Wall/Sharman Heir Hunters

Heir hunters are trained to track down the relatives of those who've died without leaving a will.

Their work involves expert research.

Two spinsters and one infant death, so we're going to have to go back to the start.

They can hand over thousands of pounds

to long-lost family members who had no idea they were in line to inherit.

You just think, "Ooh, is there any money and how much would we get?"

And sometimes,

they give people a whole new perspective on their past.

She sounds, er, a lady that I'd very much like to meet.

But most of all, they tell people of an unexpected windfall.

Could the Heir Hunters be knocking at your door?

Coming up...

A search for heirs that goes to all corners of the globe.

-Comes from Jamaica in 1930.

-Comes from Jamaica?

Heir hunters try to unravel the mystery of a case that lay unsolved for 20 years...

She sounds like an incredible woman, does Nellie.

Plus, how you could be entitled to inherit unclaimed estates

held by the Treasury. Could a fortune be heading your way?

It's Thursday morning and at the offices of the UK's largest firm

of heir hunters, Fraser & Fraser, it's all go.

Today is the busiest day of their week

because at midnight every Thursday,

the Treasury Solicitor releases a new list of unclaimed estates.

We've got a marriage for the parents and also two possible siblings.

The team are competing with rival heir hunting firms across the UK

to be the first to find and sign up heirs to these estates.

In theory, this might be another sister of the deceased.

But it might not.

And today is especially busy.

The team are looking at 12 separate estates and by early afternoon,

they've found heirs on at least six of them.

So at the moment, Bob's on his way to go and see the niece,

who lives in Orpington.

But the team don't just get their work from the unclaimed list.

Sometimes they're given a tip-off about a person who's died

without leaving a will.

And just as the team are beginning to wind down for the day,

a tip-off comes in that boss Neil wants them to work.

I'm just starting to look at a new case.

It's not from a Treasury Solicitor source,

which is why we're starting it just after lunch, really. Rosemary Wall.

We know she owns her own property and that property's probably worth

in the region of £200,000 so it's a very worthwhile case.

Having started at dawn,

some of the team might have been thinking about an early finish.

But the prospect of a lucrative new case

is too good an opportunity to let go.

The problem for us is, we've got our researchers all over the country

all doing different things so to try and bring them together

and get onto this case may be a little tricky.

So, fingers crossed, we'll strike it lucky

and be in the right area with the right guy and it'll all go to plan.

Rosemary Wall died on 23 November 2010 in Kent.

She was 83 years old.

Bernard and Sylvia Lee first met Rosemary in the mid-1980s

when they moved in next door.

She had a dog at the time, called Smokey, and she used to walk

her little dog and that's how we got to talk, over the dogs.

Over the years, the couple became firm friends with Rosemary

and remember her with great affection.

She was very well spoken and she had a lovely laugh.

You could hear her, even in the garden.

When she was out in the garden talking or laughing,

you could hear her laughing. That is what I remember - her laughing.

-Yeah, it was.

-Wasn't it? She had a lovely laugh.

-Strong laugh.

In fact, to Bernard and Sylvia Rosemary always seemed very content.

She was really fulfilled with her life as she was, wasn't she?

Yeah, she seemed quite happy as she was. You know, on her own and that.

She got on with everyone.

In the office,

it's all hands on deck as Neil and the team begin the search

for heirs to Rosemary's estate,

which has an estimated value of £200,000.

As the team have been tipped off about this estate,

they hope they're the only firm working it

but they'll need to move fast in case rival companies have had

the same tip-off and are trying to beat them to the prize.

-How you doing, Dan, with your bit?

-Er...

-Can't find anything?

-No.

The team have already learned that Rosemary wasn't married

and didn't have any children,

so their next task is to look for immediate family.

Although Rosemary's parents, Frederick and Rose,

died many years ago, it seems she may have had siblings.

She was living with her sister, who was also a spinster. She dies in...

..1993, er, so I'm just going to try and see

if I've got some other siblings

but I don't think it'll take too long to get up to date, fingers crossed.

And sure enough, Isha makes quick progress.

I found a couple of sisters

so if I can find the other one getting married...

But they seem to move about a bit.

Like, Rosemary's born in Blean and her sister is born in Maldon.

If these sisters are alive, they'll be the sole heirs to

Rosemary's estate - and the team are hoping this is the case.

Finding close kin makes both the research on the administration

of an estate much simpler and keeps costs down -

all of which means more profit for the company.

But after a bit of digging, Isha discovers they're out of luck.

Daphne dies infant, so that's...

..two spinsters and one infant death

so we're going to have to go back to the start.

So it's not as easy as I initially thought.

With Rosemary's sisters Maureen and Daphne ruled out,

the team must now broaden their search

and start looking to her aunts, uncles and cousins.

The first stage is to find a marriage record for her parents

Frederick and Rose.

We've come across a Rose M Davison marrying a Frederick E Wall

in Hendon.

But we've found a death of a Rose May Wall in Bexley.

Now, Bexley is perfect for our family

so they could have gone back to Bexley way.

So we've got the date of birth and the death

so Alan's going to look up her birth and see what she's born as.

They turn to Census records to try and confirm they have the right Rose

but they soon hit trouble.

We're struggling with the mum

because there's no Rose May Davison born at that time.

Until they can confirm they have the correct Rose Davison,

it will be tricky to find any aunts or uncles on the maternal side.

I've put the two births in.

What else do you want putting in while we're doing it?

Fortunately, things are looking much more promising on the father's side.

The team have established that Rosemary's paternal grandparents

were Michael and Catherine,

and that her father Frederick was one of nine.

What name do you want me to do?

Albert Michael, James John,

Francis Vincent or Robert J.

With eight paternal uncles to research,

the team now have a huge amount of work to do.

The fastest way to tackle such a big family

is to divide and conquer,

so different branches are shared out amongst the team.

-OK, which one are you taking?

-I'll take Charles Percival.

I've got DW.

-Who are you taking?

-William Hainful, yeah. Dan's got Charles Percival.

Looking at Rosemary's Uncle Charles,

researcher Dan is able to make quick progress.

I've got him marrying.

It looks like he's married twice,

to a Dorothy Risby and a Theodora Willey.

But Neil's spotted something which could be a big stumbling block.

Why we've got some problems is,

Michael the grandfather was born in County Dublin in Ireland.

His second wife, Ida, is born in Hounslow.

His oldest son, the father of the deceased, is born in Hounslow,

which we've got registration in Brentford.

And then we've got a full-blood brother,

who's born in London.

Doesn't quite say where in London.

We already think that one of the uncles of the deceased

is born in Alderney, one of the Channel Islands.

They've also found brothers born in Colchester in Essex

and Pembroke in Wales. And it's not good news for the heir hunt.

Carrying out research in all corners of the UK

and the Channel Islands will mean extra costs for the team.

And there are no guarantees of finding heirs.

I can't find a good marriage, so...

It's highly unusual to have siblings born so far and wide,

but Neil has a theory.

The occupation of the, er...

..grandfather of the deceased is a recruiting officer in the Army.

So it looks as though they're moving round because of that.

The Army connection may explain why the family were always on the move.

But tracing them is proving a nightmare.

Not only do they have no idea where to look

but Wall is a fairly common name.

There's too many William H Walls around about that time,

when he's born.

And I can't identify any deaths with any certainty, that could be correct.

I really don't know about him at all. He's dropped off the radar.

This is testing research for the team

and things could get even harder as they move down the tree.

The next generation are...likely that at least some of them

are going to have joined the Army as well,

so they're going to be soldiers.

It means that we have to make sure we're checking the Commonwealth War Graves

to see if they've died in the First or Second World War because they may be of age.

If they're not, maybe their children are.

Once we get one bit in the Army,

we generally find quite a bit of it there.

So something for us to pay attention to when we're doing the research.

Neil's hunch proves to be spot on.

The team soon start discovering paternal uncles who were in the Army

and stationed all over the world.

Coming from Jamaica to Bristol.

Oh, mine does that. Mine goes to Ceylon but dies in Watford.

The only researcher having any luck is Alan,

who thinks he's traced one of Rosemary's cousins.

I found a possible son of a marriage of Henry ES Wall.

It might be correct, cos it's the same name as the grandfather.

While it sounds promising, there's just one hitch.

Last known to be in Fremantle, Western Australia.

What started out as a seemingly simple case has suddenly snowballed

into an international heir hunt.

Tracing relatives across the globe requires a lot of work -

and at this stage, they're nowhere near finding heirs to Rosemary's estate.

-Was he born in Jamaica or something?

-Oh, yeah, yeah.

But as the hunt continues,

there may be more positive news closer to home.

Jo's found the maternal side. She's born as Rosie.

But will it lead them to their first heir?

Hopefully it's a smaller family than the paternal side.

While the Treasury Solicitor publishes a new list

of unclaimed estates each week, not all of them are sold straightaway.

Some can stay on the bona vacantia list for many years,

until a new piece of information suddenly comes to light

that helps solve the puzzle.

For firms like Celtic Research,

which is run by father-and-son team Peter and Hector Birchwood,

these unsolved cases offer a tantalising challenge.

We often look back at cases that we have not been able to solve,

whenever new information becomes available.

And that's how, in early 2012, case manager Saul Marks

discovered the case of Kathleen Sharman.

Kathleen died almost 20 years ago

and no heir-hunting firm had managed to solve her case -

so for Saul and the team, it looked like it could be a real challenge.

Kathleen Sharman died on 23 October 1993, in Barking in east London.

She was 56 years old.

Kathleen had Down's syndrome

and had lived in Kingsbridge Residential Care Home for many years.

Sadly, no photos of Kathleen survive

but Jean Pettican knew her for many years.

Kathleen used to like music.

She was a happy-go-lucky girl.

She used to like her food, her sweets, make-up and dancing.

And she used to like her music. Everything a young girl would like.

Jean always looked forward to meeting up with Kathleen

when they were young girls.

I used to get excited when I'd see her because it was

someone my own age coming home with me, someone I could talk to.

We used to sit and have a chat. It wasn't, sort of, serious talk.

It was like childish talk.

Although Kathleen lived in residential care,

she was often out and about in the town centre.

Kathleen used to walk round Barking shopping with another little lady from the home.

And they was always together, the pair of them, always.

And she was right... She looked very old, this woman,

this little friend.

Jean will always remember Kathleen fondly.

She was happy.

Always smiling, never miserable.

Never miserable.

In Liverpool, Saul and the team

were beginning the search for Kathleen's heirs.

On a case like this, the firm work for a percentage of an estate

and they only get paid if and when they sign up heirs.

But Kathleen's case was to be even more of a gamble

because it was estimated to be worth no more than £5,000.

If they found close relatives, their research costs would be low

and they would stand to make a reasonable profit.

But if their investigation spread to the wider family,

research costs would start mounting up

and they could soon end up out of pocket.

Saul knew that Kathleen hadn't married or had children,

so the first stage in the hunt

was to find out who her parents were.

The death certificate gave us the date of birth

of the deceased and I was then able to look her up

on the birth index.

That showed us that she was born to a mother

whose maiden name was Hawkins.

Taking Kathleen's mother's maiden name of Hawkins,

Saul was able to check marriage records

for someone called Hawkins marrying someone called Sharman.

I found there was a George Sharman who married Nellie Hawkins

in Romford registration district, which was the right area,

in the fourth quarter of 1936.

So I was then very confident that this was the deceased's parents.

George and Nellie Sharman lived in the East London town of Barking

and between the First and Second World Wars,

it was an area undergoing enormous social change.

Barking in the 1930s

was a town that was probably quite pleased with itself.

In the Victorian period it had been a place that was quite wild.

It was sort of like a Wild West town.

You had factories and slums and problems with sewage.

A fair amount of violence on the streets.

But by the end of the 1890s,

they were trying to pull their socks up.

And they were moving forward, because there was big competition

with all the local areas.

Which one was the first town that was going to become

a proper modern borough and have a mayor?

Barking was striving for that

and when they got to 1931,

they actually managed to become a borough.

Parts of Barking might have been moving with the times

but elsewhere the town remained true to its Victorian roots.

Everything that lay to the west of the railway line -

in Barking, that's the old town -

was called Old Barking.

That's where you had the factories,

that's where the River Roding was,

where all the slums were,

which the council were very eager to tidy away.

Children were told, "Don't cross the railway line,

"don't go into Old Barking," if they were living in New Barking.

It was a very separate place.

But the slums of Old Barking

were where George and Nellie had grown up

and life was very tough indeed.

They lived in places such as Bridge Street,

not the nicest of places to live.

There was a river on either side of this street.

Sewage would regularly flood into the streets.

Another place they lived in was Back Lane.

It was one of the wildest of the places, where women

fought with hatpins in the streets.

People often had to resort to extreme measures just to survive,

and in 1931,

George and his brother Sidney found themselves on the wrong

side of the law.

"On Stratford, on Wednesday, George Sharman

"and Sidney Sharman, seamen of Trafalgar Square, Barking,

"were charged with being

"concerned in stealing from Mr James Steele of Westwood Road, Goodmayes,

"a leather satchel containing £2.

"The accused pleaded guilty.

"When taken into custody,

"George Sharman replied, 'I admit it.'

"Sidney said, 'Me, too.

" 'We had to get some grub from somewhere.' "

By the time George married Nellie five years later,

he was working as a general labourer.

But the couple were still stuck in the slums of Barking in 1937

when their daughter Kathleen was born with Down's syndrome.

Things were now even tougher for the family.

Way back in the '30s,

well-meaning professionals would advise families

to put their children and young people away

into institutions where they could be cared for and be safe.

So I guess we wouldn't see many people with disability

in our social communities.

We had no Health Service in those eras,

so support and care,

physical care and social support

were sadly lacking, so you relied on families

and close relatives, really.

But for many parents,

the prospect of putting their child into care was heart-wrenching.

Being told such catastrophic news that your child

is different and you may need to

have your child put away and somebody else can do your job for you,

for the next 20 years,

must have been so difficult for parents.

One - to accept, because you think you're the parent.

You care for your person. Nobody else can do that better than you.

For a struggling working-class couple like George and Nellie,

there would have been huge pressure to give up their newborn daughter.

If you're in the low socio-economic groups, if you're in poverty,

and living from day to day, trying to put bread on the table,

it would be seen as the easy option

to remove the child that was going to cause you a lot of hardship -

difficulty, financial difficulty -

and would affect the whole family just by being there.

So although it might have been an easy option physically

and practically,

emotionally, it would be a really difficult decision to make,

regardless of socio-economic status.

But against the odds, Nellie and George

decided to keep Kathleen and raise her themselves.

Parents who made the decision not to have their child placed in a home

would have both found it incredibly difficult

and they'd have to think about the social issues,

about going out and anticipating the needs of that child.

They'd have to think about public transport.

How do people get around if the person

had a physical disability where they couldn't walk without assistance?

They wouldn't have community nurses coming into help

and to visit and advise.

They wouldn't have easy access to health professionals

without paying for it, all those years ago.

So the whole disruption on the whole family unit

would be huge and the parents would take the primary responsibility.

Nellie and George were clearly a brave and caring couple

but in the hunt for Kathleen's heirs,

the key question for Saul was whether they'd had

any other children who may still be alive.

They began a search for other births with the father's name, Sharman,

and the mother's name, Hawkins.

And it paid off.

They quickly found a possible brother who had been born in Ilford.

Obviously, Romford and Ilford are very close geographically,

so it was a reasonably good chance

that this was the deceased's brother.

If so, then this man would be an heir to Kathleen's estate.

Saul got straight on the phone.

I rang him up and I asked him

whether this Kathleen Sharman who died in 1993

may have perhaps been his sister and he said yes, she was.

This was a great result for the team.

They'd found an heir to Kathleen's estate

but it soon became clear their work wouldn't end there.

He also told me he and Kathleen had a younger brother named Brian.

Now we hadn't found Brian when we were looking

for Sharman-to-Hawkins births.

I subsequently found out why

is that on the birth index, Brian's

mother's maiden name was down as Hawkin, instead of Hawkins.

This was a mistake made at the time the birth was registered.

And as Saul was about to find out, there were more surprises in store.

He had been divorced but he had children,

so in this instance,

it would his children who inherited his share of the estate

rather than his ex-wife.

Heir hunters trace thousands of rightful beneficiaries every year.

But not all cases can be cracked.

There are thousands of estates on the Treasury's bona vacantia list

that have eluded the heir hunters and remain unsolved.

Cases will stay on the unclaimed list

for a period of 12 years from the date that the administration

has been completed.

And that's the period of time that people can still come forward

and claim the estate.

Today we're focussing on two cases yet to be solved

by the heir hunters.

Could you be the beneficiary they're looking for?

Could you be about to inherit some money from a long-lost relative?

First of the case of Christine Ann Cunniah

who died on the 6th of June, 2010

in Hove, East Sussex.

Cunniah is a name originating in Asia

and is incredibly rare in Britain.

Did you know Christine, and if so, did she have any relatives?

Do you share her unusual surname?

In which case, could you be entitled to her estate?

Next is the case of Edward Anthony Heffernan

who died in central London on the 27th of September, 1995.

Heffernan is an unusual name in Britain,

with only around 1,500 people who share it.

Are you one of them and if so, could you be a relative of Edward's,

entitled to part of his estate?

The name Heffernan originates from Ireland

and in Britain it's in London that the name is most commonly found.

Did you know Edward or do you have any information about his family?

Christine and Edward's estates remain unclaimed

and if no-one comes forward,

their money will go to the Government.

Money raised through bona vacantia

ultimately goes to the General Exchequer,

to benefit the country as a whole.

But it's important to remember the Crown doesn't want to grab

all estates that it possibly can.

Do you have any clues that could help solve the cases

of Christine Ann Cunniah or Edward Anthony Heffernan?

If so, you could have thousands of pounds coming your way.

At the offices of Fraser & Fraser in London, it's mid-afternoon

and the team are searching for heirs of Rosemary Wall,

who has left an estate estimated to be worth £200,000.

But they're grappling with a hunt that's gone international.

Rosemary Wall died on the 23rd of November, 2010,

aged 83.

Growing up, she and her family lived abroad,

as her father, Frederick, was a diplomat for the British government.

Rosemary was good friends with neighbours Bernard and Sylvia Lee.

They sort of travelled the world, her and her sister Maureen.

She was brought up, I think,

in India or Iraq,

which have got a lot of trouble now.

But when Rosemary lived there,

she said it was such a lovely place to live.

But she had such a full and interesting life.

Like his brothers, Frederick Wall followed his father, Michael,

into the Army,

and records reveal he fought throughout the First World War.

After the war, he became a civil servant

and some years later was transferred to the Foreign Office.

His work took him and his family to countries like Hungary,

Turkey and Iraq.

Come on. Come here.

Rosemary regaled Bernard and Sylvia with many tales

from this period

and one story in particular stood the test of time.

I think she was 16

and they went to these big balls out there.

And one day she was going out for the evening.

She danced with a prince.

I'm not sure what country but he was an actual prince.

And she was 16.

The story - part of her life,

that she could tell you about, was amazing.

It's not every day you meet someone that's danced with a real prince.

In later life, Rosemary considered moving to a smaller home,

but in the end, decided to stay.

She said, "But where could I find neighbours

"like I've got here?"

She said, "If I was to move in a flat,

"I wouldn't have the neighbours that we've got down here."

So she said she's staying put.

I think that's how she enjoyed living.

Bernard and Sylvia are happy they found such a good friend in Rosemary.

Our life was quite enriched by knowing her, you know?

She was such a lovely lady.

She would never say a bad word about anyone.

If she could help anyone, she would.

We all miss her and that goes for the street.

In London, the team have already ruled out

heirs from Rosemary's immediate family.

So the hunt is on for aunts or uncles, as either they

or their descendants will be entitled to her estate.

But what appeared to be a straightforward case

has mushroomed into an international heir hunt.

Rosemary's father Frederick may have had eight brothers.

But having followed their father, Michael, into the Armed Forces,

they had been posted throughout the world,

so tracing their relatives is extremely tough.

-He comes from Jamaica in 1930.

-He comes from Jamaica?!

Luckily, though, they've had a breakthrough on the mother's

side of the family.

We've finally managed to find the birth

of the mother of the deceased.

She dies as Rose May Wall,

formerly Davison,

but she's actually born as Rosie May Davison.

Now they can check census records for the mother's side of the family.

And they discover Rosemary's mother had a sister and three brothers.

If these siblings had any children,

they would be Rosemary's cousins and heirs to her estate.

So it is crucial the team try and track them down.

It is not long before they get a breakthrough.

We have managed to find a family tree online which has some

details - not all - on the mother's side of the family,

mainly to do with the deceased's Uncle Herbert.

We're just having a look at that at the minute.

This is a stroke of luck that could help them

trace Herbert's descendants.

But after further research, Isha's got bad news.

..marries an Ethel Wall Smith, they have one son

and he dies in 2000 with no issue.

He doesn't have any.

But there are still reasons to be positive.

They seem to stay around the Essex area

so there is hope for the rest of the tree.

As the family originally come from Essex,

this is a promising development.

At last the team can narrow down their hunt to a specific area.

It is not long before the team have found their first potential heir,

but everything rides on the lady Jo's about to speak to.

Will she confirm that the research is right

and that she is a cousin of Rosemary?

Was your mother Alice Laura Davison? That was? Yeah?

OK, and your dad would have been Edmund?

-Yeah?

-At last, they are getting somewhere.

The reason I am calling is because we have been researching

into the name Davison which would have been your mother's family.

The heir Jo's speaking to is Rosemary's first cousin.

Her mother Alice was Rosemary's aunt.

She is proving to be a mine of information about other

relatives on this branch of the family.

Did your brothers, the ones who have died - did they have any children?

Do you know their names?

It is the end of the day and the team are confident

they have cracked the mother's side of the family.

But the epic hunt for the heirs on the father's side will have

to wait until tomorrow.

I wouldn't like to say how many countries

we are going to finish up with, but it is quite hard research because we

are in so many different jurisdictions and we are looking through so many indexes.

But all in all, I'm quite happy with where we are.

The following day the team start afresh and are finally able to

make some headway on the far-flung paternal side of the family.

They have been able to find heirs as far afield as France,

America and Canada.

They are beginning the process of contacting them to tell them

about their surprise inheritance.

The team have also found UK-based heirs on the mother's side,

and travelling researcher Bob Barrett has been despatched

to see them, and hopefully sign them up.

We have got quite a big family.

I wouldn't be surprised

if we don't end up with 30 or more heirs on this case.

Quite a lot of paper gone in to printing the family trees

out already.

In the office, Neil and his team now know that there are at least

30 heirs across the two sides of the family who will share

a portion of Rosemary's £200,000 estate.

Among those heirs are siblings Peggy, Shirley, Beryl and Douglas.

Their father Francis was Rosemary's uncle.

News of the inheritance has come as a shock.

It is sad when anybody in your family passes away.

Even though we didn't know her, she was a part of our family, wasn't she?

It was a shock, really,

because when we got the letter we didn't even know who it was.

Douglas is the only one who met Rosemary,

as he and his father Francis visited the family twice a year.

When we got to the big house, my Aunt Rose and the two girls

and my Uncle Freddie were always pleased to see us.

They made us welcome and we had a real nice day down there,

dinner and evening tea.

After all the goodbyes,

we used to get home right late at night-time.

While unexpected, becoming an heir is also quite exciting.

You just think, "Oh, is there any money and how much would we get?"

I mean, as you say, we don't think that seriously on it

but when we three have a chat we go, "I wonder how much we'll get."

But a few weeks after the initial hunt for heirs,

there is one final and dramatic twist.

In the office, Neil has received news which changes

everything on the case of Rosemary Wall.

There was talk originally of a will in favour of a single person.

That will has actually been disproven.

It has been thrown out as not a genuine fair written will.

A further will has come too light.

That will's dated 1993,

a considerable amount of time before the deceased passed away.

That will is valid, it is held with a solicitor

and unfortunately rules out all of the beneficiaries we found.

This is a blow, not just for 37 heirs who lose their entitlement,

but also for the firm who worked so hard to trace relatives

and will now receive nothing.

But every cloud has a silver lining.

The beneficiaries who are entitled in this matter are a church

and then two charities, cancer and Alzheimer's charities.

So they will receive the money as a gift,

really, as a pure legacy which goes to those charities.

Inheritance from people giving to charity is quite

a staple of their income, really,

so it is very important that people do leave money to charities.

The hunt has renewed family connections.

Rosemary's money is now going to the people she wanted it to go to.

But her true legacy is the memories she left for those who knew her.

She was a great animal lover, she had a terrific sense of humour

and we all miss her.

Saul Marks and the team from Celtic Research were

hard at work on the case of Kathleen Sharman.

Having traced one heir,

they were now on the hunt for Kathleen's brother Brian.

Kathleen Sharman died in 1993 at the Kingsbridge Residential Care Home

in Barking. She was 56 years old and had Down's syndrome.

No photos of her have survived.

Parents George and Nellie Sharman had Kathleen at a time

when attitudes to disability were very different from today.

In the 1930s, George and Nellie

would probably be advised that their daughter could be

properly cared for in institutional care, away from the home.

These institutions would often be in very isolated places.

But George and Nellie decided to raise Kathleen themselves,

and it wasn't until much later that Kathleen went into care.

Jean Pettican was a friend of the Sharman family.

She recalls regular visits to see Kathleen's mother Nellie.

She was a happy woman and I used to go there on Friday,

go down and get a bit of fish and chips and a bottle of Guinness.

And she used to drink her Guinness and eat her fish and chips.

Nellie's husband George died in 1953 when her three children were

all in their teens.

Her two sons left home but Nellie continued to look after

Kathleen at home for almost another 20 years.

Only when Nellie's own health became a problem did

she decide Kathleen should go into care.

She put Kathleen in a home when she couldn't cope.

She was a diabetic and I think she fell and she lost one of her legs.

Then she lost the other leg as well and she ended up in a wheelchair.

But although she could no longer look after her Kathleen,

Nellie had managed to defy conventional wisdom

and bring up her daughter in the most difficult of circumstances.

She sounds like an incredible woman, does Nellie.

I guess I see lots of parents now who have the tenacity of Nellie.

They are trying to fight systems to make sure that their children

get the best.

It feels like Nellie was trying to do that -

she wanted the best for Kathleen. But she didn't have any of the support systems that we had.

Nellie possessed qualities often associated with women from Barking.

Barking has long had a reputation for very strong women that dates all

the way back to the early Victorian period, with the fishing industry.

Men would go off to sea, the women would immediately

pawn their clothes and retrieve them when the men came back.

For months on end,

Barking was a town that was controlled by the women.

Once the fishermen disappeared, there were jute girls

moving in making sacks in an enormous factory in Barking.

They continued the tradition which gradually grew until everybody

knew a Barking woman when they saw a Barking woman.

They said that they spoke their mind all the time,

they were not backward about coming forward.

200 miles north, in Liverpool, Saul and the team are on the hunt

for Nellie's youngest son Brian, a potential heir to Kathleen's

estate which was estimated to be worth a maximum of £5,000.

-Saul made an important discovery.

-Sadly, Brian had passed away.

He had been divorced but he had children so in this instance,

it would be his children who inherited his share

of the estate rather than his ex-wife.

Saul managed to get hold of Brian's ex-wife and Kathleen's friend,

Jean Pettican, who was able to give him the information he needed.

Brian's ex-wife Jean was very helpful to us.

She explained that she had had two children by her first marriage,

but that she and Brian had legally adopted them into the family

so that they had become part of the Sharman family by law.

As Brian had passed away, his share of Kathleen's estate would be

split equally between his three children.

One of them is Colleen,

and Saul got in touch to tell her of the inheritance.

When they called me to tell me about Kathy dying, I already knew

because I had been doing a bit of research on my family tree.

I knew what year she had died but other than that,

I didn't know any more. The fact that she had died wasn't a surprise.

Colleen has vivid childhood memories of Kathleen,

who was by this stage living at a local care home.

I remember her coming to stay. Her being quite playful.

I just remember as a child, because I was only a child,

her looking different and didn't fully understand why.

And then I used to go with my dad to go and visit her

so I remember her when she stayed in the home.

It is little things like, I remember the doll in her room

and the layout of the place where she used to sleep.

Things like that.

Colleen was just ten years old the last time she saw Kathleen,

and over the next few years the family lost touch altogether -

something that surprised case manager Saul.

Usually, if you have a case like this, it would be perhaps that the

deceased had been institutionalised for many years

and the family didn't know of her existence.

But in this case, they actually did.

Colleen thinks this might be linked to the death of her

grandmother, Nellie.

I think it is possible that my nan, being the head of the family, might

have tried to make everybody stay in touch, then once she had died,

people just drift off and do their own things.

Maybe that's why we just all lost touch with each other.

While attitudes to disability may have shifted over the years,

some things never change.

I think the fact that mums are the centre or the hub of the family.

I don't think it is a cultural thing.

I think it has gone on for ever.

Even in today's times, when Mum dies families change.

People lose touch with each other.

You don't have the excuse of going to Mum's for Sunday lunch

if Mum isn't there any more.

So siblings having to make connections with each other,

if they haven't got a reason to do it...

And parents were often the reason.

Colleen has found out that her long-lost

Aunt Kathleen's ashes are buried at the City of London Cemetery,

and today she has come to pay her final respects.

Having been here and seeing how it is, I think she has been laid

to rest in a good way, a nice place, and I'm happy with that.

I'm OK with that and I would like to think that however much

the inheritance is, it will be spent in a way that will be useful

and not just squandered.

The visit has also revived memories

of her remarkable grandmother Nellie.

I suppose I think about my nan in some ways because the last

time I saw her I was a child, so I didn't know her with me as an adult.

But from what I have been hearing from my aunt, my uncle,

my mum, she sounds like a lady I would very much like to meet now.

I think she could probably teach me a thing or two!

But she sounds like a lovely lady.

For Colleen, becoming an heir has been all about reviving

memories of long lost family - not just her Auntie Kathleen

but her gran too, one of the original strong women of Barking.

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