Simpson/Webbe Heir Hunters

In London, the Heir Hunters have found an unclaimed estate

on the Treasury's list that could be worth up to £100,000.

Their job is to find the long-lost relatives

who have no idea they could be in for a windfall.

Could they be knocking at your door?

On today's programme, a lack of new names on the Treasury's list

means the Heir Hunters face their stiffest competition.

You mean you've had three already, or with the third?

And a search for the heirs to a £70,000 case

reveals a seafaring family's tragic past.

She sank very quickly.

In the case of the Whitgift, all her crew were lost. 33 men.

And how you could be entitled to unclaimed estates

where beneficiaries need to be found.

Could you be in line for a cash payout?

Every year in the UK,

an estimated 300,000 people die without leaving a will.

If no relatives are found,

then any money that's left behind will go to the government.

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

But there are over 30 firms competing to stop this happening. They're called heir hunters.

It's their business to track down missing relatives and help them claim their rightful inheritance.

I love the fact that I can put families back together.

I can reunite people. I can tell them secret histories about their own family

which they don't know themselves.

It's a Thursday morning in London. Overnight, the Treasury has advertised a new list of people

who have died without leaving a will.

Pointless.

But it's not the best start for heir hunting company Fraser & Fraser.

The list published by the Bona Vacantia has been very, very small.

There are only five cases on that.

This doesn't give partner Neil much choice in the estates they can chase.

And it also has the added annoyance of greater competition

from the other 30 heir-hunting companies around the UK,

as inevitably they will all be working the same five estates as well.

The clock is ticking, so Neil picks a case to work.

We're going to start by looking at the case of Beryl Simpson.

Her maiden name is Richardson, which is quite a common name

so the research will be tricky.

Quite a few different families around.

Both Simpson and Richardson are fairly common names

which can make it harder for the heir hunters trying to trace relatives.

But the team's initial research suggests it could be worth the risk.

She died in Slough and we've got an address for her, but more interestingly,

it looks as though she's moved down the street.

I've got an address, number 60, then she moves to number four.

Number four is a housing trust but number 60 was bought in about '96

which was around when she moved out of it.

So it was sold and bought there for about £100,000.

What I don't know is if it's Beryl who sold the house

or if it's someone else as she's moved out.

There's a possibility there may be a bit of money in this.

Unsure until we get some enquiries done.

Neil and the team have a lot of work ahead of them

if they're to be the first to contact Beryl's heirs.

Beryl Simpson died in January 2009 from a heart attack, aged 74.

She lived in the large village of Colnbrook, near Slough.

OK, then. Take care. Bye-bye!

Nancy Thorne of Age Concern helped Beryl in her later years.

Beryl was referred to myself from Social Services

in February 05.

She was having difficulty living in her flat on the third floor.

And a lot of problems with the running of her life.

So they asked me to help as an advocate.

Although never officially diagnosed,

it's suspected Beryl had some form of learning difficulties.

But she still had a vibrant personality and was great company.

She had a great sense of humour, and a memory like you wouldn't believe.

She'd get two newspapers every day and read them from back to back.

So I never had to get a paper myself when I visited Beryl!

Beryl's slightly eccentric ways meant she was well-known locally.

Jan Gatehouse, who ran the neighbourhood hairdresser's, knew her for years.

Beryl was quite a character, a character of the village.

When I opened up this hairdresser's, Beryl started to come in.

A creature of habit, Beryl had a routine she stuck to rigidly.

The ladies at the hairdresser's could set their watches by her!

She used to come every Friday at about quarter to one.

She'd have her hair washed and set, or sometimes cut,

whichever Jan decided she needed having done!

Quite sad.

Because Beryl was well-known in her local community,

this is the obvious place for the heir hunters to start making enquiries.

Neil gives Beryl's estate to senior case manager Tony Pledger.

He has decades of experience tracking down heirs.

But the shortage of names on the Treasury's list is frustrating him.

He's now under pressure to bring home the bacon for the company

on a day when the competition will be at its most fierce.

'You have dialled an incorrect number.

-'Please check the number and redial.'

-It's one of those days!

The team have no guarantee Beryl's case could be worth anything like the £100,000 Neil has speculated.

But it's up to Tony to try and find out.

'You have dialled an incorrect number.'

It may not be the start to the day Tony was hoping for,

but knowing the deceased's address is a great start.

It allows the heir hunters to call Beryl's former neighbours for information.

But every other company across the UK will also be doing the same thing.

And luck is not on Tony's side.

They're all too far up the road or too far down the road.

But with a little perseverance, Tony makes a call to a potential neighbour of Beryl's.

Hello, sir. I don't know if you can help. I'm enquiring about somebody I think used to be your neighbour.

The neighbour helps Tony confirm what they already suspected about Beryl's former address.

Ah. I see. Number 60 is a block of flats.

That explains it. Right, OK.

This rings true with Neil's initial research.

The flat at number 60 was sold around the mid-'90s

and Beryl moved to a housing trust property down the street.

It's the money from the sale of the flat that could make up the value of her estate.

But Neil isn't the only one to suspect this.

The neighbour tells Tony he's the second company to have called that morning.

Did they say who they were? Probably they didn't.

And it's only 7.30am!

You'll probably get a few more!

This is the team's first confirmation that they face competition on this case.

Now the pressure is really on.

Thankfully, Tony gets a lead.

The phone number of someone else who knew Beryl.

I'm ringing about - it might be a friend of yours - Beryl Simpson.

Tony has hit the jackpot.

Crucial information about Beryl is starting to come to light.

She had a couple of brothers that died before her.

They seem to have been married and may have had children.

The information gleaned from Beryl's friend

allows the heir hunters to start building the basics of Beryl's family tree.

She was married to a Douglas Simpson who passed away in 1998.

The couple had no children,

but there's been mention of her having two brothers.

From his initial enquiries,

Tony now knows Beryl was a very private person.

A fact that doesn't help the heir hunters when trying to trace any family Beryl may have had.

Despite this, the team make a crucial breakthrough.

Using her maiden name of Richardson, Gareth has traced a potential brother of Beryl's.

I've found a potential brother of the deceased, Peter Richardson.

I've found his death back in 1998, when he died.

I was hoping to get his wife living with him, or any kids living with him, but...

..it looks like he was by himself.

This could mean there are potentially no nieces or nephews

of Beryl's on this stem of her family tree.

At this stage of the hunt, information is still scant.

But needing to stay ahead of the competition,

Tony decides to mobilise one of their travelling heir hunters.

It's Crown Meadow.

Ewart Lindsay is one of Fraser & Fraser's squad of senior researchers

who are willing to go wherever a case takes them.

Based all over the UK and abroad,

their job is to follow the clues and sniff out potential heirs

who may be about to inherit an unexpected windfall.

But Ewart can only talk to heirs if he has the facts he needs.

I haven't got much information so far.

I've just been told by the office...

..her name, when she died - she died in 2009 -

and her address

where she last lived.

And that's exactly where Ewart is heading now.

Maybe meeting the people who knew Beryl will give the team

an exclusive lead that could put them ahead.

In the office, the family tree is growing.

They now think Beryl's parents were Frederick and Lily Richardson

and using information from their marriage records in 1930,

they think they've now confirmed a sibling.

We've found Beryl's brother, Roy.

Even though Beryl's parents married in Eton,

it seems at least one of their three children

was born hundreds of miles away, a fact that originally threw the heir hunters.

We looked at the births again. Roy is born in Sunderland, which is why we excluded it at first.

We didn't expect the birth to be in Sunderland.

But he's died in Purton, and he's had two children and we're pretty confident it's right.

The team may have found their first heirs,

two of Beryl's nephews, and all this

whilst case manager Tony is off getting liquid refreshment.

We've got an address for you, Tony.

See what I mean? I go off for a cup of tea, come back and there's been a breakthrough.

And this breakthrough is passed straight on to Ewart.

I've got a potential nephew of the deceased.

Right.

I'm going to have to call you back in a few minutes

cos I've got the address and phone number for the lady concerned somewhere else.

-I'll call you back in a minute.

-Bye.

Looks like the deceased had two brothers who had children.

They're looking into it at the moment.

But there is a friend, June, who lives close by

and Tony's calling me back with her details so I can go and see her.

Just to confirm a few things.

Frustratingly, in the office, the team has yet to make contact with any of the potential heirs.

So in the meantime, Ewart goes to see Beryl's friend

who may be able to help confirm who her family were.

Hi, my name's Ewart, from Fraser & Fraser.

In the office, Tony's keen to try and make contact with the nephews they've found,

ahead of any competition that may be out there.

I'll phone this bloke. Where's the phone?

Thank you very much.

But before Tony can even make a call to the nephew,

Ewart's rung in about his meeting.

He's found out more about Beryl's other brother, Frederick.

Frederick had a... His wife was called Dolores.

This is fantastic news, but the team has to act quickly.

Knowing who Beryl's brother Frederick married

will help the heir hunters narrow down their search

and hopefully get ahead of the competition.

Because we need Dolores, which is a very good name, we'll be able to find his marriage.

Gareth uses this information combined with the details about the marriage

to look for potential children of the couple.

He's in luck.

Got it. I'll bring the tree out.

Three? Good. Let's have a look.

There's a boy and a girl and maybe two others who they didn't know.

Gareth thinks he's found recent addresses

for two of Beryl's nieces and nephews.

This is relayed straight to Tony.

John, Dolores. He dies '92. She dies 2005.

Go for that one first.

Tony immediately starts trying to call the nephews and nieces Gareth has found.

He's hoping to set up crucial meetings so that the team would be the first to meet Beryl's heirs.

Later in the show, it's one thing to speak to an heir on the phone,

but if you can't visit them, all your efforts could be in vain.

Where is Ewart? Where is Ewart?

Every Thursday when the Treasury's list of unclaimed estates is advertised,

heir hunting companies scramble to be the first to find the beneficiaries to an estate.

But when taking on a case, there are no guarantees

that a family's history will be based solely in the UK.

During the research, heir hunters can find themselves looking all over the world

for the clues they need to find the rightful heirs.

Josiah Arthur Webbe died on January 19, 1987

in a small village by the sea in Gwynedd, North Wales.

He died leaving an estate worth £70,000.

Despite having passed away over 20 years ago,

he is still remembered by family friend Gwyn Jones and his sister, Haf.

Arthur was married to my father's aunt, Maire,

so she was the familial link.

I'd say Maire was a much more bubbly person than Arthur.

And from what I recall, she was quite a bit taller than Arthur.

Gwyn and Haf remember Arthur as a quiet, gentle man devoted to his wife

but also to his career.

Arthur had a typical seafarer's complexion

which was fitting with his background on the seas.

It seems that Arthur's life had always been associated with ships and the ocean.

From what I can remember of his working life,

I believe he was a commander either with the Royal Navy

or the Merchant Navy.

And he was very popular in the village.

Lots of people thought the world of Arthur.

Arthur may have had plenty of friends in his village,

but sadly there are no known existing photographs of the man himself.

He died leaving a £70,000 estate, and heir hunting company Celtic Research

started to look for his relatives.

Good afternoon. Celtic Research.

Celtic Research consists of father and son team Peter and Hector Birchwood

and regional case managers Saul and Phil.

They are based all over the UK and spring into action every Thursday morning

when the Treasury releases its list. But the Webbe case was out of the ordinary

as Arthur had left a will, but it ended up proving useless.

He'd left everything to his wife.

Unfortunately, she pre-deceased him.

With Arthur's will not specifying any other family or friends his money should go to,

Peter would now have to try and find any long-lost relatives Arthur may have had.

His search was helped by Arthur's distinctive name.

It had its interest mainly in the paternal family

because Webbe, with an E on the end, is not that common a name.

This can give the heir hunters a significant advantage

when tracking someone's descendants.

In their game, a surname is everything!

Webbe spelt with an E is an extremely rare name of Anglo-Saxon origin.

But take the E away, and Webb becomes one of the commonest surnames in the UK.

Peter got to work.

Initially, there was only a date of death for the man.

From the date of death, we managed to find his birth certificate

and that gave us details about his father and his mother.

Arthur's father was also called Josiah Arthur Webbe

and using the details on his son's birth records,

Peter discovered he'd married an Elizabeth Evans in Liverpool

in 1897.

Through this initial research,

Peter found out that the sea was a theme in the Webbe family,

starting with Josiah senior.

He was a second mate in the merchant service.

His son, the deceased, followed in that service.

He was also in the merchant marine.

And his father,

Josiah Arthur senior,

died during the First War.

His ship sank and he was on it when it went down.

Josiah Arthur senior was a second mate for the merchant navy,

not to be confused with the Royal Navy.

In peacetime, the two were very different entities.

The Merchant Navies consisted of

hundreds of private companies

running merchant ships

from huge passenger liners to undistinguished tramp ships

of 3,500 to 4,000 tonnes, down to small coasters running along the coast.

But in World War I, the merchant navy became part of the war effort.

Commerce abroad, trade and exports still had to continue

despite Britain being at war with Germany.

Josiah Arthur senior was sailing the seas at an extremely dangerous time.

During the start of the war, he sailed for three years

with no protection from the Royal Navy against German attack.

In consequence of that, the losses of merchant ships,

particularly to German submarines, was horrific. So much so,

that the Admiralty had to go to the government and say they were losing the war at sea.

We had six weeks' supplies of grain in the country,

and the surrender date was going to be November 1917.

It was during this dire period of the war

that the SS Whitgift, that Josiah senior sailed on, fell victim to German attack.

She was on a voyage from Spain to Britain

with a cargo of iron ore.

An immensely heavy cargo, so the ship was loaded down to her marks

and there was still an enormous amount of space in her holds.

So when she was struck by a torpedo from U-67,

somewhere in the outer reaches of the English Channel,

she sank very quickly. In the case of the Whitgift, all crew were lost.

33 men.

Josiah Arthur junior would have been 16 or 17 when he lost his father.

He would probably have heard the news aboard a ship he was working on.

The Webbes appear to have been an adventurous family,

a family heir hunter Peter Birchwood was trying his hardest to trace.

The case was going reasonably well in that we'd found that the deceased

had a brother who unfortunately had died without any children.

If Peter's research was correct, it meant every stem of the Webbes' close kin

had been accounted for with no apparent heirs.

He would have to look further afield into Arthur's aunts and uncles.

In the absence of any close relatives,

then we go up to cousins.

Later in the show, the search for Arthur's wider family doesn't go according to plan.

We struck a major problem.

And Peter's research reveals the darker side of Arthur's colonial family's past.

They are part of families that did own slaves.

Could you be in line for an unexpected windfall?

In the UK, the Treasury has a list of over 2,000 estates

that over the years have baffled the heir hunters and still remain unclaimed.

This is money that could have your name on it.

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

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

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

Could they be relatives of yours?

Subhas Chandra Ghosh died in 2000, aged 76.

He'd lived in Watford, Hertfordshire.

His name is of Hindi origin

and very distinctive.

But despite this, all efforts to trace his heirs have failed.

Or did you know Doris Maud Bennett?

She died in 1999 in Muswell Hill, London.

If no heirs are found to her estate,

the money will go to the government.

Or finally, Denis Eads. He also died in 1999, in Redbridge, Essex.

His surname is extremely rare

and the last census shows just 18 people in the UK sharing it.

If the names Subhas Chandra Ghosh, Doris Maud Bennett or Denis Eads mean anything to you,

there could be a windfall on its way.

Heir hunter Peter Birchwood picked up the case of Josiah Arthur Webbe.

He died aged 86, leaving an estate worth £70,000.

After his death, his will was no longer valid

as he'd left all his money to his wife who had sadly died just weeks before him.

There was no-one else mentioned for the estate to go to.

I believe Arthur did try to change his will

after his wife died in the Christmas of 1986.

Unfortunately, his health didn't allow him to make one.

With no known family, Peter got to work looking for lost heirs.

His search revealed a family that fought in both world wars.

His father, Josiah Arthur senior,

died during the First War.

His ship sank

and he was on it when it went down.

Despite this family tragedy,

Josiah Arthur junior followed exactly in his father's seafaring footsteps.

Well, he was a commander,

and I believe he was involved in the evacuation of Dunkirk.

In what capacity, I couldn't tell you.

Arthur was actually at the top of his game.

Over the years, he'd worked his way up the ranks to what was known as a master mariner.

A master mariner is an officer in the mercantile marine,

who's qualified to command a ship.

And able to go anywhere in the world.

At this stage of his hunt,

Peter had ruled out any close kin Arthur may have had.

He now followed the paternal line, to see whether Arthur's grandparents had any other children.

If they had, this could lead Peter to the cousins

he desperately wanted to find.

Josiah Arthur Webbe senior was born on Nevis, in the West Indies.

And his father was a planter,

a sugar planter.

Between 1675 and the 1730s,

the Caribbean island of Nevis was one of the headquarters to the British slave trade.

With high quality sugar cane produced on the island,

and using African slaves for the labour,

Nevis became a great source of wealth to Great Britain

and possibly the Webbe family.

We do know that they were sugar planters

and that they are part of families that did own slaves.

So that puts them as pretty much the English colonial gentry.

It was a society that kept meticulous records. But for Peter,

heir hunting the Webbe family was now no longer financially viable.

In this instance, we don't have a researcher there

and we can't really justify the expense of going there.

The Webbe name was effectively as good as dead to Peter.

Virtually stuck on the Webbe side.

Peter had to change tack if he was to stand any chance

of finding heirs to Arthur's £70,000 estate.

His only hope was the maternal line of the family.

It wasn't a pleasant prospect.

Evans is a pretty common name, especially in Wales.

It can be researched and you can find heirs,

and I am working on that. We might see a good result from this one of these days.

So for the time being, Arthur's £70,000 estate remains in the Treasury's hands.

But hopefully, Peter's hard work will one day pay off

and his money will navigate its way to Arthur's wider family

who will hopefully celebrate their adventurous, determined and highly successful relation.

Had a super life, I'm sure,

having been at sea for most of his life.

And just a very, very kind person.

Despite the Webbe family's history of slavery and plantation ownership in the West Indies,

their descendants in the form of Arthur and his father

went on to choose more noble careers.

What people don't realise is the enormous debt

that's owed to master mariners and merchant seamen of the Merchant Navy in both world wars

who bought time until technology and expertise in the Royal Navy

were able to combat the threat posed by the German U-boat offensives.

Did you know the Webbe family?

Or do you have this distinctive surname spelt with an E?

If you do, there could possibly be a windfall on its way.

Heir-hunting company Fraser & Fraser have picked up the case of Beryl Simpson.

She died in 2009 aged 74

without ever making a will.

Her estate could speculatively be worth up to £100,000.

But with a distinct lack of new names on the Treasury's list,

they are facing stiff competition from other companies.

If a Mrs Abbott rings, we definitely want to talk to her.

Discovering who Beryl's family are is proving hard work.

By all accounts, Beryl led an extremely private life.

So even though she was known locally in Colnbrook, Slough,

people only knew her as a slightly eccentric and lonely character.

She appeared to be a person that you sort of felt sorry for

because she seemed to be a bit of a loner, really.

A fact that doesn't help case manager Tony Pledger.

He has lists of names and phone numbers of potential heirs,

but hasn't yet managed to speak to any of them.

This is getting complicated.

Tony and his team have discovered that Beryl had two brothers

that potentially could lead to six nephews and nieces

and two great-nieces.

But this information means nothing if Tony can't contact them

and set up the all-important meetings.

Travelling heir hunter Ewart is as frustrated as Tony.

I'm waiting for a call from the office

to hopefully confirm where they live.

It's a waiting game, really.

I may give the office a call, actually.

Hello, Ewart, darling.

Wanting to make the most of Ewart's time before they have any heirs to visit,

Tony sends him to the register office instead.

Talk to you later.

Getting hold of Beryl and her late husband's death certificate

could give Tony crucial information ahead of their competition.

But with other companies hot on his heels,

the distinct lack of heirs to meet is beginning to get to him.

Don't ask me what's happening.

Back on the road, Ewart's managed to get hold of the death certificates Tony's asked for.

Go on, mate.

She was a factory worker, retired.

"Widow of Douglas George Simpson, warehouseman, retired."

Thanks. Bye.

Unfortunately, this information only confirms what Tony already knew.

But across the office, Gareth has made a breakthrough.

He's just found a new contact number for one of Beryl's nieces.

Tony must act fast and try and secure a meeting for Ewart asap.

You've had three already or are with the third?

But this is the last thing Tony wanted to hear.

The competition has beaten him to it, not once, but twice.

On top of this, Gareth also isn't having any luck with his other contacts.

We've got three addresses so far, and a phone number for each one

but they're not answering.

Relying on one of them answering the phone, really.

At least Tony's on the phone to one of the nieces,

and he's trying to set up the all-important meeting.

But even this is proving hard work.

Travelling heir hunters Ewart and Bob Barrett have bumped into each other at the register office.

They're now debating whether to swap the cases they're working on.

OK. I will speak to you later. Thanks, Bob.

Bye.

Right.

Where's Tony?

Where's Tony?

A last-minute change of plan is the last thing Tony needs at this crucial moment.

It will either be, um...

Bob Barrett, or it'll be Ewart Lindsay

that will ring you.

I'm not sure which one it's going to be now.

I've just been given a note to confuse me. Anyway, thanks ever so much indeed.

Thank you. Bye.

Where is Ewart?

Where is he? Where is Ewart?

Away from his phone and shooting the breeze with Bob.

Between them, they still can't decide who will drive north

and who will stay south, working on Tony's case.

-Cheers, Bob.

-Thanks a lot.

Will you give Tony a ring?

Cheers. See you later.

Tony doesn't care who it is

as long as someone races to meet Beryl's niece.

Ewart?

What the friggin' heck is happening? I need you to ring this Christine Bailey.

We're the third... I think we're the fourth company to phone her.

Time is now crucial. The sooner they can meet the niece,

the greater the likelihood she will sign with the company.

Ewart gets on his way.

From speaking to their first heir, Tony can relax a little

and reflect on the history of Beryl's parents he discovered from the niece.

The father of the deceased was born in Sunderland.

He walked down here in the Jarrow march

which was, as you know, when all the people in Jarrow walked to London because they didn't have jobs.

The Jarrow March took place in 1936

and was a protest by the men of the town of Jarrow in Tyne and Wear

against the unemployment and extreme poverty they faced.

The marchers decided to go because of the closure of the main employer, Palmer's,

and the main steelworks.

With that, you're talking about nearly 8,000 jobs.

With the steelworks closed down, followed by the shipyard,

Beryl's father Frederick and the men of Jarrow weren't left with many other options for work.

Con Shills is 94 years old

and a son of one of the original marchers.

The shipyard was really the only place, so when that closed,

Jarrow was finished.

And the local men had no option but to go on to the meagre dole.

It was pathetic, it really was! Now, I can talk about this

because I'm 94 years old and I can really talk about this.

They were actually on the dole for years.

Literally years!

Up and down the Tyne there were all these shipyards. Fair enough.

But there was already men in those places. In the jobs.

And it was the poverty-stricken conditions these men and their families,

families like Beryl's, were forced to endure on the dole

that drove them to take action against the government.

The marchers' goal was to march from Jarrow to London

and put before Parliament via a petition of 11,000 signatures,

the sheer poverty and unemployment in Jarrow

which was really high and dire.

The men had wanted, and demanded, a right to work.

That's what they were pleading for, basically, help for the town.

The 200 men, including Beryl's father, Frederick,

marched over 280 miles to the Palace of Westminster in London.

But their request fell on deaf ears.

They didn't want to know.

All they done was they carried that blinking box with the petition in

all the way down from blinking Jarrow to blinking London.

What happened? They received it.

That's it. Received it.

In political language,

it was a waste of time.

"Put it down there."

It was terrible.

The government of the day completely ignored the Jarrow men's requests

and the shipyards stayed closed.

The only thing they got was one pound each to catch the train home.

Over 70 years later,

Ewart is fortunately having more luck with his journey.

It's going to be in here, isn't it?

He's the first of the heir hunters to arrive at the home of Christine Bailey, Beryl's niece.

Rock'n'roll!

Also there is Stacey, a great niece.

They've already been contacted by four other companies

so will being first in a face-to-face meeting

pay off for Ewart and the team?

-Hello, Mrs Bailey.

-Hello.

-Nice to meet you. This is lovely, isn't it?

Ewart gets straight down to business, trying to cross-check facts and expand the family tree.

-Do you know anything about your cousins?

-No.

-Where they live?

-As far as I know, they're still in the Burton-on-Trent area.

-OK.

Then it's down to talking about the business at hand

and seeing if Christine and Stacey will sign to the company.

But Ewart's in for a shock.

I have somebody else coming. He's made an appointment for two o'clock.

With the competition already on their way, Ewart catches a break.

-So as you got in first...

-Yeah.

It seems being first on the doorstep has paid off.

Beryl's heirs agree to the company helping them make their claim to the Treasury

in exchange for a fixed percentage of the estate.

Stacey never met her great aunt.

One of the last times niece Christine saw Beryl

was nearly 30 years ago.

Our last meeting, all being together, was my younger brother's wedding

in about 1981, '82, I think.

I remember her there with Douglas

who later became her husband.

Really, I don't know much else from then.

The fact Beryl passed away, estranged from her own family,

will be a lot for her relatives to take in.

That's sad to come to the end of your life and not have people to give you a goodbye.

It will be a shock to all the rest of my family when they hear the news.

We're quite far afield. One in Spain, one in Wales.

One on holiday who doesn't even know yet.

So, yes, it was a surprise, indeed.

Take care of yourselves. We'll be in touch. Bye.

Ewart bids farewell after a meeting that couldn't have gone any better

in the face of such stiff competition.

Up north, travelling heir hunter Bob

has also met and signed up other nieces and nephews of Beryl's.

But with the family spread all over the UK and abroad,

it will be some time before partner Neil knows the final outcome.

So we've just about finished up with Simpson now.

We've got a couple of signatures from beneficiaries.

An awful lot of competition and I don't think we got much value.

We had hoped that the deceased, Beryl,

may have owned a previous property to the one she passed away in.

It doesn't appear that that is going to be the case.

So the possible £100,000 value is down considerably,

maybe as low as £10,000.

The team now have confirmation that Beryl's estate is actually worth around the £10,000 mark.

When the Treasury approves the heirs' claim,

her estate will then go to the nine relatives she'd sadly lost contact with.

Despite this, her carer Nancy

remembers that Beryl's final years were happy ones.

With the support of the advocacy service and her friends and her carers,

she just blossomed and she was happy.

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

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd