Milner/Sedgbeer Heir Hunters


Milner/Sedgbeer

Similar Content

Browse content similar to Milner/Sedgbeer. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!

Transcript


LineFromTo

In Yorkshire, the heir hunters are searching for the beneficiaries

0:00:020:00:05

to an unclaimed estate worth an estimated £200,000.

0:00:050:00:10

They're looking for long-lost relatives

0:00:100:00:13

who have no idea they're in line for a windfall.

0:00:130:00:16

Could they be knocking on your door?

0:00:170:00:20

On today's programme,

0:00:390:00:40

the battle's on, as the heir hunters

0:00:400:00:43

come up against a rival on the road...

0:00:430:00:46

They're climbing all over this case while I'm at the house.

0:00:460:00:49

..and the death of an elderly Devon woman

0:00:490:00:52

leaves her descendants speechless.

0:00:520:00:54

I never thought for one second Ruth had any money.

0:00:540:00:57

When Saul contacted me I said, "There's a mistake here".

0:00:570:01:01

Plus, how you may be entitled to inherit

0:01:010:01:04

some of the unclaimed estates held by the Treasury.

0:01:040:01:06

Could thousands of pounds be heading your way?

0:01:060:01:10

Every year in the UK, an estimated 300,000 people

0:01:160:01:20

die without leaving a will.

0:01:200:01:23

If no relatives are found, any money that's left behind

0:01:230:01:26

will go to the Government.

0:01:260:01:28

Last year, they made £12 million from unclaimed estates.

0:01:280:01:32

That's where the heir hunters come in.

0:01:340:01:37

They make it their business to track down missing relatives,

0:01:370:01:40

and help them claim their rightful inheritance.

0:01:400:01:43

One of the great parts of this job

0:01:440:01:46

is not only bringing good news to people about inheritances

0:01:460:01:50

that they're entitled to, but also reuniting families.

0:01:500:01:53

It's seven in the morning

0:02:000:02:02

at the offices of heir hunters Fraser & Fraser,

0:02:020:02:06

and boss Neil Fraser has been scanning the Treasury's weekly list of unclaimed estates.

0:02:060:02:10

His instincts are telling him one of the cases could be worth a lot of money.

0:02:100:02:14

We're going to look at the estate of Ian Thomas Walter Milner.

0:02:160:02:19

He's from Derby, dies in 2009,

0:02:190:02:23

and it looks as though he owns a property.

0:02:230:02:26

So, value-wise, we're talking maybe £150,000, £200,000.

0:02:260:02:32

The fact the deceased has two middle names should help their search,

0:02:330:02:37

so it makes the case even more appealing to Neil.

0:02:370:02:39

There are going to be several Ian Milners.

0:02:420:02:46

There are possibly going to be two or three Ian Thomas Milners.

0:02:460:02:51

I expect we'll only find one Ian Thomas Walter Milner.

0:02:520:02:56

Ian Milner died aged 60 on 9th November 2009 in Derby.

0:02:580:03:03

He never married, and lived for most of his life

0:03:050:03:09

in this semi-detached house in Mickleover,

0:03:090:03:11

a small town of 17,000 people, which although now a suburb of Derby,

0:03:110:03:16

is often referred to as "the village" by locals.

0:03:160:03:18

For the last 20 years of his life,

0:03:220:03:24

Ian worked as a cleaner in his local supermarket.

0:03:240:03:27

Martin Reeve was his boss there,

0:03:270:03:29

and the two struck up a close friendship.

0:03:290:03:32

From the very onset, we got on.

0:03:330:03:36

Ian was a really nice guy.

0:03:360:03:38

He always spoke...well every morning.

0:03:380:03:42

He always had a smile and a few words to say.

0:03:420:03:46

Ian was a very hard-working guy. You could always rely on him, as well.

0:03:460:03:50

The two men shared a love of dogs.

0:03:520:03:55

Ian was very passionate about his pet - Sheba, a dog.

0:03:550:04:01

I know he spent pretty much every hour with Sheba.

0:04:010:04:05

He didn't seem to have family or friends, really, around him,

0:04:050:04:09

in the local area that looked out for him,

0:04:090:04:12

so I felt some compassion towards him,

0:04:120:04:16

to try and help him the best I could.

0:04:160:04:19

In the office, the search for any beneficiaries to Ian's estate begins.

0:04:190:04:24

Good morning. I apologise for troubling you so early in the morning.

0:04:240:04:27

I'm making enquiries about a neighbour of yours who lived at number 59.

0:04:270:04:31

Case manager Dave Slee has got hold of a number for Ian's neighbour in Mickleover.

0:04:310:04:36

We think he was from Shardlow area. So you knew the mother?

0:04:380:04:41

Phone calls like these can give the heir hunters

0:04:410:04:45

the head start they need with a case, and put them ahead of the competition

0:04:450:04:48

at this crucial early stage.

0:04:480:04:51

Did Ian have any brothers or sisters, as far as you're aware?

0:04:520:04:56

He was an only child, was he? Take care now. Bye-bye.

0:04:560:04:58

The neighbour has given Dave the basic information he needs

0:05:000:05:02

to start building up Ian's family tree.

0:05:020:05:06

It seems he was the only child of Benjamin Milner and Mary Halford.

0:05:070:05:10

I'm fairly confident, as one can ever be,

0:05:130:05:17

that there's no near kin,

0:05:170:05:19

so the deceased had no brothers and sisters.

0:05:190:05:21

This is key information for the heir hunters,

0:05:220:05:24

as it means they won't waste time looking for siblings,

0:05:240:05:28

and instead start on the search for cousins. But Dave's a bit wary.

0:05:280:05:33

The risk is taking a neighbour's information

0:05:350:05:40

that the deceased was an only child as gospel.

0:05:400:05:44

But Dave's an experienced heir hunter, and he's willing to take a chance,

0:05:460:05:51

so the team start their search for Ian's cousins.

0:05:510:05:55

It looks like his father, Benjamin Milner, was part of a large family,

0:05:550:05:58

so it's likely there will be heirs on that side.

0:05:580:06:02

But at the moment, Dave can't even find Benjamin Milner

0:06:020:06:05

on the 1911 census.

0:06:050:06:08

Are you doing a year each side, Amy?

0:06:080:06:11

The family we have identified would mean that the deceased

0:06:110:06:15

had a number of paternal aunts and uncles.

0:06:150:06:19

If they're wrong, then we could spend ages researching the wrong family.

0:06:190:06:23

Meanwhile, researcher Dominic

0:06:250:06:27

has started looking into Ian's mother's family.

0:06:270:06:30

Born Mary Halford, she appears on the 1911 census,

0:06:310:06:34

along with her father, Thomas Halford, and her mother, Alice,

0:06:340:06:37

but there's no sign of any other children from that marriage.

0:06:370:06:40

It looks like, on the maternal side, there isn't going to be any heirs, but we don't know that for sure.

0:06:420:06:47

If Ian's mother was an only child,

0:06:490:06:50

there's no chance that he will have any cousins

0:06:500:06:53

on her side of the family who would be entitled to inherit.

0:06:530:06:56

That means that the team could be relying on the paternal side

0:06:560:07:00

to provide them with legitimate heirs.

0:07:000:07:04

Luckily, Simon's making good progress with the Milner family tree.

0:07:050:07:10

On the '11 census there were six siblings,

0:07:120:07:16

and there's another one born after '11,

0:07:160:07:19

so we've got quite a few,

0:07:190:07:21

so hopefully somewhere, amongst all those,

0:07:210:07:24

there will be some cousins of the deceased.

0:07:240:07:28

Ian's father, Benjamin, was one of seven children

0:07:300:07:33

born to Charles Milner and Eliza Massay.

0:07:330:07:36

The children were all born in and around Burton-on-Trent,

0:07:360:07:39

so Simon is looking for marriage records in the same area.

0:07:390:07:42

I've got a marriage of an Alice C Milner in Stoke-on-Trent,

0:07:440:07:47

which is not quite the right area,

0:07:470:07:49

but it's nearer than any of the others.

0:07:490:07:53

Dominic has been waiting

0:07:530:07:54

to tie up the maternal side of this investigation,

0:07:540:07:57

and now he's got the means to do it.

0:07:570:08:00

That's Thomas's death. That's Alice's death.

0:08:000:08:04

Simon's given him Ian's maternal grandparents' death certificate.

0:08:040:08:09

The informant on Thomas Halford's death was his widow, Alice.

0:08:120:08:16

When Alice died six years later,

0:08:170:08:19

the informant on her death was her daughter, Mary, Ian's mother.

0:08:190:08:23

Dominic thought these certificates might show that Mary had a brother

0:08:260:08:29

or sister who hadn't shown up on the census.

0:08:290:08:31

This could have led to nieces and nephews

0:08:330:08:36

who'd have been entitled to a share of Ian's estate.

0:08:360:08:38

But it wasn't to be,

0:08:380:08:41

and the maternal side of this investigation

0:08:410:08:43

is now officially closed.

0:08:430:08:45

But as one door closes, another opens.

0:08:490:08:53

While looking through probate records,

0:08:530:08:56

Dominic has come across a copy of Ian's mother Mary's will.

0:08:560:09:00

It shows she left an estate worth £125,000, in 1994.

0:09:000:09:05

That would indicate to me

0:09:070:09:09

she probably owned the property when she died.

0:09:090:09:12

You would hope that when we get that probate record back,

0:09:120:09:15

it would show the deceased, Ian Milner,

0:09:150:09:18

was the one who received all that money,

0:09:180:09:21

and it might indicate there is some value to this case,

0:09:210:09:24

so it is worth us throwing everything at it.

0:09:240:09:26

If the house was worth £125,000 in 1994,

0:09:290:09:35

the housing boom means it's almost certainly worth

0:09:350:09:37

the £200,000 Neil originally estimated.

0:09:370:09:42

That's great news for the team.

0:09:420:09:43

Heir hunters work on commission,

0:09:450:09:47

taking a percentage of the amount claimed by each heir.

0:09:470:09:50

So now they know it's a high-value case,

0:09:500:09:53

they can afford to up the manpower on this job and really go after it.

0:09:530:09:58

Veteran case manager David Milchard, AKA "Grimble", joins the team.

0:10:000:10:04

We've got nobody on the mother's side,

0:10:050:10:08

but it looks like there's quite a large family on the father's side.

0:10:080:10:12

Might just whittle down a bit.

0:10:120:10:14

The team have discovered that

0:10:160:10:18

out of Ian's six aunts and uncles on his father's side,

0:10:180:10:22

at least three of them died without children,

0:10:220:10:24

so they are now focusing on Ian's aunt Ada, in Bradford.

0:10:240:10:28

Unfortunately, she married Johnson and there are lots of Johnsons,

0:10:280:10:33

so we're having a little trouble doing anything with Jack and Harry Johnson at the moment.

0:10:330:10:37

They're all potentially cousins of the deceased.

0:10:370:10:41

What Simon has managed to establish is that Ada and Walter Johnson

0:10:420:10:46

had five children - Marjorie, Charles, Annie, Jack and Harry.

0:10:460:10:52

But when it comes to finding their children,

0:10:520:10:55

it's like looking for a needle in a haystack.

0:10:550:10:59

Harry Johnson, who is the child of Ada,

0:10:590:11:02

we've got eight marriages for Harry in Bradford, when he'd be in his 20s and early 30s,

0:11:020:11:06

so we have no way of knowing which is the right one without getting it.

0:11:060:11:10

At times like this, the only thing to do is call in the cavalry.

0:11:100:11:15

My thinking is getting Dave Mansell over to Bradford.

0:11:150:11:18

Dave Mansell is one of the company's senior researchers on the road.

0:11:200:11:24

He's part of a crack team of heir hunters based all over the country.

0:11:250:11:29

Their job is to follow up any lead...

0:11:290:11:32

..be the first at the heir's door,

0:11:330:11:36

and make sure they are the company they decide to sign up with.

0:11:360:11:40

Right now, Dave needs to get over to Bradford Register Office,

0:11:420:11:45

and chase down the vital certificates

0:11:450:11:48

that will prove they're on the right track.

0:11:480:11:51

There's an Ada Frances Milner,

0:11:510:11:55

to that Walter Johnson.

0:11:550:11:57

Now, I'm getting a lead on the Jack stem.

0:11:570:12:01

Yeah?

0:12:010:12:02

I might hopefully have a current address,

0:12:020:12:05

so we shouldn't be too far off on that.

0:12:050:12:07

The heir hunters desperately need a breakthrough.

0:12:070:12:10

This is a high-value case, and rival firms will be hard on their heels.

0:12:100:12:16

But Simon is still struggling to find that elusive first heir.

0:12:160:12:20

We did have three marriages.

0:12:200:12:22

We think we've got rid of two, which left just that one.

0:12:220:12:24

-She's not on the phone?

-No, no phone number found.

0:12:240:12:27

I know, it's shocking, isn't it(?)

0:12:270:12:29

Coming up, every heir hunter's nightmare.

0:12:310:12:34

I've just been talking to somebody else about that.

0:12:340:12:37

-Have you got someone with you?

-Yes.

-OK, sorry to bother you.

0:12:370:12:40

A rival from another company catches up with Dave

0:12:400:12:43

at the worst possible moment.

0:12:430:12:45

-Is that someone else, like yourself?

-Yes.

0:12:450:12:47

Heir-hunting is all about making sure the right people get the money

0:12:520:12:56

that's due to them.

0:12:560:12:58

But it can also bring families back together,

0:12:580:13:00

as in the case of Ruth Sedgbeer,

0:13:000:13:02

whose £25,000 estate

0:13:020:13:05

appeared on the Treasury's list in November 2009.

0:13:050:13:09

The case was picked up by Saul Marks

0:13:130:13:15

of heir-hunting company Celtic Research.

0:13:150:13:19

The deceased in this case was Ruth Sedgbeer, who died aged 80.

0:13:190:13:24

She was born in 1929, in North Devon.

0:13:240:13:28

Ruth Sedgbeer was a true Devon maid.

0:13:280:13:31

She was born and lived her whole life in Rustic Cottage,

0:13:310:13:35

in the tiny hamlet of Gunn.

0:13:350:13:37

For her, an excursion to South Molton,

0:13:370:13:41

which is about seven miles away,

0:13:410:13:44

was quite a journey,

0:13:440:13:46

which she undertook only because of her cats,

0:13:460:13:51

usually to take them to the vet.

0:13:510:13:53

As well as her cats,

0:13:530:13:54

Ruth's other great love was her local church, in Gunn,

0:13:540:13:59

where she was a loyal member of the congregation.

0:13:590:14:02

She would never come to church without wearing a hat.

0:14:020:14:06

On ordinary Sundays, she would wear a bright-red beret,

0:14:060:14:10

but on festive occasions,

0:14:100:14:12

she always sported a straw boater with a bright green ribbon around it.

0:14:120:14:16

Ruth looked after the church for the whole of her life.

0:14:160:14:21

If she found a leak in the roof, I would know about it very quickly,

0:14:210:14:25

and Ruth would always say, "And what are you going to do about it?"

0:14:250:14:30

She was a determined lady, very independent-minded.

0:14:310:14:35

When she was 20, Ruth went to work for a local family,

0:14:370:14:40

where she was employed as a mother's help for over 50 years.

0:14:400:14:45

My mother simply couldn't imagine life without Ruth.

0:14:450:14:49

She was incredibly important in our family.

0:14:490:14:52

She was part and parcel of everything

0:14:520:14:54

that happened in family life.

0:14:540:14:56

She made no bones about the fact that she didn't like children when we were small.

0:14:560:15:00

We kind of went in the same category as peas and chocolate,

0:15:000:15:04

which were her other two dislikes.

0:15:040:15:06

I remember this, as a child.

0:15:060:15:08

Just about tolerable, but basically to be avoided.

0:15:080:15:12

But in her way, I think she was very fond of all of us as a family.

0:15:120:15:15

Ruth lived with and cared for her elderly parents until they died.

0:15:160:15:21

She never married.

0:15:210:15:24

When you consider the time she was born, 1929,

0:15:240:15:28

a lost generation of young men after the First World War.

0:15:280:15:32

Many women from that era didn't marry

0:15:340:15:37

because there was actually a shortage of men.

0:15:370:15:40

She was a shy person,

0:15:410:15:43

who didn't relate to other people particularly well.

0:15:430:15:47

She much preferred animals, loved them dearly.

0:15:470:15:50

And I think she was very happy looking after her parents,

0:15:500:15:55

and leading that sort of quiet life.

0:15:550:15:57

When Saul first started work on the Sedgbeer case in 2009,

0:15:590:16:03

his first task was to check the online records

0:16:030:16:06

of births, marriages and deaths,

0:16:060:16:09

which told him that Ruth's parents' names

0:16:090:16:11

were Reginald Sedgbeer and Agnes Johnson.

0:16:110:16:14

Presuming this to be correct,

0:16:150:16:18

we were able to look up other Sedgbeer-Johnson births,

0:16:180:16:22

to see if there were any siblings, and there weren't.

0:16:220:16:25

So I looked for the marriage of her parents,

0:16:260:16:28

and there was no Sedgbeer-Johnson marriage, either.

0:16:280:16:31

An amateur genealogist might have been stumped by this apparent dead end,

0:16:330:16:38

but Saul was able to call on his years of heir-hunting experience,

0:16:380:16:41

which helped him make his next move.

0:16:410:16:43

I had a feeling that Johnson and Johnston are very similar names,

0:16:450:16:48

and it could always be that the two names

0:16:480:16:51

had simply been mis-transcribed.

0:16:510:16:53

One was right, and one was wrong.

0:16:530:16:55

Sure enough, Saul found there were two records

0:16:550:16:58

of two Johnston-Sedgbeer marriages in the area,

0:16:580:17:02

and five Johnston-Sedgbeer births.

0:17:020:17:04

It can be very satisfying to solve a little riddle like that,

0:17:040:17:08

where perhaps things aren't as they seem.

0:17:080:17:11

You need a certain amount of lateral thinking,

0:17:110:17:15

so, yes, once we can open a case up like that, we can get on with it.

0:17:150:17:18

Like Smith and Jones, Johnston is a very common name,

0:17:200:17:24

which makes it very hard to research,

0:17:240:17:27

but a quick check revealed that Saul's luck was in.

0:17:270:17:30

Johnstone is a very Scottish name,

0:17:300:17:33

and this family were entirely from Devon,

0:17:330:17:35

and there aren't that many Scots in Devon,

0:17:350:17:38

so what we were able to do was establish

0:17:380:17:41

this was in fact the only Johnstone family in this area.

0:17:410:17:45

Saul immediately started calling

0:17:450:17:48

all the Devon-based Johnstones that he could find.

0:17:480:17:51

All the people I spoke to in this family were incredibly helpful.

0:17:510:17:54

They were willing to lend their time and their memories

0:17:540:17:58

to compiling this fantastic tree.

0:17:580:18:00

I quickly discovered that the deceased mother, Agnes Johnstone,

0:18:000:18:05

was the youngest of 13 children, so it was an enormous family.

0:18:050:18:09

Ruth's grandparents were James Johnstone and Sarah Thomason,

0:18:110:18:15

who met and married in 1881, in Betws Garmon near Mount Snowdon, in North Wales.

0:18:150:18:21

James's family were Scottish shepherds

0:18:250:18:28

who had moved down there for work,

0:18:280:18:30

while Sarah was the daughter of a foreman in the local slate quarries.

0:18:300:18:34

James was always chasing work as a shepherd,

0:18:340:18:36

and shortly after marrying Sarah, the couple moved back to Dumfries in Scotland.

0:18:360:18:42

But then came a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity

0:18:420:18:45

to take part in one of the great agricultural experiments of the Victorian age.

0:18:450:18:49

In 1818, wealthy Midlands industrialist John Knight

0:18:520:18:57

and his son Frederick bought the Royal forest of Exmoor,

0:18:570:19:00

with the radical idea of turning it into a thriving agricultural business.

0:19:000:19:04

The Royal forests had been remote moorland described as

0:19:070:19:11

a filthy, barren ground for hundreds, if not thousands of years.

0:19:110:19:14

We were looking at a time of agricultural improvement,

0:19:140:19:17

where the technology to improve the land was there.

0:19:170:19:20

We had lots of people living in cities that hadn't previously,

0:19:200:19:22

because of the Industrial Revolution, and suddenly areas of England

0:19:220:19:26

that were unfarmed and were seen as waste became the focus of attention.

0:19:260:19:30

You could look at them and say, "If we could reclaim these, we could get food from them."

0:19:300:19:35

John Knight literally saw Exmoor as covered in, sort of, seas of waving corn.

0:19:350:19:40

That's what his ambition was.

0:19:400:19:41

Livestock also played an important part in the Knights' vision.

0:19:430:19:47

They decided to import

0:19:470:19:49

herds of hardy Scottish black-faced sheep, which could withstand the harsh conditions.

0:19:490:19:53

And this is where Ruth's grandfather James Maxwell Johnstone came in.

0:19:560:20:00

They also brought down not just the sheep

0:20:010:20:04

but the shepherds with them, and of course these shepherds

0:20:040:20:06

knew how to shepherd in mountain areas and in the West Country,

0:20:060:20:09

and in this part of the West Country,

0:20:090:20:11

there wasn't that sort of local knowledge

0:20:110:20:14

of how to keep sheep and livestock going through the harsh winters.

0:20:140:20:18

Ruth's grandparents couldn't refuse this offer of guaranteed work,

0:20:200:20:23

so they joined a remarkable migration of Scottish shepherds and their sheep to the South.

0:20:230:20:28

Many made this epic 600-mile journey from the Scottish Lowlands to Devon on foot,

0:20:300:20:35

herding their sheep ahead of them.

0:20:350:20:38

Others loaded their animals onto boats and even trains,

0:20:380:20:41

and they were then driven the last 30 miles or so up onto Exmoor.

0:20:410:20:45

It's not known how James and Sarah made their way south,

0:20:490:20:53

but they did travel with three young children,

0:20:530:20:56

and when they eventually arrived, they moved to the remote Hoar Oak Cottage.

0:20:560:21:01

They lived there for the next 17 years,

0:21:020:21:04

and went on to have ten more children.

0:21:040:21:06

Ruth's mother, Agnes, was the youngest,

0:21:080:21:10

and shortly after she was born in 1904,

0:21:100:21:13

James died,

0:21:130:21:14

leaving Sarah to bring up

0:21:140:21:16

all 13 children on her own.

0:21:160:21:18

It was an unbelievably hard life for these Scottish families,

0:21:200:21:24

but the scale and ambition of the Knights' vision was breathtaking.

0:21:240:21:28

The area that the Knights had was about 10,000 acres.

0:21:310:21:34

Within that, there were no roads, there were no villages, there was nothing.

0:21:340:21:38

And by the time the Knights had finished,

0:21:380:21:41

they'd built about 16 farms, a village, a church, a school,

0:21:410:21:46

and, in effect, what they'd done was created the largest parish in England.

0:21:460:21:49

But sadly, the Knights' dream of turning Exmoor into viable farmland was doomed to fail.

0:21:490:21:56

They simply ran out of money.

0:21:560:21:58

Not even the greatest Victorian ingenuity could contend with

0:22:000:22:04

the wet climate and acidic, water-logged soil.

0:22:040:22:07

But whilst nature won the battle, man and sheep definitely left their mark.

0:22:080:22:13

They have completely changed the face of the landscape.

0:22:150:22:17

So when you look at that, in terms of the judgment about whether the Knights were successful or not,

0:22:170:22:22

you could say their legacy is in these farms and in changing the face of Exmoor for ever.

0:22:220:22:26

Coming up, Saul comes across a woman who holds the key

0:22:260:22:30

to tracing Ruth Sedgbeer's heirs.

0:22:300:22:33

She really was an heir hunter's dream.

0:22:330:22:36

Heir hunters solve thousands of cases a year,

0:22:400:22:44

ensuring that millions of pounds are paid out to rightful heirs.

0:22:440:22:47

But not every case can be cracked.

0:22:470:22:50

The Treasury has a list of over 2,000 estates

0:22:500:22:52

that have baffled the heir hunters and remain unclaimed.

0:22:520:22:56

These estates stay on the list for up to 30 years,

0:22:590:23:02

and each one could be worth anything from £5,000 to many millions.

0:23:020:23:07

Today, we're focusing on three names from the list.

0:23:100:23:13

Are they relatives of yours?

0:23:130:23:15

Could you be in line for an unexpected windfall?

0:23:150:23:18

Maria Carmen Navarro died in Hove, East Sussex,

0:23:200:23:25

on 23rd December 2007.

0:23:250:23:28

Navarro is a Spanish and Italian surname, meaning "Basque speaker",

0:23:280:23:32

and could her death so close to Christmas jog any memories?

0:23:320:23:37

So far, no-one has come forward to claim her estate.

0:23:370:23:40

Edith Stallion died aged 87 on 16th May 1997

0:23:450:23:50

in Mile End, London.

0:23:500:23:52

If no heirs of hers are found, her money will go to the Government.

0:23:520:23:56

Bryan Arthur Daniel Tebbut

0:24:010:24:03

died on 5th January 2003 in Haywards Heath, West Sussex.

0:24:030:24:08

He was born on 10th July 1929,

0:24:080:24:11

the year of the infamous Wall Street Crash that led to the Great Depression.

0:24:110:24:15

His estate is also unclaimed.

0:24:150:24:18

If the names Maria Navarro, Edith Stallion

0:24:220:24:25

or Bryan Tebbut mean anything to you, or someone you know,

0:24:250:24:28

you could have a potential fortune coming your way.

0:24:280:24:32

At Celtic Research's Liverpool office, heir hunter Saul Marks

0:24:410:24:45

was still working the case of Ruth Sedgbeer,

0:24:450:24:47

the Devon maid who died aged 80 in the tiny hamlet of Gunn,

0:24:470:24:52

where she'd lived her entire life.

0:24:520:24:54

I remember talking to her, on one of the last times I visited her in the cottage,

0:24:540:24:59

and remarking with her how 80 years ago she'd been born

0:24:590:25:02

just upstairs, and here she was,

0:25:020:25:05

sitting just downstairs.

0:25:050:25:07

Ruth's funeral was an important occasion for the whole village.

0:25:080:25:13

All her friends and acquaintances

0:25:130:25:16

and people perhaps that she didn't realise were friends, were here,

0:25:160:25:21

and we all remembered her with great affection,

0:25:210:25:23

and thought to ourselves that we're not likely

0:25:230:25:26

to have another character like Ruth

0:25:260:25:29

in our midst again.

0:25:290:25:31

She was a one-off.

0:25:310:25:33

Ruth had left behind a £25,000 estate

0:25:350:25:37

but, as yet, there was no-one to inherit it.

0:25:370:25:41

Saul had discovered that Ruth's mother, Agnes,

0:25:430:25:46

was one of 13 children of Exmoor sheep farmers

0:25:460:25:48

James and Sarah Johnstone.

0:25:480:25:50

Although Johnstone is a common name,

0:25:510:25:54

it turned out there was only one Johnstone family in North Devon.

0:25:540:25:58

I was able to actually track down heirs in almost every branch of the family,

0:25:590:26:05

with each person giving me numbers for someone else in another branch.

0:26:050:26:11

So it was really a snowball effect.

0:26:110:26:13

Eventually, Saul's research led him to his first heir -

0:26:160:26:19

Ruth's second cousin, Bette Baldwin,

0:26:190:26:21

a great granddaughter of James and Sarah Johnstone,

0:26:210:26:25

and also a keen amateur genealogist.

0:26:250:26:28

She really was an heir hunter's dream.

0:26:300:26:33

This lady had done a great deal of research into the family history.

0:26:330:26:39

She had a lot of documents and a lot of knowledge,

0:26:390:26:43

and she had done a lot of work on the social history of the family,

0:26:430:26:47

as opposed to just the bare bones of the names and dates.

0:26:470:26:51

She had done a lot about the history of how her family were Scots

0:26:510:26:56

and came to live in Devon.

0:26:560:26:58

Because I had been doing the research on the Johnstone family,

0:26:580:27:02

from whom Ruth and I are both descended,

0:27:020:27:05

and the link to the 13 children

0:27:050:27:08

and the sheep-raising on Exmoor,

0:27:080:27:12

I was able to give him quite a lot of that information.

0:27:120:27:16

Hearing about Ruth's death was a shock to Bette.

0:27:180:27:21

Thanks to her research into her family history,

0:27:210:27:24

she'd been down to visit her cousin a few times,

0:27:240:27:27

and she vividly remembered the first time they met.

0:27:270:27:30

I knocked on the door, wondering what was going to happen,

0:27:300:27:34

and actually felt a real "zush" of excitement, because I thought,

0:27:340:27:40

"Whose face am I going to see when she walks round this door?"

0:27:400:27:45

And there she was, and in fact it was like looking at my mother

0:27:450:27:51

just before the end of her days.

0:27:510:27:54

Sort of a very sweet, white-haired lady in a pretty cotton dress.

0:27:540:28:01

Through Ruth, Bette heard more about her great-grandparents,

0:28:030:28:07

James and Sarah Johnstone, and their life in a remote cottage on Exmoor...

0:28:070:28:11

..a subject that had fascinated her from an early age.

0:28:130:28:17

One of the stories that my mother always told

0:28:170:28:21

was about Granny Johnstone,

0:28:210:28:24

and that she had been born in a cottage

0:28:240:28:28

overlooking Mount Snowdon,

0:28:280:28:31

and then she lived in a cottage on the moor and had 13 children.

0:28:310:28:37

That was the bit of oral history which I'd heard from a tiny girl

0:28:370:28:41

and that captured me, then.

0:28:410:28:42

Bette was amazed to hear she was going to receive

0:28:440:28:47

a share of Ruth's £25,000 estate.

0:28:470:28:50

I never thought for one second Ruth had any money,

0:28:500:28:54

and in fact when Saul contacted me, I said,

0:28:540:28:57

"There's a mistake here.

0:28:570:28:59

"She lived a very simple life, she had no money."

0:28:590:29:04

But apparently there was.

0:29:040:29:07

In the end, Saul found 39 heirs to Ruth's estate.

0:29:090:29:12

From one elderly lady, who lived alone in a cottage in Devon,

0:29:120:29:18

her estate will be shared out among so many cousins,

0:29:180:29:22

both on her maternal and paternal sides, so a lot of people will benefit from this.

0:29:220:29:26

One of the these beneficiaries was John Bowden,

0:29:280:29:31

Ruth's second cousin

0:29:310:29:33

and a great-grandson of James and Sarah Johnstone.

0:29:330:29:36

His son Will had grown up in the area,

0:29:360:29:38

and knew all about his family's link with Hoar Oak Cottage.

0:29:380:29:42

We've used it as a base, really, and walked to it or past it,

0:29:440:29:48

or made a point of passing by, just because we've got a family interest in it.

0:29:480:29:52

Will was delighted when he heard from Saul

0:29:540:29:57

that he had a long-lost cousin, Bette, who shared his interest in the Johnstone family.

0:29:570:30:01

Bette and her husband Jim came down and we all had lunch together

0:30:020:30:06

at Mum and Dad's, and we started looking through old photographs and comparing family history.

0:30:060:30:11

It was lovely to be able to put two cousins back in touch

0:30:110:30:14

who had never really known of each other's existence.

0:30:140:30:17

It's lovely to bring warmth as well as money.

0:30:170:30:20

The money component of it is far and away outweighed by the fact that I met up with Will.

0:30:200:30:27

Since they met, Will and Bette have discussed their shared dream

0:30:270:30:31

of preserving the now dilapidated Hoar Oak Cottage.

0:30:310:30:34

Realising that we've both got this interest,

0:30:360:30:38

we decided if we combined our energies, we'd have a far better chance of achieving it.

0:30:380:30:42

Today, they're making the eight-mile journey across rugged Exmoor

0:30:450:30:49

to see where their great-great-grandparents lived,

0:30:490:30:52

and get a sense of what life here was like over 100 years ago.

0:30:520:30:55

Will's a trained conservation architect,

0:30:570:31:00

and his vision is to restore Hoar Oak into a camping barn

0:31:000:31:04

or an outdoor classroom, where people can come to learn about and experience

0:31:040:31:08

the nature and history of this unique landscape.

0:31:080:31:12

When you're there, all you hear is sheep baa-ing,

0:31:140:31:19

birds singing,

0:31:190:31:21

the wind blowing, and the water trickling by in the stream,

0:31:210:31:26

and that sense of quiet and solitude,

0:31:260:31:29

and you see no other buildings.

0:31:290:31:32

What do you think Ruth would have made of all of this,

0:31:320:31:36

us coming out here and trying to knock the old place back into shape?

0:31:360:31:40

I think she would have been really pleased that you and I had met up as a consequence of all this.

0:31:400:31:45

I think she'd have been really pleased.

0:31:450:31:48

But I think, like a lot of that generation,

0:31:480:31:50

-they've been a bit baffled that we were interested in resurrecting the cottage.

-Yeah.

0:31:500:31:56

The life of the Johnstone family on Exmoor has now all but disappeared.

0:32:010:32:05

Thanks to Ruth's legacy, two of her descendants have joined forces

0:32:070:32:10

to make sure their memory will never be forgotten.

0:32:100:32:13

Heir hunters Fraser & Fraser have been investigating the case

0:32:220:32:26

of Ian Milner, who died aged 60 in Mickleover, Derby.

0:32:260:32:30

A quiet man, Ian was well thought of by his colleagues at the local supermarket, where he worked.

0:32:320:32:37

I'm very pleased that I met Ian, worked with him,

0:32:380:32:43

we got on very well, and it was a privilege to know Ian.

0:32:430:32:50

Ian had quite a tough life.

0:32:500:32:52

His father was a coal merchant, and so Ian, one of his first jobs in life,

0:32:520:32:58

was to deliver coal, which is not the easiest job in the world.

0:32:580:33:04

I think he paid for that in his health later on in life.

0:33:040:33:07

The heir hunters have discovered that Ian inherited his semi-detached house from his mother,

0:33:090:33:14

and as a result, his estate is worth an estimated £200,000.

0:33:140:33:19

Although there's been no sign of any competition so far,

0:33:220:33:26

a high-value case like this is bound to attract the attention of rival heir-hunting firms.

0:33:260:33:32

The company have decided to send two senior researchers, Dave Mansell and Bob Barrett,

0:33:320:33:37

up to Yorkshire to try and stay ahead of the competition.

0:33:370:33:40

-No phone?

-No, none of them got phones, this is the problem.

0:33:420:33:45

If they had phones I could've phoned them.

0:33:450:33:47

Leave it with me, blue eyes.

0:33:470:33:48

I wish you luck! All right, then. OK. Bye.

0:33:480:33:53

Whenever possible, the office like to call ahead,

0:33:530:33:56

so the heirs know to expect a visit, but this is a race against time,

0:33:560:34:01

so they have no choice but to turn up unannounced.

0:34:010:34:03

But after a couple of attempts, Dave's not having much success.

0:34:070:34:11

He's been through several addresses on his list, and still no joy.

0:34:110:34:16

And Bob's not having much luck in Stoke, either.

0:34:190:34:22

Problem Bob's got at the moment is he's in a traffic jam.

0:34:220:34:24

He's a bit worried whether he'll be able to get round to see everybody.

0:34:240:34:29

He's got potentially six calls to make.

0:34:290:34:34

Back in Bradford, Dave's down to his last address.

0:34:340:34:37

If this next heir isn't at home, then the whole day will have been wasted.

0:34:390:34:42

I'm off to the last-chance saloon now,

0:34:440:34:47

to see if Jacqueline Johnstone that was is at home.

0:34:470:34:51

And perhaps we'll have a bit more luck and find somebody

0:34:510:34:55

who is an heir actually at home, so we can talk to them about the family.

0:34:550:34:59

The team's research counts for nothing

0:35:000:35:03

until Dave can meet an heir and get an agreement signed.

0:35:030:35:07

Were you originally a Johnstone? Is your dad Jack Johnstone?

0:35:070:35:13

Your mother Mary Elkington?

0:35:130:35:15

At last, after an hour of doorstepping,

0:35:150:35:18

Dave has finally met an heir.

0:35:180:35:20

Jacqueline is the daughter of Jack and Mary Johnstone

0:35:200:35:24

and a cousin of Ian Milner.

0:35:240:35:25

Once inside, Dave talks Jacqueline through the process

0:35:270:35:30

and manages to get some more information about her family that will help complete his research.

0:35:300:35:35

Do you have some siblings, brothers and sisters?

0:35:360:35:39

Yes, two brothers, two sisters.

0:35:390:35:41

It's all going like clockwork,

0:35:420:35:44

until suddenly they're interrupted by a knock at the door.

0:35:440:35:48

Yes, I'm just talking to somebody else about it. Yes. It's all right.

0:35:480:35:53

-I'll come back in a minute.

-It may be a while.

0:35:530:35:56

From triumph to potential disaster.

0:35:560:35:59

Another heir-hunting company has turned up on the doorstep,

0:35:590:36:03

hoping to speak to Jacqueline.

0:36:030:36:05

-Is that someone else like yourself?

-Yes.

0:36:050:36:08

This is not the first time that Dave's almost come face to face

0:36:080:36:13

with a rival heir hunter.

0:36:130:36:15

But now he needs to move quickly.

0:36:150:36:17

-Do you want me to get him on the phone?

-Yeah.

0:36:170:36:19

Jacqueline calls her brother, Steven, who lives nearby.

0:36:220:36:25

-Are you wanting me to tell Steven anything now?

-Shall I have a quick word with him?

0:36:250:36:28

Would you just have a quick word with this gentleman that's here, please, Steven? Hang on a minute.

0:36:280:36:33

If rival heir hunters are already in the area, then it's vital

0:36:340:36:38

that Dave sees as many heirs as he can in person, as soon as possible.

0:36:380:36:43

Right, when I've finished with Jacqueline I'll come across and see you.

0:36:430:36:46

Thank you, bye-bye.

0:36:460:36:48

Dave prepares an agreement that he can leave with Jacqueline.

0:36:480:36:51

Shall I come with you to Steven's? Cos I don't know, you know, all this,

0:36:510:36:56

so if he wants... And then you do Steven's as well,

0:36:560:36:59

-and then if he agrees to go with you, and then we can both sign.

-Why not?

0:36:590:37:03

Luckily, Steven lives just around the corner,

0:37:030:37:06

so they should be with him in a few minutes.

0:37:060:37:09

-Where's your car?

-I'm facing down here.

-Down here.

0:37:090:37:13

With the competition breathing down Dave's neck, every second counts.

0:37:130:37:18

Hello, it's Dave Mansell. Can I speaking to Grimble as a matter of urgency, please.

0:37:180:37:23

David's on the phone, so Neil takes the call.

0:37:230:37:27

They're climbing all over this case, while I'm at the house.

0:37:270:37:30

They've been in contact with one of the heirs this morning,

0:37:300:37:34

and with this heir that I'm seeing now, on her mobile phone this morning.

0:37:340:37:39

It's a tricky situation, but at this point there's nothing the office can do about it.

0:37:400:37:45

Neil relays the bad news to David.

0:37:450:37:49

-What's he got?

-Erm, competition.

0:37:490:37:53

Meanwhile Dave and Jacqueline have made it round to Steven's house.

0:37:540:37:58

I think you're expecting me, are you?

0:38:000:38:02

Hello, I'm David, David Mansell from Fraser & Fraser. Hello, Steven, nice to see you.

0:38:020:38:06

Come on in, sis.

0:38:060:38:07

Dave needs to pull out all the stops and give his best sales pitch,

0:38:080:38:12

to convince these two that they are the company to go with.

0:38:120:38:15

...Which means you can cancel this contract seven days from midnight tonight,

0:38:150:38:19

without any obligation. That's your cooling-off period.

0:38:190:38:23

They're both impressed with what they hear, and decide to sign up there and then.

0:38:230:38:29

-Lovely. Thanks, David.

-Nice to have met you. Been a pleasure.

0:38:310:38:33

-And you, Jacqueline. Thanks for bringing us up here.

-It's a surprise, in't it?

0:38:330:38:37

It's a surprise, yeah.

0:38:370:38:40

Because we've never had any touch, any contact with the Milners,

0:38:400:38:44

so we were totally unaware of anything of this nature at all,

0:38:440:38:48

and how big the family was, actually.

0:38:480:38:50

For Dave Mansell, it's been a great result.

0:38:500:38:54

We started off very early this morning,

0:38:540:38:56

it's 20 past five in the afternoon now,

0:38:560:38:58

but at least we've got signatures on paper,

0:38:580:39:01

and it's nice people to see, when we eventually found somebody to talk to.

0:39:010:39:06

So, yeah, it's been worth it, it's been a good day.

0:39:060:39:09

So we'll head back now.

0:39:090:39:12

A good day indeed. It's less than 12 hours since Ian Milner's name

0:39:120:39:17

first appeared on the Treasury's list, and the company have signed up two heirs.

0:39:170:39:21

But Dave knows the work has just begun.

0:39:240:39:26

There are many more heirs to contact on this case.

0:39:260:39:29

A few days later, and there's some unexpected and unwelcome news.

0:39:380:39:43

Steven and Jacqueline have been contacted by another heir-hunting firm,

0:39:430:39:47

who've undercut their rate of commission.

0:39:470:39:51

It's a blow for Neil and the whole team.

0:39:510:39:54

It looks as though those beneficiaries are going to go with one of the other firms.

0:39:540:39:58

It's a shame, it's a real shame.

0:39:580:40:01

How hard all the staff worked to get on to that, but it's how it happens.

0:40:010:40:05

Some days you win, some days you lose.

0:40:050:40:08

This particular stem we've lost on.

0:40:080:40:10

But it's not all bad news.

0:40:100:40:13

In the end, there are 29 heirs in total on the Milner case,

0:40:130:40:17

and the company managed to sign up 20 of them.

0:40:170:40:20

One of these heirs was Carole Bamford,

0:40:200:40:23

the granddaughter of Ian's Aunt Alice.

0:40:230:40:26

Carole is Ian's first cousin once removed,

0:40:280:40:31

and will inherit a share of his £200,000 estate.

0:40:310:40:34

But Carole had no idea that her cousin even existed.

0:40:340:40:38

I was quite surprised to find out about Ian.

0:40:410:40:44

Actually, I was shocked more than anything.

0:40:440:40:46

My brothers were as well, not just myself. And my husband.

0:40:460:40:50

Cos we didn't think there was anybody left called Milner.

0:40:500:40:54

Although she can't remember her grandmother, Alice,

0:40:540:40:57

her death had a profound effect on Carole's family.

0:40:570:41:01

When Alice died, my grandad, who was blind, who was her husband,

0:41:010:41:06

he couldn't cope, so they had to put my mum and her two brothers

0:41:060:41:12

into a home in Birmingham, which was Father Hudson's Homes, and that's where they grew up.

0:41:120:41:16

Carole's got three daughters of her own and grandchildren,

0:41:160:41:19

so she knows exactly how she's going to spend her inheritance.

0:41:190:41:23

I will give those, I think, a nice holiday.

0:41:240:41:28

I think everybody says they'll have a good holiday, won't they?

0:41:280:41:30

so I'd like a holiday that I won't forget.

0:41:300:41:33

But that's not quite enough for Carole.

0:41:350:41:38

She's determined to honour Ian's memory, so a few weeks after being contacted by the heir hunters,

0:41:380:41:43

she's come to pay her respects.

0:41:430:41:46

I've come to the crematorium, now, where Ian was cremated and his ashes are,

0:41:460:41:51

so I'm just going to say a prayer or something for Ian

0:41:510:41:55

and tell him, you know, we're sorry we weren't there to comfort him.

0:41:550:41:58

Hoping to find out more about the cousin she never met,

0:42:040:42:07

she's also contacted Ian's old boss, Martin Reeve.

0:42:070:42:11

-Hello, Martin. My name's Carole.

-Hi.

0:42:120:42:14

She's able to build up a picture of Ian, the kind of man he was,

0:42:140:42:18

and the things he enjoyed.

0:42:180:42:21

He sounds a bit like my family. The things what people have told me, what he's done.

0:42:210:42:25

He liked a drink, just like us.

0:42:250:42:27

I like being on my own, whereas Ian liked to be on his own.

0:42:270:42:31

So I think, really, we've got something in common, and that's...

0:42:310:42:35

That's even better.

0:42:350:42:37

But, same as I say, there's a lot more I want to know about him,

0:42:380:42:43

and the book's not closed yet.

0:42:430:42:45

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

0:42:490:42:57

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

0:43:200:43:24

Download Subtitles

SRT

ASS