrote fairly hastily to the solicitor acting for Mr Fallon,

explaining the circumstances, telling them of our suspicions

and that if steps weren't taken to halt the sale of the property,

we would, in all likelihood, be instructed to go for an injunction.

But Clare also knew she needed to take stronger measures.

I decided it was time to get the police involved,

to see if they could step in and use their powers, um, to seize the deeds to the property

or threaten further action.

The police needed to act fast before the house was sold

and any other assets from Violet Young's estate were unlawfully taken.

The property hadn't been sold but an attempt was being made to sell it.

There was also money in the deceased's bank account that had gone

and I was informed that Mr Fallon had taken the money out of the account.

In fact, as well as getting the house put on the market,

Francis Fallon had siphoned off a whopping £60,000.

Mark Cross, a detective constable working for the Metropolitan Police Fraud Squad, was handling the case.

This kind of fraud is despicable. It's stealing from the dead.

But when Violet Young's case landed on his desk,

DC Cross was in the middle of one of the largest ever probate fraud investigations.

It was a crime worth £2 million and the man at the centre of the investigation

was one Francis Fallon.

I was allocated this investigation in November of 2007

and it was a referral from the Land Registry.

The defendant, Frank Fallon, had been identified as carrying out numerous searches online

in relation to certain properties.

Fallon worked with an accomplice called Richard Carr.

Fallon had been using the Treasury's list of unclaimed estates

to find people who had passed away who had property.

He then attempted to illegally transfer the properties into his own name.

Fallon and Carr could have made millions of pounds by selling properties

that they were not entitled to.

They managed to register properties in alias names that they were using

and in some cases, sell houses that they were not entitled to.

And Violet Young's house was a prime target.

She had not registered the property, she had been left at by her parents and she lived there alone.

Upon being granted probate, Frank Fallon emptied the bank accounts of Violet Young.

There was in the region of £60,000 in her bank accounts

and he transferred that money to a bank account of his own and used the money as his own.

DC Cross needed to prove they had been foul play in the creation of Violet's will.

His first stop was to call in a handwriting expert.

I suspected that the signature of Violet Young was in fact a forgery.

During my inquiries, I recovered some signatures of Violet Young

on documentation from the care home where she was living.

And certainly, to the untrained eye, the signatures did not match.

Therefore, I suspected we were dealing with a forged will

and I made further inquiries in relation to it.

The Violet Young side of the investigation was very important to show that Frank Fallon

was not afraid to submit documentation to probate departments.

He purported to be the beneficiary of the will, was quite happy,

even though the will was forged,

to put himself forward in his own name as the beneficiary, and was not afraid to front out, if you like,

the different organisations in this country.

With strong, positive evidence from the handwriting experts and plenty of circumstantial evidence,

DC Cross's team were finally ready to bring in Fallon and Carr.

In December 2008, we have collated enough evidence to arrange the arrests

of Frank Fallon and Richard Carr.

The ruthless pair of modern-day grave robbers

that had preyed on the estates of innocent people like Violet Young

were charged and remanded in custody.

Following the examination of Richard Carr's computer, we found a copy of one of the wills.

That assisted us in evidence in forgery of that will.

Also, we found a deed of gift which related to Violet Young, which showed

the two were involved together in preparing documentation to try and prove

that they were the beneficiaries of the estate of a Violet Young.

In November 2009, when the trial of Francis Fallon and Richard Carr begins,

along with the case of Violet Young, they are being charged with 11 other counts of probate fraud.

Andrew Fraser is called as a key witness.

I'm very nervous, actually. Yeah, we're talking about criminal matters, none of this civil matters,

you said this, I said that and the court decides.

This is a criminal prosecution.

Francis Fallon, I understand, is on remand.

He has been in Wandsworth prison for nearly a year now, and the outcome is

if he is found guilty, it's likely to be a custodial sentence.

Having given evidence at the trial, Andrew is confident that justice was going to be done.

I hoped on the conclusion of this case they would write to all 90 heirs

entitled to Violet Young's estate to tell them that Mr Fallon's been found guilty of forgery

and, and as such, his will, as proved, will be struck out.

Three weeks later, the jury returned their verdict, and both Fallon and Carr are found guilty on all counts.

Fallon is sentenced to seven years in prison,

whilst Carr, who is been convicted in his absence, remains on the run.

It was a very satisfying result,

and a lengthy prison sentence that was thoroughly justified for their offences.

Frank Fallon made half a million pounds himself,

and had he been successful in selling the properties he transferred

into identities that were not true,

he could have sold the properties for several million pounds.

We are now using the Proceeds of Crime Act to try and identify the assets of Frank Fallon

and recover monies from him to enable us to compensate the victims of this crime.

Fallon and Carr used a number of ways to identify potential victims,

including the Treasury's list of unclaimed estates.

As a result of their activities,

the Government decided to take steps to guard against this type of fraud in the future.

In 2007, the Treasury stopped publishing the values on the list of unclaimed estates.

Now the list only includes the name, place and date of death of the person who has died.

It may protect against foul play in the future, but it also adds another layer of work for the heir hunters.

Now they start their research by trying to put a value on the estate,

before deciding whether a case is worth taking on or not.

To lose the values of the estates dramatically changes how Probate research or heir hunting works.

In 2007, we were doing two cases, maybe three cases a week.

Now, in 2009, at the end of the legal case, we are during 10 to 15, 20 cases some days,

so a huge amount of extra work, even if some of them we don't take through to the end.

It's certainly increased our workload dramatically.

Everyone is relieved that someone has actually been caught for this.

I think we were happy to know that we put a stop to it in the first place, to stop...

No future frauds of this type could happen.

But whilst Fallon has been brought to justice,

it's vital that the heir hunters keep vigilant.

I fear that if this estate had not been referred to us by a member of the public,

he could very well have got away with it.

Because Frasers got referred early on in the cycle, and before the fraud was completed,

that's why we have managed to put a stop to it

and why the police have been able to put a conviction together.

Another month, another two months, would have been too late.

And for the family and friends of Violet Young, Fallon's conviction is a triumph of justice.

Some crimes are talked about as being victimless, but actually,

this is a crime with victims,

because there are legitimate relations who should have inherited the estate,

who may not have known of the existence of the person

but under the law they are entitled to be beneficiaries and basically,

they are being cheated out of their lawful inheritance by criminal means.

In November 2009, one estate listed by the

Treasury solicitor without releasing the value was that of Kenneth Adams.

Heir hunters, Fraser and Fraser, have picked up the case

and discovered that he owned his own house, estimated to be worth £110,000.

The team have dispatched travelling heir hunters in the hunt for Kenneth's rightful beneficiaries,

but as far as Kenneth's friend knew, he had no family, and kept his personal life private.

There was one girl I think he had his eye on,

but they was always together,

then one day they just parted and never spoke again.

I went up to the girl one day and I said, whatever happened to you and Ken?

Why didn't... We all thought you was made for each other.

She said, I asked him to take me out,

he said no, and walked way, and that was it, he never spoke to her again!

Kenneth may not have been romantically inclined,

but the landlady at his local, Carolanne Johnson, certainly had a soft spot for him.

We miss Ken terrible.

He's just one of our customers that, you know, it he was that sort of lovely, bubbly man.

He was lovely. You just wanted to cuddle him. That was Ken.

At an estimated £110,000,

this estate is likely to have lots of competition chasing heirs.

David Pacifico has called Michelle, the daughter of Raymond Keeble, a potential heir.

Thank you very much indeed.

Thank you. Bye-bye.

Excellent. Very good call indeed.

It's sort of verified the family of which, it looks as if,

there may only be three beneficiaries on this side of the family.

One being an aunt of the deceased, who's 103 in a nursing home, which is great news.

And this lady's father's still alive, and so is her aunt.

She knew a good deal of knowledge about her grandmother's brothers and sisters because she was so interested

in her family tree, and this is why she was able to confirm to me

about whether these great aunts and uncles were married or not,

so she's actually mentioned every one of the ones that we had in our family tree, which ties up.

Despite having had eight brothers and sisters,

there are now only three living relatives on Kenneth's dad's side,

and they are all heirs.

Edith, who is Kenneth's auntie, and his cousins, Raymond and Jean.

Travelling heir hunter, Dave Hadley, gets the call to go and sign Raymond.

He's available to be seen any time, so I'm going to make our way straight there now,

and then hopefully I'll also be able to arrange an appointment to see his sister, who's also an heir

at about four o'clock this afternoon, when she gets home from work.

In the office, Gareth is amazed that such a large family would have so few offspring.

There's something even more surprising.

It was a family that was very close, they were living next door to each other...

In their wills, they're all talking about each other,

but it sort of looks like the family have just sort of filtered down to,

you know, the last surviving few who happen to have lost contact with each other.

It looks as though, at some stage, they were a close family but, you know, sands of time, it sort of

drifted apart a little bit.

Dave Hadley is hoping to sign Raymond Keeble.

He was 10 years older than his cousin Kenneth, and the news of his death has come as a shock.

I was going to phone him the end of the week.

We spoke just before Christmas, and

he seemed to be doing OK.

Right. I'm surprised that nobody contacted you, then. Maybe they just didn't find your details.

I mean, he had got his friends, and I'm surprised that they hadn't my contact.

Raymond has a picture of another heir, Kenneth's aunty Edith.

That lady up there on the end is 103.

Yeah, I understand that there's still somebody

in the family of that age, which is amazing, isn't it?

Raymond has his own theories why the cousins weren't in close contact.

Ken was never close to the family.

He had lost his parents some years ago,

but he had got friends.

I saw more of him when he was little,

together with my sister.

We used to go down to my grandmother's, my mother's mother,

who lived next door to them.

But even then, it was...

There was a certain amount of aloofness or shyness, I don't know which it was with Ken,

but he just seemed to keep himself to his self.

Raymond asks Fraser's to help him submit his claim.

Back in the register office, Paul's day is done.

10 maternal cousins and aunts on both sides.

Of those, we've only got five heirs, so it's a big tree but not many heirs.

That's fantastic news for us.

Meanwhile, travelling heir hunter Dave has arrived at Kenneth's other cousin's house, Jean Waring.

Hello, Mrs Waring? Hello there.

David Hadley from Fraser and Fraser.

How do you do?

This is the family tree here, so this is you and there's your brother.

There's your mother, Rose, and if we follow that line along,

there's Kenneth and there's his father, William, and his mother...

Was it William? We called him Harold.

His father was William Harold Adams.

A lot of people used to use their middle names in those days, and I think most of your family did,

because when I was speaking to your brother, he said, "Frank?"

I said, "Was it Edward Frank?"

So they obviously use their middle names.

Your mother would have been entitled to a share if she had been alive,

but because your mother's passed away, then her share passes down to her children.

Jean has found the news of Kenneth's death very unsettling.

I was upset to think that Ken had died and nobody told me.

Ken was definitely... a chap on his own.

All I can remember is he used to be quite happy going out with his two pals

and they would go round for a drink,

and that's about all.

Jean has also asked Frasers to help her submit her claim.

It's mid-afternoon, and the heir hunters have found all the heirs to Kenneth's estate.

David Pacifico is pleased at how the investigation went.

I am very happy with the outcome of this case because it looked like we located all the heirs,

and it has all tied up nicely.

The team contacted five heirs who will share the £110,000 between them,

but Ken's case would never have gone to the Treasury if he had made a will.

Ken, he was set in his ways,

and you couldn't tell him, you have got to do a will, cos

if you told Ken that, he wouldn't do it anyway.

He was convinced that his best friend, and as far as

he was concerned next of kin, would get whatever he had got.

We used to say, "Have you made a will?" "No."

He just didn't want to know.

I don't know why, I don't know whether he thought, well, why should I pay for somebody else to have...

I don't know. He just said, no, I ain't going to bother. That was it, full stop.

He always used to say, "Well, you're my next of kin." I said, "That don't mean a thing, Ken."

Ken may have died without his family's knowledge, but his friends made sure he had a good send-off.

Ken was cremated at Yardley's Cemetery.

His mum and dad was also there, so it was the correct thing for Dennis to decide that he should go up there

with his parents.

Dennis was the one that sorted out the funeral itself.

I volunteered to do the buffet,

cos I didn't want him to go without a wake.

He was happy and content here and we felt that the right thing to do

was to give him a good send-off.

This is the only place he could really have had his do afterwards.

Of course, we came back here and it was like meeting the old days

cos some of his friends which we hadn't seen for many, many years had turned up.

It was nice to see them.

We had all got all older.

We had a laugh, some of the things they knew about him which we didn't know about.

It was great, yes.

Pity it had to end the way it did.

If you would like to find out more

about how to build a family tree,

or write a will, go to:

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