Lane/Campbell Heir Hunters

Today, the Heir Hunters are searching for the beneficiaries

to an estate worth £200,000.

Why would he be in there and nobody else?

Somewhere out there are some long-lost relatives who have no idea

they're in line for a windfall.

Could the Heir Hunters be knocking at your door?

On today's programme...

Back to square one again.

..everything that can go wrong does go wrong...

Common mistake, unfortunately, which we've fallen into headfirst.

..as the Heir Hunters battle to uncover the true heirs

to a small fortune.

It looks as if Mum was an only surviving child,

so there will not be any beneficiaries

on the mother's side of the family.

And an heir's quest to discover the truth about her parents...

I was three when my mum died.

And three and a half when my dad died.

..reveals the moving story of a soldier's walk towards salvation

on the beaches of Dunkirk.

They must hold onto the shoulder of the man in front

as they travelled across the beach in the dark,

just to make sure that they didn't lose anyone.

Plus how you may be entitled to inherit an unclaimed estate

held by the Treasury.

Could thousands of pounds be heading your way?

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 £14 million from unclaimed estates.

That's where the Heir Hunters come in.

There are over 30 specialist firms who make it their business

to track down missing relatives and help them

claim their rightful inheritance.

People are entitled to this money. We make sure they get it.

It's early on Thursday morning,

at the offices of Heir Hunters Fraser & Fraser.

This is the day that the Treasury releases its weekly list

of unclaimed estates.

Clayburgh and Cunningham. Joe's got Hepworth.

But today, boss Neil Fraser has had a tip-off from another source

that he wants to pursue.

We've been a little lucky, we've got a case which we think

is possibly going to appear on the Treasury list sometime soon.

It hasn't at the moment, so from that point of view,

we've got a head start on everyone. It's William Edward Lane.

Dies in January of this year, so it's fairly recent.

But, fingers crossed, it'll be a good value estate.

And the signs are that it will be.

Neil's been told that William owned his own property in South London,

so they're hoping that the estate will be worth around £200,000.

The value of estates is really important to the Heir Hunters,

because they work on commission, earning a percentage

of the amount that's claimed by each heir they sign.

William Lane died aged 84 on the 25th of January 2011.

At the time of his death,

he lived alone in this house in Norbury in South London.

Frank Tidy was an old friend of his younger brother, Tom,

and so remembers William when he was a young man.

He was always a very smart man. We used to go up round the West End,

and he always got immaculately suited and booted,

like, dressed suit, tie.

But although he took great care of his appearance,

William was always a shy and serious person, and as he got older,

he became increasingly reclusive.

Just a loner, he didn't like being in crowds.

You could understand why he never met a woman

because he never went out to meet, you know,

if you don't go out, you're not going to meet anyone, are you?

For about a year, we invited him up for dinner, etc, once a week.

After he'd eaten, he'd spend a couple of hours with us

and then just walk home.

As William retreated further and further from the world,

he spent more and more time in his house,

which was becoming increasingly decrepit.

I mean, he had brambles sort of eight foot high.

You couldn't see his front door.

You had to take a pair of secateurs

before you could get to his front door. It was that bad.

He wouldn't have a mobile phone, he wouldn't have a phone full stop.

He wouldn't have a television.

His only...with the outside world was a radio

which he'd plug in his ears

cos he didn't want to disturb the neighbours.

By the end of his life, William's isolation was almost complete.

But he did have one comfort - he was an avid reader.

He was a very intelligent man. He got a lot of his knowledge from reading books.

I think what he used to do was have his headphones on,

listen to his music and read a book, and that was his entertainment.

Back in the office, and case manager Tony Pledger has taken charge.

The first thing he does is send senior researcher on the road, Dave Hadley...

Hello, Tony.

..round to the deceased's house to see what he can find out from the neighbours.

I'll leave that with you, then, all right? Know what you're doing? OK, ta. Thanks. Bye.

Heir hunting relies heavily on research done in the office.

But most investigations require some face to face enquiries.

Senior researchers on the road are based all over the country,

and it's their job to follow up any lead and make sure they get to the heirs ahead of the competition.

Dave arrives in Norbury and gets his first glimpse of William's house.

Looking at it, it is pretty run-down. Doesn't look like there's anybody living in it,

so I'll knock on the doors of the neighbours and see what I can find out about it.

Dave's in luck. One of the neighbours is in.

-Did you know him at all?

-No.

Do you know anybody that's sort of maybe been here a few years that may have known him?

-No idea, mate.

-No? OK, thanks very much.

Sadly, it doesn't look like he's going to get any information to help the search.

But at least he can take a photo of the house to show the team in the office.

They're hoping it's going to be worth around £200,000,

and although it's been a bit neglected over the years,

the house is in a nice area, so Dave is happy to go with that figure.

Back at HQ, the team have managed to do a lot of research in a short space of time.

Senior researcher Noel has done the bulk of it,

and he's already ordered the necessary certificates to prove that his theories are correct.

William's parents were Albert Lane and Ida Froud.

He had one brother, Albert.

Neither of the boys married or had children,

which means there are no close kin to inherit.

So the heir hunters will have to look for William's aunts and uncles

and their children if they're going to find heirs to his estate.

According to Noel, it's not looking good on the maternal side.

It looks as if Mum was an only surviving child,

so there will not be any beneficiaries on the mother's side of the family.

The 1911 census shows that William's mother Ida

did have an elder sister and brother -

Annie and Edward.

But, by the time of the census, they'd already passed away.

As they never married or had children,

that rules out any chance of heirs on that side of the family.

Luckily, it looks like the father's side is going to be a lot more fruitful.

Under the laws of England and Wales, only those directly descended from the deceased's grandparents

are eligible to inherit. Noel thinks he's traced William's paternal grandparents.

According to his research, they are William and Emily Lane.

The good news is they had five children,

including William's father Albert,

and the signs are

that at least two of these children lived to adulthood.

First step is to send off for some more certificates,

so researcher Dominic gets on the phone to Dave Hadley.

Neil's wondering if you'll go over to the registry office in Lambeth

-and then give Noel a call, see what he needs.

-All right, mate.

In the meantime, researcher Michael has been scouring the internet

for any trace of these Lane siblings, and he's made an interesting discovery.

I found this shipping record for Frank and Joseph Lane,

both going to Canada on the same ship at the same time.

It says that their voyage was paid for by Dr Barnardo's Homes

and that they were sent there to do farming.

It appears that two of William's paternal uncles were taken in by children's home Barnardo's,

perhaps because their parents couldn't afford to keep them

and they were then part of a wave of child migrants sent to Canada to work on farms.

As the search for William Lane's heirs extends across the Atlantic to Canada,

the heir hunters begin to step up the pace.

They know that these Lane children

represent their only hope of finding heirs on this case,

so they're desperate to make a breakthrough.

With one senior researcher on the road and at least three of them working it in the office,

they're throwing everything at it.

-But just then there's some game-changing news.

-Right.

Some of the certificates that Noel ordered earlier have arrived back in the office.

They were meant to corroborate his initial research, but it seems that they do anything but.

Earlier, Noel had dismissed the maternal side of this case

because the census showed

both William's maternal aunt and uncle dying in childhood.

However, the death certificate the team have just received

for the maternal uncle,

Edward Froud, tells a different story.

It seems he died in Lambeth in 1970, at the age of 72.

The information on the census, where it said that they had three children,

two had died and one living, was a fabrication.

For some reason, William's maternal grandparents decided to state on the census

that their two eldest children were dead.

It just goes to prove that the census isn't 100% reliable.

But at least Noel had ordered the certificates as backup,

so he realised his mistake before too long.

We thought it was three kids but on the census it said two were dead.

But ultimately, this mistake is good news for the team.

Bringing William's aunt and uncle back from the dead

means that they've got two more chances

of finding descendants who would be eligible to inherit his estate.

Noel is anxious to make up for lost time.

It's not long before he finds a marriage record for William's aunt Annie,

who married a Thomas in Hackney in 1920.

Now that he has this information, Noel can search for her children,

who would be William's first cousins.

From that marriage, there are six children,

and, so far, we've managed to locate four of them alive and well.

Out of these four cousins, Noel has managed to locate two current addresses and phone numbers...

..one for Annie's daughter Hilda,

and another for Hilda's brother Thomas.

Either of them could turn out to be a very welcome first heir

on this case.

Noel heads upstairs to give case manager Tony the good news and the all-important phone numbers.

Right, OK, let's just throw it together.

Tony gets straight on the phone.

It's nothing untoward, but as private researchers,

we specialise in tracing missing housing beneficiaries...

But, unfortunately, it's one step forward, two steps back on this case.

Neither of the potential heirs that Noel has found are in, so the best Tony can do is leave a message.

But it turns out that's the least of Noel's troubles.

Pick that up, give it to him.

Another certificate has just arrived in the office.

This time it's the birth record for William's father Albert,

and the information it contains is not what Noel expected.

It turns out that the father of the deceased's family

that we worked initially is the wrong family.

Up till now, they thought that Albert's parents, the deceased's grandparents,

were a William and Emily Lane.

But this certificate says that they were actually William and Martha Lane.

That means that the whole paternal family tree

and all of the work that has gone into investigating it,

from Lambeth to Canada, is completely and utterly wrong.

It's not the grandparents that we thought it was. So we're back to square one here.

Coming up, the census strikes again

as the hunt for William Lane's heirs draws to an agonising conclusion.

We can't find the father of the deceased on the census with the rest of his family.

So until we find that, we're not 100% sure that there's nobody else.

Heir hunting is about putting people back in touch

and discovering relations that you never knew existed.

But sometimes it can also help heal family wounds and bring comfort and understanding.

This is what happened in the case of Kevin Campbell.

Kevin died aged 68 on 22nd March 2010 in York.

He had lived for the last 25 years of his life

in the pretty market town of Malton in North Yorkshire,

within sight of the North York Moors.

Towards the end of his life, Kevin lived in sheltered accommodation in the centre of the town.

He was a well-known face at the New Globe pub. Alan Vaizey was another regular there.

Well, I knew Kevin by him being part of our community in the local.

We didn't live in each other's pockets.

We were just part of a gang who visited a very friendly pub.

Although Kevin wasn't from the town, he had no trouble fitting in.

He was friendly. He was part of the gang, really, you know.

For somebody who wasn't born and bred in the area, he mixed very well.

There were three or four, sometimes five, different sets of dominos being played,

and the odds are that Kevin would be dragged in to play.

Towards the end of his life Kevin suffered from ill health,

and one of his legs was amputated.

He didn't let his disability get in the way at all.

He was an amiable chap who sort of mixed very well.

He never threatened me with his walking stick or anything like that.

He got on well with the gang.

When Kevin died, he left an estate valued at £10,000 but no will.

His case was picked up by Anna Dunn of Hull-based DS Researchers.

He died in Malton, which is in North Yorkshire, an area that we like to cover.

Anna and her team have been heir hunting for 10 years,

and are one of only a handful of heir hunting companies based in the North of England.

Having seen Kevin Campbell's estate advertised on the Treasury's list,

Anna's first move was to look for his name on the electoral roll in his home town.

When she couldn't find it, she then ordered a copy of his death certificate.

Once I'd received that, I was able to see when he was born

and I ordered his birth certificate.

The birth certificate told her

that Kevin's parents were Charles and Frances Campbell.

Anna then looked to see whether Kevin's parents

had had any more children.

I discovered that Charles and Frances

had two other children apart from Kevin.

So Kevin had a brother and a sister,

so my next stage was to track these down.

Kevin Campbell was born on the 10th October 1941

in Cleveland, North Yorkshire.

He was the middle son of Frances and Charles Campbell.

When he was only nine years old, tragedy struck.

Both his parents contracted cancer

and passed away within six months of each other.

Kevin and his younger sister were then sent to live

with their mother's half-sister in Whitby.

But life in their new home was far from happy,

and at the age of 15, Kevin packed a plastic bag with a few things,

went off to school and never came back.

He went to work on a farm near Whitby

before getting a job on the oil rigs.

In 1969, the first commercial oil field was discovered

in the North Sea off the coast of Scotland.

This discovery had huge implications for Britain

and was to completely change the UK economy.

The UK then was practically bankrupt.

Inflation was at 18%.

North Sea gas and oil saved the country, really, financially.

This major new industry required skilled personnel

and thousands of workers migrated

to north-east Scotland in search of work.

Kevin Campbell was there during these boom years,

working as a motorman

on some of the major on-shore drilling rigs.

The life of a motorman

on an on-shore rig, he would be responsible

solely for the movement of all parts of the rig.

It's quite a responsible job.

When he left the oil industry is unclear,

but at some point Kevin made his way back to North Yorkshire

and stayed here until his death in 2012.

Anna discovered that Kevin had two siblings -

a brother Colin and a sister Rosalyn.

If they were alive, then they could inherit and if they had died,

they could have children who could then be heirs.

But before Anna could go down that road, she needed to rule out

the possibility that Kevin had had a wife or children of his own.

I looked for marriages for Kevin Campbell,

but I found that it wasn't that easy to search for the name Campbell

as there were quite a lot scattered about and I had realised

that he hadn't remained in the same place where he was born.

So I thought if I found his brother or his sister,

maybe they would enlighten me a bit more as to whether they knew anything

about Kevin and had he married or not.

It was at this point that Anna discovered

that some of the other heir hunting companies

were also working this case

and she desperately needed to find Kevin's brother and sister

before they did. But she had a problem.

Anna and her team made an exhaustive search

of all the records in Yorkshire and the North of England...

Hi, I'm Peter from DS Research.

..but there was absolutely no sign of Colin.

She had just about given up hope

when she came across his wife's name on the electoral roll.

I did find a phone number which I telephoned

and discovered that his older brother had actually died in Spain.

But I spoke to his wife and she was able to give me

a little bit more information on Kevin's sister.

Rosalyn was now Anna's only hope of finding heirs to this estate.

Colin's widow had been able to tell her that Rosalyn was still alive

and that she'd been married.

She was also able to give her Rosalyn's married name.

But Anna had no idea where she was living

and, with the competition snapping at her heels,

the race was now on to find Kevin's only surviving sister.

Coming up - the search for Kevin's heirs uncovers

the truth behind an amazing family story.

I don't remember much about my parents,

but I was told that my dad swum for his life at Dunkirk.

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.

Could they be relatives of yours?

Margaret Dabanli died in London in July 1999.

Dabanli is most commonly a Turkish surname.

Does it ring a bell with you?

Jessie Richins died in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, in April 1998.

The surname Richins is a rare one in the UK and spelt this way,

with an "I" at the end, it's particularly unusual.

Do you remember Jessie? Can you solve this case?

Reggie Harold Erick Hattersley Gyte died in Stockport in October 1995.

Reggie's middle name, Hattersley, is more commonly found as a surname,

but it's also the name of a place near Stockport.

Were you a friend or neighbour of Reggie's?

If no heirs of his are found, his money will go to the government.

If the names Margaret Dabanli, Jessie Richins or Reggie Gyte

mean anything to you or someone you know,

you could have a fortune coming your way.

Heir Hunter Anna Dunn was looking into the case

of Yorkshireman Kevin Campbell.

He died aged 68, leaving behind him an estate worth £10,000.

Anna had discovered that Kevin had two siblings -

an elder brother, Colin, who had passed away,

and a sister, Rosalyn.

Rosalyn had married and, as far as Anna knew, was still alive

and living somewhere in the UK.

Anna desperately needed to speak to Rosalyn

to find out if Kevin had ever married and had children.

If he hadn't, then Rosalyn would be his closest relative

and stood to inherit his entire estate.

With only a name to go on, Anna started sifting through

the online registers and the electoral roll.

She discovered, to her delight, that Rosalyn was living

only six miles from where she'd been born in North Yorkshire.

Anna knew that other heir hunters were working this case

so she needed to act fast.

But she also knew that she had to tread carefully,

so she sent her travelling researcher, Peter, to pay Rosalyn visit.

With cases like this of such close kin,

one has to be a little more sensitive because, at the end of the day,

we don't know what relationship they had -

if they'd been brought up together,

spent a lot of time together - one just doesn't know what to expect.

Rosalyn is now a widow

and she lives with her granddaughter on the North Yorkshire coast.

She also has a son and daughter who live nearby.

As Anna anticipated, the news of her brother's death

did come as a shock,

but Rosalyn hadn't heard from Kevin in almost 20 years.

Well, I was upset, but not too upset

because I hadn't seen him in such a long time.

I've lost me other brother

and now there's only me.

All three children were deeply affected by the tragedy

of their parents' early death.

As the youngest, Rosalyn was left with a very few memories.

I was three when my mum died

and three and a half when my dad died,

but I don't remember much about them.

Only thing is I have a photograph of them, you know, to look at.

But she does remember her and Kevin's new life

with their aunt who they went to live with after their parents died.

It was difficult living with auntie...

..because...

Well, her daughter wasn't very nice to us.

She'd do things and we'd get the blame.

After a few years, Kevin decided enough was enough.

He was five years older than Rosalyn

and able to look after himself,

but to his little sister, it must've felt

like she was being abandoned all over again.

Well, I was upset that he'd gone

because he was my brother, you know?

I mean...I was close to him.

He was the only one

that was there with us, you know?

And now I was on my own.

Anna's travelling researcher, Peter, spoke at length to Rosalyn.

After he'd filled in as many gaps as he could about Kevin's later life,

he was then able to give her some good news.

Following on from our conversation with Rosalyn,

we did clarify that Kevin hadn't got married,

he didn't have any children and because the older brother

had died in Spain, Rosalyn would be the only beneficiary to this estate.

Rosalyn was delighted to be inheriting her brother's money,

but she didn't want it to end there. Hearing about what happened to Kevin

awakened an interest in her family and, in particular,

the parents that she never knew.

I don't remember much about my parents but I was told

that my dad swam for his life at Dunkirk.

Rosalyn's father was actually in the fifth battalion

of the Green Howards - an infantry regiment in the British Army.

He saw active service in both France and Belgium

during the Second World War.

The Green Howards Regiment is based in North Yorkshire

and the town of Richmond is home to the regimental museum.

Rosalyn wants to find out more about her father's wartime service,

so she's come to the museum to meet curator Lynda Powell.

Rosalyn, welcome to the Green Howards Museum.

It's lovely to meet you and I hope you'll be able to find

something out about your father today.

I've got some information upstairs for you,

so perhaps you'd like to come upstairs and have a look round?

-Oh, yes. Yes, please.

-This way. It's just up these flights of stairs here.

Rosalyn had heard that her father may have been a survivor

of the evacuation of Dunkirk in June 1940,

but that's all she knows, so she's hoping that Lynda can tell her more.

We know your father went out to Dunkirk with the fifth battalion

and we have a map showing the route that they took through France.

It was really, really cold.

We have reports from our own war diaries

explaining that it was so cold

that the radiators on the lorries were freezing,

even when the truck was running, so it gives you some idea

of how uncomfortable conditions must have been.

Charles Campbell and the Green Howards

were part of the British Expeditionary Force.

They were sent over to France at the beginning of the war

to defend the Western front and try to hold the German advance.

Linda is able to show Rosalyn

the part that her father's regiment played

as they were caught up in the dramatic events of 1940.

It's a little bit confusing because they were actually sent forward

into Belgium as everyone else was retreating

to try and defend this river here,

but it proved impossible to defend the river.

There were just too many Germans and the French on the right flank

were not the strongest of the French troops

and with the Germans being such an efficient army at that time,

they couldn't withstand the force of the Germans

and the right flank of the French army crumbled,

which meant that the British army was left defending a very large area.

The Green Howards were then forced to retreat

and joined the long lines of Allied soldiers heading back to Dunkirk.

By this time, winter had turned to scorching summer.

It was very, very hot. Soldiers were marching on cobbled paving

and it was a really arduous journey

and by the time they arrived back at Dunkirk

they were absolutely exhausted.

On the 26th of May, Churchill ordered an evacuation

of the stranded troops at Dunkirk,

but it was feared there wasn't enough time or capacity

to get even a fraction of them out

before the German army arrived at the port.

The whole country held its breath and prayed for a miracle.

What happened next has gone down in history

as an example of true British grit and triumph over adversity.

A hastily assembled flotilla of boats

ranging from troopships to pleasure cruisers,

many of them manned by brave civilians,

set sail for Dunkirk to come to the rescue.

By June 4th, nearly 340,000 men had been saved

and brought back to England,

ready to fight another day.

The Green Howards were one of the last regiments off the beaches.

Soldiers were told when they were due to go to the embarkation points

that they must hold on to the shoulder of the man in front

as they travelled across the beach in the dark, just to make sure

that they didn't lose anyone as they moved towards the embarkation points.

So a really hard journey that your father went through.

For Rosalyn, it's a lot to take in.

Oh, it's interesting, yeah.

Because I don't know nothing,

-only that he swam for his life at Dunkirk.

-Right. Yes.

What we get from our regimental history is the bigger picture.

I know where people were marching and how long it took them.

What you've got is your individual father's story

of having to swim for his life. It's always wonderful to hear them

and that you've had that story handed down to you.

So it enriches our own history of the regiment.

It's been an extraordinary glimpse into the life of her father

and the kind of man that he was.

I'm proud of my dad and what he achieved -

fighting the Germans,

being at Dunkirk.

It's been a satisfying case for Anna.

From an heir-hunting perspective, and she beat the competition

and found the sole heir to Kevin Campbell's estate,

but there's more to it than that.

This was a successful case all-round.

From Rosalyn's point of view,

she was able to find out more about her father who she'd lost

when she was three, her brother who she lost contact with...

These type of cases are the ones that make our work worthwhile.

Heir Hunters Fraser & Fraser have been investigating

the estimated £200,000 estate of reclusive William Lane

who died aged 84 in Norbury, South London.

So far, this case has been a roller-coaster ride for the Heir Hunters.

A dodgy census entry meant that the maternal side appeared to be

completely dead before magically coming back to life.

We just found the marriage of Annie Emily Maude Froud.

There are six children

and so far we've managed to locate four of them alive and well.

But that was nothing compared to the paternal side,

where the whole family tree turned out to be wrong.

It's not the grandparents that we thought it was.

So we're back to square one, yeah.

William Lane ended his days living alone and isolated from the world.

When he was a teenager and the war broke out,

he dreamed of joining the RAF and fighting the Germans.

But by the time he was old enough to enlist,

the government had other ideas.

By 1943, Britain had lost around 36,000 miners to the armed forces

and the country was facing a crisis through lack of coal.

To avert disaster, Ernest Bevin,

the Minister for Labour and National Service,

decided that a random selection of all conscripts

who were called up for national service

would be sent to the mines and William was one of them.

It was a lottery you didn't want to win.

None of us wanted to go in the mines at all.

We all wanted to go into the branch of the forces that was our wish,

but it wasn't to be. And don't forget -

we came from all walks of life. No matter what you did,

you know, you could be an East-Ender or even a Lord -

it made no difference, you're all subject to the same rules.

Between 1943 and 1948, 48,000 of these Bevin Boys -

as they became known - worked as an auxiliary force

to the regular miners, hauling the coal and manning the conveyor belts.

Labour-intensive. Really hard work.

And very, very dangerous. Dusty, dirty - it was a filthy job to do.

I thought, "I want to get out of this," you know?

"This isn't for me." I think most of us felt that.

Very few Bevin Boys - well, they're not honest

if they say they settled in and liked it.

William Lane served his time digging for his country

as one of these Bevin Boys, but now it's the Heir Hunters' turn

to do some digging into William's family tree.

After the last devastating setback, Noel was forced to throw out

the entire paternal side of the tree and start again.

Yeah, that's rubbish. Forget that.

But Noel is an experienced Heir Hunter

and now he's got the correct names for the deceased grandparents, William and Martha,

it isn't long before he's back in business.

He finds William and Martha and their children on the 1911 census.

The only problem is, there's no sign of the deceased's father, Albert.

The father of the deceased isn't on there and we don't really know why.

Yet again, the census seems to be playing tricks on them.

If Albert is missing, who's to say there aren't other siblings

who've been inexplicably removed from the picture?

We think there are three brothers and one sister on the paternal side

still alive, so aunts and uncles of the deceased.

There may be more - we're not 100% sure that there's nobody else.

It's time to bring in a bit more manpower.

Michael and Neil join Simon in the hunt for the deceased's father, Albert.

His birthday will match all the others we've got along here.

And it's not long before they find him,

but he's not where they thought he would be.

And we think that's probably the 11 in a workhouse in Hereford,

but why would he be in that and nobody else?

It turns out that Albert is on the 1911 census,

but instead of being with his family in Lambeth

he's in a workhouse in Hereford.

No-one can explain why this has happened,

but the important thing is they've tracked him down

and Neil is now satisfied that there are no other stray Lane siblings.

Finally, it seems that the whole of the paternal side

of William's family are accounted for.

Now it's just a question of tracking down these aunts and uncles

and their descendants and signing them up.

As for the maternal side of the family,

it looks like case manager Tony has finally made a break-through.

Hi, I'm sorry to trouble you -

you don't know me. My name's Tony Pledger...

He's on the phone to William's first cousin, Hilda.

So if you can give Tom a call and then I'll then speak to Dave Hadley.

OK, then? Thanks ever so much for this.

Lovely talking to you, and hopefully we'll speak again.

Thank you, bye.

I was just talking to Hilda who's a maternal cousin,

so we're going to go and see her tomorrow and hopefully

she's then going to call her brother, Tom, that lives in Sidcup

to say...whatever, and then Dave Hadley can call him

and see him on the way home.

This is a great result for the whole team.

At one point, it looked like the case of William Lane

would never be solved, but now it seems that they're on the verge

of signing not one, but two heirs.

Time to send in Dave Hadley.

He heads off to Kent to visit Thomas -

a cousin of William's on his mother's side of the family.

-We found your way then?

-Indeed.

-Eh?

-David Hadley.

-Oh, right.

-OK, what's your full name?

-Thomas Edward Bates.

-And what was your mum's full name?

-Annie Emily Maude Bates.

-And what was her maiden name?

-Froud.

Your mum had a sister, Ida. Did you know her?

Yeah, no... Well, I did. When I was very young,

she used to take us to see her up in London somewhere.

-Right, but other than that, you don't know anything?

-No.

-OK.

Although Thomas can just about remember his aunt, Ida,

he has no memory of his cousin, William,

but he listens to what Dave has to say and signs with the company,

happy for them to help him make his claim to the Treasury Solicitor.

Right, well, thanks ever so much. Really nice meeting you.

Dave heads off. He's delighted to have signed his first heir

while Thomas is left feeling a bit dazed.

You know, when I was brought up, there was never much money about

so you wouldn't think anyone's going to leave any money, sort of thing.

But, you know, you never know do you?

The next day dawns

and Dave's already on the road, heading towards Canning Town

in East London to speak to another of William's maternal cousins, Hilda.

I'm also hoping that her niece is going to be with her

because her niece is also an heir, so I can get two birds with one stone.

Hilda's sister, Alice, died in 1978

so her share of her cousin William's inheritance

will be split between her two children. One of them, Linda,

is with her aunt Hilda right now

waiting to greet Dave.

Dave starts by asking Hilda

about her connections with her mother's family.

-If we start first of all - what's your full name?

-Hilda Ivy.

-I mentioned Ida. Do you remember Ida?

-Aunt Ida? Yes.

-I used to go and see her.

-OK.

-Yes. And I used to see the two sons.

Hilda can just about remember William

from when they were both very young,

but, unsurprisingly, she hasn't seen him since.

After they've listened to what David has to say,

both women are happy for the company to help them make their claim.

-That's the agreement. Have a read of it.

-Thank you.

It's a great start to the day for Dave.

Well, thanks ever so much, Mrs Elman, it's been a real pleasure.

-It's been lovely meeting you.

-And you.

-Thanks very much.

-Bye-bye.

But he can't stay long.

The office has traced several more of William Lane's heirs,

so he's got a busy day ahead of him.

Meanwhile, Hilda and Linda are left to ponder their good fortune.

It's the first time I've been an heir to anything,

so that's the exciting part about it.

And I never, ever thought I would be.

But it's not just about the money. Receiving her inheritance

has made Linda think about the cousin she never knew.

To think that he was on his own.

That's really sad.

So, whoever it was, we didn't know 'em

and they was part of our family.

In the end, the team found all 28 heirs to William's £200,000 estate -

eight on the maternal side and 20 on the paternal.

Most of them had never even heard of their shy, reclusive cousin,

but thanks to the Heir Hunters and their work,

he'll now always be remembered.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd