Climpson/Morgan Heir Hunters

Every year, thousands die without leaving a will.

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

Keeping this money in the family is a job for the heir hunters.

On today's programme, the heir hunters face their toughest competition yet...

KNOCK ON DOOR

-Who's that?

-Thank you very much.

-..as they race to be the first

to sign up heirs to a possible £200,000 fortune.

Well, I tell you, a very close call!

And the difficult search for the family of a man who died all alone in the world.

None of us had any details.

There was no contact numbers that we knew of.

So it was just unfortunate. We just had to contact the police.

Plus, how you may be entitled to inherit some of the unclaimed estates held by the Treasury.

Could thousands of pounds be heading your way?

In the UK, two thirds of people don't have a will.

When they die, the law states that unless the authorities

can find an obvious heir, their money goes to the Government.

Last year, the Treasury pocketed a staggering £18 million in unclaimed estates.

That's where the heir hunters step in.

I'm trying to get to speak to Lillian from number 146.

There are over 30 companies whose business it is

to track down the rightful kin, competing against each other to solve cases,

sign up heirs and earn their commission.

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

It's owned by Andrew, Charles and Neil Fraser.

They run a team of case managers and researchers in the office as well as a squadron of travelling

heir hunters, who are based all over the country and are ready to go wherever the hunt takes them.

It's 7am on Thursday morning at Fraser & Fraser's London office.

The Treasury has just released its list of unclaimed estates,

and Neil Fraser is trying to identify the high-value cases.

This morning, it looks like he's in luck.

I think the main case we're going to look at today is this Ethel Climpson.

Dies in 2008, December of 2008.

Now, it doesn't look like she owned a property when she passed away,

but the house that she was living in was sold on the 4th of December.

Now, to me, that sort of indicates the property's been sold as she's moved into a nursing home.

Ethel died aged 88, six months after moving into this nursing home in East London.

The property that Neil believes she sold just before her death was in Leytonstone.

He estimates the house could have been sold for around £200,000.

As Ethel was only in the home for a short while,

he hopes that'll mean there's a lot of money left over for the estate.

I think we're going to work that quite quickly and probably get quite a lot of staff on it.

The surname Climpson sounds very good.

I think it's going to be quiet an easy name to work.

Therefore I suspect that we're going to fill out the family tree very, very quickly but probably

get an awful lot of competition, so fingers crossed we can get to everyone before the opposition does.

If the estate is going to be worth at least £200,000,

then the company could be in line to make good commission.

Climpson is an unusual name, which will stand out in the records and be easy to trace.

So Neil's going to focus all his efforts on investigating this side of the family first.

It's a risk, but he hopes it'll pay off.

Good morning. I'm sorry to trouble you so early in the morning...

Heir hunter David Slee immediately takes charge of the case.

He's already found a number for a neighbour of Ethel's in Leytonstone.

Not aware of the person at all? No.

I'm very sorry to have troubled you. Thank you for your time. Bye-bye.

If they don't have any joy on the phone,

the next step is to send someone round to see what they can find out on the ground.

Dave Hadley.

Between them, Neil and Dave assign a senior researcher out on the road to the case.

But no joy there, either.

Dave Hadley's on answerphone.

Why do I think it's going to be one of those days?!

David's frustrated because he knows that the first few minutes of any investigation

can make or break a case, especially when there could be as much as £200,000 at stake.

Whether or not Ethel left a lot of money after her death,

for the last years of her life she lived modestly in this terraced house in East London.

Elaine was her good friend and carer until just before the end, and she always knew Ethel as Peggy.

Everybody who knew Peggy liked her.

She was a very bright, happy, fun-loving person.

I kept in touch with her 30-odd years, so I would say it's a lifelong friendship.

Ethel and Elaine met in 1975 when they were both working

in the accounts department of Heal's furniture store in London.

Heal's was a very posh place to work in. When I say to people where I'm working, they say,

"Ooh, you're working at Heal's?" something like that, because it was a very posh place to work in.

Anybody's birthday, or anyone's getting married, or Christmas,

there was a party, and we all enjoyed it together. And it was fun.

And she stayed there until she retired, so she must have loved it.

The friends that Ethel made at Heal's became like family and were a great support and comfort to her.

Although she never married, Ethel did have one great love in her life.

We asked her about her personal life.

She said her fiance went in the Second World War and he didn't come back.

John was Ethel's fiance.

But, like many women at that time, her romantic hopes were dashed by the war.

Losing him so young at what should have been the beginning

of their lives together was something she found very hard to get over.

We did ask her subtle questions.

"Peggy, are you going to get married again?"

She said, "No, girls, I'm not going to get married again. I don't want to."

She said, "John's gone, and I don't want anyone else."

She never met another man or had a family, but that didn't stop her enjoying life.

Ethel loved to travel, and long after her retirement,

she was still enjoying girls' trips abroad with her friends from Heal's.

Peggy was never a sad person. No, never!

Too much personality for that.

It's still only 7:30am,

but case manager David Slee and his team have already made good progress.

They've been able to access Ethel's death certificate on-line.

So from that, Debbie and Jo have already found her birth certificate

and started building out her family tree.

-So she's an only child?

-Yeah.

-Yeah, I thought so.

With no siblings or children of her own, the team now know

they will need to look further back, to her grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins to find any heirs.

Ethel's grandparents were John Henry Climpson and Sarah Stamford.

They had six children, Ethel's father George

being the eldest, and five others, one of whom died in infancy.

We're making sure that we've got top-line births done manually.

Ethel's aunts and uncles will form the top line of her family tree,

and it's likely to be their descendants, her cousins, who are heirs.

So Dave wants to be sure that he's got the right details for them.

There can be gaps on these websites, and we have our own manual records that we can go through.

And although it takes a bit longer, it allows us to be a lot more certain about our research.

It's not long before this meticulous approach to their research pays off.

George Frederick. It's got to be him.

David has found a birth record for a George Frederick, son of Ethel's aunt, Bertha Climpson.

George died in 1996.

But they also uncover a record for his sister June, and here they hit the jackpot.

We've got a current address for a paternal first cousin

living in Woodford Green, so not far from where the deceased lived.

It's absolutely falling out so easy.

Too easy.

This is great news for the team.

It's still only 8am, and they have already located Ethel's first cousin

and their first living heir, June.

But for all they know, the competition could be there already.

So Dave gets straight onto Dave Hadley.

Dave, it's Dave Slee.

Can you go Woodford Green?

-OK.

-We've an address for a paternal first cousin. Thanks now. Bye-bye.

The team have found one heir in record time, but Dave can't afford to rest on his laurels.

There are still four more of Ethel's paternal aunts and uncles to investigate.

It's not long before the next breakthrough.

We've just been able to identify the death of the deceased's

paternal uncle, Frederick William Climpson.

Frederick was Ethel's youngest uncle, who died in 1980 in Debden in Essex.

The heir hunters need to discover if he had any children.

-Very soon, researcher Debbie makes a very interesting discovery.

-Here.

That's not for this marriage, Frederick's?

They get married on March 26th.

-More paper.

-More paper!

Off the marriage of Frederick

there is the possibility of one, two,

three, four, five, six, seven,

eight, nine children. Erm, yeah...!

Nine children means nine more leads for the heir hunters to follow up.

This search is only just getting going.

It's been a mad half-hour, hour or so.

The tree has just ballooned out.

I think we're finding stuff quicker than Dave could write it on the tree.

It's too easy!

A lot of competition on this, as we thought we were going to have,

so fingers crossed they'll go with Fraser's.

Their rivals may be snapping at their heels,

but for the moment, there's no stopping the heir hunters.

They've found six more of Ethel's first cousins and heirs.

Her uncle, Frederick Climpson, had nine children.

Three died, but the rest are alive and well and all living in the same area.

Ipswich. See there? All Suffolk addresses.

Yeah. Ipswich is coming out here as well.

Hopefully we'll be able to contact someone. I think what we need is some phone calls on this.

Yeah, I agree with you. Now.

Heir hunter David Pacifico joins the team.

This case is expanding so fast that they need another case manager just to keep pace with developments.

With the competition breathing down their necks, the two Davids

make some pre-emptive phone calls to the heirs in Ipswich.

What I wonder if it's possible, sir, is if I can have

one of my representatives come and see you today and explain...

David Slee gets through to Ethel's cousin Bryan, and he's desperate to get Fraser's foot in the door.

So if you wouldn't mind, even if another company

does approach you, let my chap have a word with you as well.

It's still only 8:45, and Dave Hadley has already arrived in Woodford Green...

..at the address he's been given for Ethel's cousin June.

Sorry to trouble you so early without an appointment.

I actually wanted to speak to your wife June, if that's possible.

-She's in bed.

-Oh, right. OK. Can I make an appointment to see her today?

-Would that be possible?

-Yes.

That would be fantastic. Thank you. Bye-bye.

Hi, Dave. I've confirmed that the lady does live there. She's in bed at the moment.

So I've made an appointment to interview her in an hour's time.

One hour. OK. I need...

I'm also trying to get you for some interviews in Ipswich.

This is a setback they didn't need.

With heirs lined up ready to be interviewed, time is of the essence.

I'm just going to have to sit here patiently for the next hour until Mrs Brown is ready to see me.

Rather than give ground to the competition,

David Pacifico decides he needs even more manpower on the case.

Ethel Climpson, daughter of George Charles Climpson...

He brings senior researcher on the road Ewart Lindsay up to speed.

-Right, do you want to head to Ipswich?

-All right, Dave.

-Speak to you later. Thanks, Ewart.

-Yeah. Bye.

-Bye.

It's all manic, isn't it? It's all go!

It will be at least an hour-and-a-half before Ewart can get to Ipswich, but back in the office,

a whole new team of heir hunters have started researching Ethel's mother's family, the Norrises.

They're headed up by David number three, David Milchard, AKA Grimble.

Hold on.

Jo, are you still doing this side? Yeah, the big Norris side.

They know that Ethel's mother was born in West Ham in London.

But unlike Climpson, Norris has not been such an easy name to research.

Norris is not a bad name.

I mean, it's not Smith or Jones or anything like that.

But there are quite a lot of them, and we've got at least two of everything in West Ham.

So we can't say, "Oh, it's that one," and move on.

While the maternal team carry on their investigations in the office,

over in Woodford Green, Dave Hadley's hour of waiting is over.

-Hello! Is it convenient?

-Come in.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

He's finally getting to speak to June and her husband Gordon.

Fraser's have invested a lot in this case, so Dave needs this interview to be a success.

Well, I won't disclose who the person is that's died at the moment,

because we have to protect our interests, and until we've got an agreement from the client

that they're prepared for us to deal with it, then...

But once we've got that, then we'll give full disclosure.

-But what I can tell you...

-KNOCK ON DOOR

A knock on the door reveals the competition has finally caught up with them.

Coming up on the show, the race is now on to sign up heirs, and Fraser & Fraser's rivals are closing in.

KNOCK ON DOOR

-Who's that?

-But having come so far, will the heir hunters end up losing it all?

When the heir hunters come across a deceased person who was born and died in the same area,

it often means that their search will be focused there.

But in the case of Howell Morgan, their investigation took them to the end of the Earth and back.

Howell died aged 77 in South Wales.

Sadly, this water-damaged photograph is the only one that survives of him.

He lived the last years of his life in this residential caravan park.

Neighbour Carol Jenkins remembered him as a very private man who everyone knew as H.

We met H about 15 years ago, when he moved in next door to my mother.

In the evenings, you'd go past there, there would just be a small lamp on,

he'd be at his table - because you could see through the curtains - and he'd be reading, doing a crossword.

My husband'd come home in the night, shout, "Night, H!"

His arm'd come up, shout, "Night!" back. And that was his whole routine.

Colwyn Evans lived a few caravans down from Howell.

The two men saw a lot of each other.

Well, he kept himself to himself.

He was a great fella to know, very, very, very quiet.

Howell had lived in the Barry area all his life, so when details of his estate were released by

the Treasury, Welsh heir-hunting company Celtic Research

were well-placed to pick up the investigation.

Celtic Research is run by Peter Birchwood, who,

along with his wife Maria, took on the task of tracking down Howell Morgan's heirs.

I first got the estate of Howell Morgan around about September 2007.

It was valued at roughly 20,000 at the time.

Morgan is a very common surname in Wales, so trying to locate

Howell's records was like looking for a needle in a haystack.

But Peter's well used to this kind of challenge.

He relies a lot on the local community and word of mouth,

so the first thing they did was ask the neighbours.

We never actually seen visitors go back and forth,

not even over the Christmas period or holidays or anything.

Although they drew a blank at first, slowly Celtic Research started to uncover information that revealed

that the quiet man from Barry had in fact lived a life full of adventure, crisscrossing the globe.

Howell grew up within sight of the busy docks and the sea,

which must have inspired him to enlist in the Royal Navy when he was 17.

He later left due to injury and joined the Merchant Marines.

It looks very much as if Howell saw a local company,

the Natural Environment Research Council,

operating two ships out of Barry docks,

and he could very well have gone, knocked on the door and said, "Have you got a job for a sailor?"

Howell started out on his research ships as an uncertificated deck hand.

These were the men whose brute strength and extreme physical efforts put ships

of this kind to sea and allowed them to carry out their duties.

For these research ships, a lot of the work is done,

obviously, at sea, putting stuff in the water, dredging,

working with ropes, working on deck, what traditionally everybody thinks sailors do.

It wasn't long before Howell moved up the ranks.

After 18 months as a deck hand on a merchant ship, he could take his

Efficient Deck Hand certificate, and he obviously did that, because when he went onto the Shackleton,

he is logged on as an EDH - efficient deck hand.

The Shackleton was named after Sir Ernest Shackleton, famous polar explorer.

She was one of four ships that took part in the British Antarctic Survey in the '60s and early '70s,

leaving every October and only returning home the following May or June.

Peter Barker was a scientist and principal investigator

on board the Shackleton and remembers Howell from that time.

I first met Howell Morgan soon after the ship left the UK, I guess.

Clearly, he'd been to sea before many times.

He was a good, competent seaman.

Being at sea over the festive period, the crew would try to

find somewhere suitable to anchor so they could enjoy a merry Christmas.

But one year, it didn't go according to plan.

We couldn't get anywhere near any shallow water on Christmas Day, so we postponed Christmas.

So we were working on Christmas Day.

We wanted to use the winch to do some dredging,

and Howell came up and operated the winch

because he was the only person sober enough to do it.

The other seamen had decided that it was Christmas

on the 25th of December and they were going to get drunk, so they couldn't work.

But not Howell. He was a very pleasant sort of person, had a good personality.

As they gathered information about Howell,

the heir hunters had also unearthed a paper trail of certificates.

His birth certificate showed his parents

to be William Morgan and Olive Rees, and knowing this, they were able to search for any siblings.

The research showed us that he'd been one of three children -

two sisters and himself as the brother.

Howell's sisters would both be potential heirs to his estate.

Peter couldn't find any recent evidence of his older sister,

but he traced the younger one to London, where she married in 1958.

The sister, Sylvia - unfortunately, she'd died,

but she had had two children.

Sylvia's two children were Stephanie and Howard,

and they were also in line to inherit a share of Howell's £20,000 estate.

But there the trail ran dry.

Celtic Research tried to find the girl Stephanie but couldn't find any sign of her.

We couldn't find any marriages for her,

and we couldn't find any trace that she was living in England or Wales.

With his investigation at a standstill,

Peter needed to look further afield to locate the heirs to Howell's £20,000 estate.

Little did he know his search was about to go global.

For every case that is solved, there are still thousands that remain a mystery.

Currently, over 3,000 names drawn from across the country are on the Treasury's unsolved case list.

Their assets will be kept for up to 30 years in the hope that eventually

someone will remember and come forward to claim their inheritance.

With estates valued at anything from 5,000 to millions of pounds,

the rightful heirs are out there somewhere.

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

Could you be the key? Could you be in line for a payout?

Shirley Anne Meanley died in Epsom, Surrey, on the 20th of May, 2005.

Was Shirley a friend or neighbour of yours?

Could you even be related to her and entitled to her estate?

Irene Middleton passed away on the 2nd of October, 2006 in Fulham, London.

If no relatives come forward, her money will go to the Government.

But should it be headed your way?

Still to come on the show, the race to find Ethel Climpson's

heirs hots up, and for one of them, life will never be the same again.

Well, that was a surprise! I mean,

one phone call, it altered things quite dramatically.

Back on the Howell Morgan case, Celtic Research have managed to identify all three of his heirs.

But they couldn't find two of them, his elder sister and his niece, Stephanie.

Luckily, Peter did find a phone number for Howell's nephew and heir Howard, who led him to Stephanie.

The answer was, once her brother Howard had spoken to me,

was that she had moved to Ireland and was living there.

-Come on, girls!

-Stephanie had lived in Ireland since 2002.

She moved there with her husband and family in search of the good life

and a peaceful rural upbringing for their three children.

Well, out of the blue I got a letter one afternoon, opened it up and I had the shock of my life.

Basically, it was outlining my family members and that my uncle had died,

and that was a complete shock to me. I had no idea whatsoever.

Howell sort of lost contact with us when my mother died, really.

Everybody moves on, and we're all busy with our lives.

You forget to write the letter or return the call, so we basically sort of left it at,

"We're OK and we'll let you know."

Although she grew up in London, Stephanie has happy memories

of trips back to Wales to visit her grandmother in Barry.

When I was younger, I spent every summer holiday there for eight weeks at a time.

When my uncle was home from sea, we used to go out, and yeah, we were very, very close.

It seems that Stephanie did hold a special place in her uncle's heart.

The sea-hardened sailor may have been thousands of miles

away in the freezing Southern Ocean, but he still spared a thought for his favourite niece.

I was given a soft toy penguin, which I was quite surprised, because I didn't expect it from my uncle.

He was rough and tough, and a fluffy toy was the last thing.

But no, he sent me a penguin from the Antarctic.

Stephanie had a collection of family keepsakes.

Sadly, much of it, including many photographs of Howell, was lost in a flood several years ago.

But one did survive.

This, unfortunately, is the only photograph I have of my uncle.

It's very faded and very old.

That's my uncle. That sums him up, actually.

He's in the background - "Leave me alone, I'm having a cigarette."

And that's the special one.

I can replace all these, but I can't replace that one.

Celtic Research had now located two of the three heirs to Howell's £20,000 estate.

But although Stephanie had some old photographs of the third, her aunt and Howell's older sister,

she didn't have a current address for her.

It was then that Peter made a lucky discovery.

He had come across a copy of Howell's mother's will,

which gave an address for his sister and took this heir hunt 3,000 miles, from Barry to Canada.

Although the address wasn't current, he took a chance that she was still living in the same area.

I advertised in the local newspaper and was very fortunate

that within a few days she had been told of the advert and contacted me.

It was a shock to her when I told her that her brother had died.

It was unfortunate that the sister had not managed

to get in touch with Howell and, equally,

he had never got in touch with her.

Although brother and sister didn't manage to speak before he died,

Stephanie did make an effort to contact her uncle a few years ago.

I went through the phone book and I found a few Howell Morgans, and I tried every one,

and somebody said yes, they knew him and they knew where he went at night with his friends.

And I asked them to let him know that I was looking for him, and I left my address.

And the next thing I know, I had a letter straight out of the blue, and I was overjoyed.

Totally overjoyed.

Sadly, that letter was lost in the flood that also claimed her photographs of him.

But Stephanie does still have a couple of other letters

that he wrote to her over the years that she holds very dear.

Howell was clearly very fond of his niece in Ireland, but to his neighbours in the residential park,

he was always a private man about whom they knew very little right up to the day he died.

Well, my mother had said the light had been on for two nights

and she hadn't heard him walking round in there.

We went in the bedroom, and he was curled up on the beds.

I would have contacted H's family, but unfortunately

there was no contact numbers that we knew of.

So it was just unfortunate. We just had to contact the police.

In the end, half of Howell's estate went to his sister and half was split between his niece and nephew.

It turned out to be worth less than £20,000, but for Stephanie, it wasn't about the money.

I received just under £2,000. It was nice to have, it did help.

I would obviously prefer my uncle to be around, that meant more to me than any money.

Money aside, Howell's greatest gift to his niece was his love of the sea.

It's something that's stayed with her all her life, and somewhere she often goes to remember him.

I think of my childhood, and how it was in the summer in Wales

and times with my uncle, spent at the place he loved.

I love it, and it feels like coming home.

And I think he would have been proud to think I was back on the water's edge.

Amongst the boats.

Fraser & Fraser have been investigating the case of 88-year-old Ethel Climpson

who died intestate, leaving what Neil Fraser hopes will be a £200,000 estate.

What I have been able to find out is the house she was living in was sold on 4th December.

To me, that indicates the property has been sold as she's moved into a nursing home.

If their hunch is correct, and she did own her home

in Leytonstone before it was sold, then her estate could be worth several hundred thousand pounds.

The possibility of a huge payout has attracted a lot of competition

from rival companies and the hunt for heirs has been fast and furious.

In only a couple of hours, Fraser's managed to trace the first of Ethel's many heirs.

But just then, the competition came knocking.

Fortunately for heir hunter Dave Hadley, June sticks to her guns and hears him out.

You're going to get a few companies contacting you, I'll tell you now.

-Really?

-There's about four or five of us and we compete against one another.

And that's why I was so keen to speak to your wife this morning, rather than this afternoon.

Yes. Oh, how strange!

So your mother was Bertha, wasn't she? Bertha Climpson?

Dave gets on with interviewing June and at the same time, confirms some of the details of her family tree.

And the younger brother, I can remember my mother said, he moved down into Essex.

And of course in those days, they didn't

have a lot of contact as there wasn't phones and things like that.

-That's as far as my memory takes me back.

-You've lost contact with them, presumably?

I never knew him. I never knew any of her brothers.

June's uncle, Frederick Climpson, lost contact with

her mother Bertha when he moved away from London, so he never met June or her brother George.

But his children and grandchildren are now living in Ipswich in Suffolk, and as they speak,

an heir hunter is on his way to interview them.

Right, well thanks ever so much. Lovely to meet you, bye-bye.

-I hope you get on in your quest!

-Thank you.

The money side doesn't, to be honest, bother me too much.

But it would be interesting to see the family tree and the relatives

and maybe have some contact with them.

Because all my life, I've never known them.

Whilst I was there, somebody knocked on the door, left their card.

-But I think we're pretty secure on this one. She's not going to go back on this one.

-No, lovely.

Thanks, mate.

Bye-bye.

The competition is particularly fierce. I know of at least two other companies,

I think there's probably a third, maybe even a fourth company working on this case as well.

But we're certainly ahead of the majority of the competition.

As the next hour or two hours develops, we'll be able to see exactly where we are.

At last, Ewart arrives in Suffolk for his interview with Hazel...

-Hello. Mrs Terry?

-..the granddaughter of Ethel's Uncle Frederick.

Just confirm your full name for me.

With her husband Bernard looking on, the interview has only just got

going when all of a sudden, they're interrupted.

KNOCK AT THE DOOR Who's that?

That's the other gentleman.

-That's the other company?

-Must be.

I had a phone call this morning.

Once again, one of their competitors is on the doorstep.

But Heather's already made up her mind to go with Fraser's.

Nice meeting you. All the best.

Ewart has won the day, but only just.

I tell you, a very close call.

Luckily the heir's husband literally just told the guy to go away.

Isn't that interesting? Job well done to me.

Things are going well in Suffolk, but back in London,

they're still having problems confirming the maternal side of Ethel's family tree.

Ethel's grandparents were John Norris and Ann McEvoy.

Her mother, also called Ethel, was one of eight children, amongst whom was a boy called Leonard.

The team have found records of a Leonard Norris who they think could be Ethel's youngest brother.

Through him, they found several living relatives who could be Ethel's heirs.

However, they need proof that this Leonard Norris has the same parents as Ethel.

So they've sent senior researcher Bob Smith to look for his marriage certificate.

Yep, it's right.

Leonard Norris, son of John Norris.

Dave, hi, it's Bob. I got the marriage, it looks right.

Bob phones in the good news to the office and they give him his new instructions.

I now have to move on very quickly took Milton Keynes to see

Wendy Smith, who we now know is definitely related to our deceased.

Leonard Norris and his wife Charlotte had three children.

Their son, also called Leonard, married Elsie and had one daughter, Wendy.

Ethel's first cousin once removed.

So Bob now becomes travelling heir hunter

number three to hit the road in search of heirs to Ethel's estate, which could be worth up to £250,000.

Our decision, I think, to have three travellers,

the three Daves case-managing, and all the researchers downstairs, is starting to pay off now.

Because we really have swamped it with resources, swamped it

with people, and that's why we're ahead of all of our competition.

For Dave Milchard and the team in the office, it's definitely been a good day's work.

We're finished at the moment, no more to do until tomorrow.

But for the travelling heir hunters on the road, the day is a long way from being over.

Ewart is still working his way through his list

of heirs on the paternal, Climpson side of the family.

-Hello, Mrs Smith?

-Hello, yes.

I'm Robert from Fraser & Fraser.

While in Milton Keynes, Bob finally arrives

at Wendy Smith's house, a cousin of Ethel's on her maternal side.

How many children from your parents' marriage?

-Just me.

-Just you, an only child.

-Yeah.

-That will certainly help you.

-You inherit your father's share, so if there were any other children, obviously...

-We'd have to split them.

Exactly, yeah.

No wonder Wendy's pleased - she could be in line to receive around £20,000.

It's early morning on Friday and some shocking news has come through to Fraser's Central London office

concerning Ethel's old home in Leytonstone.

Heir hunter David Pacifico is in a sombre mood as he puts in a call to Ewart.

-It's likely to be a low-value case now.

-Oh, is it?

-Yeah.

-How much?

Don't know, but she didn't own the property.

Oh, God!

Unfortunately. But there you are.

It turns out that Ethel rented, rather than owned, her home.

So her estate didn't benefit from its sale after all.

I'm just a bit cheesed off.

I don't blame you. I feel the same.

We've gone back over and checked a few things

and it looks as though our initial estimate on the valuation

of the case may have been slightly too high.

It may not be the £200,000 we thought, it could be even down to £5,000, which is...

a harsh reality for us if that is the case, because we've had so many people working on it.

It's a massive disappointment for the heir hunters.

But for the heirs themselves, there is definitely a silver lining to this cloud.

Let's put it this way, we've achieved something in this case by putting people back in contact.

We should be pleased about that.

When she was first contacted by Fraser & Fraser,

June wasn't even sure that she had any living relatives on her mother's side.

A couple of weeks later, and heir hunter David Pacifico has been in touch with some exciting news.

I said to him, "Am I the only first cousin?"

And he said, "No, because there's this uncle up in Suffolk

"that had nine children!"

Well, that was a surprise!

In one phone call, he'd altered things quite dramatically!

June's Uncle Frederick moved from London to Suffolk

and had nine children, of which six are still alive.

They're all Ethel's heirs and all completely unaware that they had a cousin.

It was a real shock because I just thought there was only my brothers and sisters.

I never dreamt there was anybody else.

Thank you very much.

My dad never discussed his family with us, so we just had no idea.

Hello.

Hello, June!

-You're Jean?

-I'm Jean, yes.

-How lovely to meet you.

-Come in.

Wow.

-THEY LAUGH

-There's a number to meet!

-This is my eldest brother, Ron.

-How do you do, Ron?

-My sister, Pat.

-Right.

So you were Climpsons, you were all Climpsons, that's amazing.

You've got photographs, and so have I!

I'll have to get all this...

That's our dad and mum.

-Really?

-That's Fred. Frederick.

That's Frederick. Oh, this is wonderful.

Quite elated!

Quite elated. It's really lovely seeing all these people.

When June walked through the door, it was excitement, trepidation, because you didn't know

what we were going to find out about my dad's family.

So that's your Aunt Bertha.

-So that's dad's sister.

-Yes.

-You can see the likeness.

Yes, I expect you can. I shall have to compare again.

Oh, yes. Definitely.

Definitely saw the resemblance in the photographs of my father and June's mother.

Very much alike, I thought.

That was my grandma, which would have been...

it would have been your grandma, wouldn't it? Yes, of course it would. Of course it would.

Ethel may not have left a large estate, but her actual legacy is much more important.

Because of her, the scattered family has been brought together. And they couldn't be more delighted.

Oh, it's been a fantastic event, really.

Because I don't think it would have come about had this not have happened.

We've now found out about what we never knew anything about.

Now, this is the older brother, this is Henry, but always known as Uncle Harry.

He was my mother's favourite!

I'm pleased that I've been able to fill in a few gaps for them,

because I think they've been more in the dark than I've been.

It's amazing you've got nothing.

-Nothing at all.

-Oh, I'm quite a revelation, aren't I?!

It's given me great pleasure.

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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