Spooner/Carteret Heir Hunters

Every year, over half a million people die in the UK.

Half of those have not made a will and often have no known relatives.

The main portion of the family I know is the aunts and the cousins.

Past that, I have no idea.

If no relatives come forward to claim the estate, their money

will go to the government and that's where the heir hunters come in.

We think it might be an estate where the deceased has

died in a nursing home. There is talk that it could be upwards of

£50,000 in savings accounts.

They specialise in tracking down those people who are

entitled to part of an estate,

who often have no idea they're in line for an inheritance.

We know who the deceased is and they don't,

and it's quite a large estate, which is interesting.

It's a competitive business.

There's often thousands of pounds at stake...

At the moment, we're fighting quite a big battle with lots of heirs,

lots of competition.

..and it can uncover fascinating family histories.

What shook me so much was when we were bombed and, suddenly,

this lovely idyllic childhood world was totally shattered.

Could the heir hunters be knocking on your door?

Coming up, the heir hunters find themselves unravelling

a family mystery.

I didn't even know that her sister was married...

and living in Portsmouth, so, um, it would seem that she was under

the impression that her sister emigrated to Australia.

And relatives are shocked to discover the truth

behind a family member who's been missing for over half a decade.

I was surprised to find out I had this lady who had lived

just 60 miles down the road from me and had spent all her

life in isolation from her family who she presumed she never even had.

Plus, could a fortune be heading your way?

Find out how you could inherit unclaimed estates

held by the Treasury Solicitor.

It's early afternoon at the offices of Fraser & Fraser.

PHONE RINGS

Good morning. How can I help you?

Veteran case manager David Pacifico has picked up a case

-advertised by the Treasury Solicitors.

-Well, we've got

this new case that's come through of somebody called

Margaret Spooner who died in Portsmouth and, we believe, may have

owned her property, therefore, we know there's value there.

Margaret Spooner died alone at her home in Portsmouth in April 2013.

Margaret's neighbour, Christine Earwicker,

recalls her independent spirit.

I've known Margaret since she became my neighbour, about 20 years ago.

'She was very thin, always quite sad-looking, I always felt...'

She had grey hair, long hair, and mainly tied back.

'She kept herself to herself, you know, she never...

'She was a very private person, I think.'

And, if she needed help, she'd knock the door.

We always had that feeling that there was something, you know,

a little eccentric about Margaret.

'As far as I know, she didn't have any family.

'She used to have a dog in a pushchair.'

The dog couldn't walk,

so it was pushed in a...pram or a pushchair, I can't quite remember.

She used to push this dog everywhere.

We used to see her go past the house.

It was the lady with the dog in the pram!

From the outside, people would have said that it was sad,

but I think she was quite content with her life.

'She used to do daily journeys round to the corner shop.'

About six or seven a day, you know!

But that was her day, so, you know, and I think, in her own self,

she was quite happy.

SOUND DIPPED

One of the first things the heir hunters try to establish is

the value of a case and ascertain how much of their resources

they should dedicate to it.

That decision is down to company boss Neil Fraser.

The first questions we have to ask when we start working a case is,

"Is it worth working?" And it's solely really based on value.

-So, that's the house, then, this one.

-It's small.

Do we know how much they're sold for, down there?

The team generally try to work cases they believe are worth over £20,000.

As Margaret had a property worth in the region of £100,000,

it's a case Neil is keen to get his team moving on quickly.

If there is a property, we're working it,

and we're going to throw resource at it.

We're going to throw several members of staff onto it

and we're probably going to get guys on the road working to see

the beneficiaries as well,

because, if we can easily identify value, then so can our competition.

And that's something already at the front of David's mind.

There's always a possibility of competition.

We always treat every case like this that it will be competitive.

Hence, we're researching it as quickly as possible.

The team find evidence that Margaret was married to Ivor Spooner

who predeceased her.

As they had no children, researcher Isha looks for siblings

and starts by finding out who her parents were.

We found a birth of Margaret Grogan. Her mother's maiden name is Allison.

In order to find any rightful heirs,

Isha needs to find the correct details for Margaret's parents.

There was no marriage of Grogan to Allison.

Isha begins by searching for variations on names and spellings.

So, I had a little look, um, to see if it was a typo

and it come up with a marriage of a John Grogan to a Sarah Allinson.

Spelling mistakes could mean the team starts searching

the wrong family, something which could cause delays.

The tools we're using to do research have really changed in the last

five, ten, 15 years.

Originally, we looked at the calendar book, the index of birth,

death, marriage certificates.

Now, this was already information which was first recorded by

a registrar in a Registry Office,

then it's passed over to the General Register Office in Southport

to index, and then we have an index made of that information,

so all really tertiary.

Now, we're searching for stuff on websites.

There's four stages in that where it could have an error and,

suddenly, you've got a wrong letter in the wrong place.

And Isha wastes no time in looking for other records which could

confirm she's found the right parents for Margaret.

We're able to pick up the birth of Margaret who was

born in West Derby, Liverpool, and the parents were John and Sarah.

It still says Allison on the birth certificate, but we think that,

because the names are correct, John and Sarah,

we think this marriage is correct in Liverpool.

Isha's hard work has paid off, and she's managed to

cross-reference the different spellings on

Margaret's birth certificate with her parents' marriage certificate,

but she's just one more document to check.

I found a death for her in Newcastle as Sarah Grogan,

which actually ties in with a birth of a Sarah Allinson.

After solving the mystery of the spelling mistake,

Isha is able to put the pieces of the puzzle together.

Margaret Grogan was born in 1928 in West Derby,

a suburb of Liverpool, to Sarah Allinson and John Grogan.

Her parents had married in Liverpool, but both hailed

from Whitehaven, a small coastal town 150 miles away in Cumbria,

before dying in Newcastle.

This travelling around is causing confusion for the team.

We usually target local areas

when we start our research with our birth, death and marriage searches.

Um, this is because families tend to stay within the same area,

so it's much harder for us when we find a marriage out of area,

which means that births could be in different locations.

If the team has found the right family in John and Sarah Grogan,

it means they moved around the country a lot,

but Isha thinks she's found out why.

John, the dad, is a confectioner journeyman,

which means he travels a bit,

so that's why they could start in Liverpool and end up in...Newcastle.

As a confectioner in the 1920s and '30s, John would have been

involved in the golden age of confectionary manufacturing.

Many popular products which are still around today

originated in this era and the penny sweets were born.

Confident they are on the right track,

and can now look for Margaret's siblings or nieces and nephews

who could be beneficiaries to her estate,

Ewart briefs travelling researcher Bob Barrett.

Her mother's maiden name is Allison. A-L-L-I-S-O-N, yeah?

So, we believe it's going to be correct.

That's the way. Good, I like that. I'll speak to you later, bye-bye.

Travelling researchers are an integral part of the team and need

to be able to react quickly when a call comes in from the office.

Competition between the companies is fierce

and Bob needs to get to any potential heirs fast

if the company are to get a percentage of the £100,000 estate.

I'm going to see if I can...

knock on a few neighbours' doors, see if I can find anything out.

Bob is primed to follow up any leads

and provide vital support to the heir hunters.

Back in the office, the team have found a contact number for

Margaret's brother-in-law, Michael Spooner,

the brother of her husband, Ivor, who was also known as Joe.

Although not a blood relative,

they hope he can shed some light on the family history.

We heard from Joe in a letter that he in fact had got married.

I don't know where he got married, uh,

and how long he had been married when we received the letter

because he was not very communicative,

so that was the first time I heard about Margaret.

But has the search for heirs come to an abrupt halt?

We didn't know of any relatives of her.

We knew very little about her.

Sometimes, tragic events cause families to break apart

and lose contact with each other,

and that can make the heir hunters' job very hard.

But, for boss Neil Fraser,

who's been in the family business from a young age,

it's just one of the elements which makes his job so unique.

Every bit of a case is different.

Although the research is the same every day,

um...every story behind the research is different.

Um...and, no matter how many times we do it,

you always look at something and discover something new.

We are linking history back with the current affairs, back with law,

back with life.

Um...to be able to tie history into your job is fascinating.

One case the team worked on last year uncovered an intriguing story.

85-year-old Ellana Carteret died alone at home

in Clacton-on-Sea in April 2012.

Unfortunately, no photographs of her survived,

but neighbours Anna Hazell and her mum Linda remember her well.

I first met Ellana about nine years ago when she moved into our street.

Ellana always took pride in her appearance.

She always dressed nicely, she always had nice hair and nice nails,

nice figure...

She was just a smart lady.

'She was quite an active lady,

'but, as time went on, she sort of needed to'

use the stick. She sort of deteriorated

more as she was getting older.

Ellana left an estate worth £80,000, but no will.

This came from one of our reporters.

He located what appeared to be an estate, appeared to be

someone dying without any known next of kin, and having some money to it.

'We did some enquiries through the neighbours

'and they said that she didn't have any family.

'In fact, they turned and said she was the last of her line.'

Now, for us, this is the golden few words.

She's got money, she doesn't have any family.

We are constantly proving that the deceased does have family,

but we want to hear at the start that they didn't have any family,

because that's when we get involved.

Case manager Mike Pow has worked for the company for five years

and, when this estate came in, it was down to him

to lead the search for heirs.

When I first got this, this was just confusing to be perfectly honest.

We had the name Ellana Louise Beniston to begin with

and ordered the death certificate

and it came up with a multitude of names which didn't fit in anywhere.

First we had Ellana Louise Carteret. Then it was Ellana Carteret.

Then Ellen Carter. And Louise Ellana Carteret.

Em, we had no idea where it fitted in.

Had a look at the birth records, but couldn't find anything

until we decided just to see if we could find Ellen C-A-R-anything.

It just was a bit of a struggle to work it out to begin with.

But it wasn't long before Mike made progress and found

a marriage for an Ellana Carter and John Beniston Clark in 1957.

It appears he predeceased her.

'It looked like Ellen passed away without any children.

'Um, and she always described herself as a widow to her friend.

'The fact that they had no children'

and he has probably passed away,

means we had to go back up through Ellen's family,

which was a whole new struggle because,

on the marriage certificate, there was no indication of a father.

So, then we had to look for an Ellen who was born illegitimately.

We had no idea what her name was

and it just happened that it popped up to be a Carter to Carter

birth in Liverpool where we'd told she was from

and it matched up to the date of birth.

Ellana Carteret was born Ellen Carter in May 1927.

Her mother was listed as Ellen Carter nee Murray,

but, with no father listed, Mike started by looking to see

if there were any half-siblings on the maternal side.

We discovered that Ellen Murray, that was her maiden name,

and she was born in 1899 and married a Thomas Carter.

'The team also discovered that Ellana had a half-brother, Cyril,

'who was born in 1912 to Ellen Murray and Thomas Carter.'

Thomas died during World War I and it was years later,

in 1927, that Ellen went on to give birth to Ellana illegitimately...

something that was frowned upon during that era.

It wasn't very acceptable to have an illegitimate child in the 1920s

around the country and I'm sure Liverpool would have been the same,

particularly in sort of respectable working class...

People would see it as a sign of shame

if their daughter or their sister had an illegitimate child.

And if bringing up an illegitimate child was

not possible for the mother, there were options available.

There were the alternatives for adoption or

putting your child into residential care.

There were societies which would adopt children

and they'd find a stranger to adopt your child,

or the local doctor, or nurse,

or the vicar, or the priest,

they might find you someone who would take on your child.

No-one knew where Ellana was placed after birth,

but she later told friends she was brought up in an institution.

With a life in children's homes being quite regimented,

quite disciplined, there wouldn't have been lots of love

and affection for them on an individual basis.

Many of the carers, the nuns or the workers, would have been doing it

from the best of intentions, others would have been less benign.

It definitely wouldn't have been like a family setting.

It appears Ellana spent her whole childhood in care

and was never adopted out, so the heir hunters would have to

look to her blood relatives to find heirs.

Research revealed that, tragically, half-brother Cyril died in 1987,

presumably never knowing he had a half-sister.

So, Mike looks to see if Ellana's mother, Ellen,

had any other children.

Well, we thought that was going to be it, so we had a look to see if we

could find an Ellen Carter who was dying and we couldn't find

another one, so then we had to dig again for another marriage.

It looks like she got married after she gave birth to the deceased

to a Robert Divine.

They had a son, Robert, but the team soon ruled him out of

being an heir when they found out he died in infancy.

So, then we had to try and go back through the Ellen Murray family.

Despite Ellana's mother having been married twice

and having two other children, both her sons died with no issue,

so Mike had to turn his attention to the wider maternal family.

So, we located the birth of an Ellen Murray who was

born 1899 in Liverpool and it looks like she was

the daughter of a Thomas Murray and a Catherine Gannon.

Thomas Murray married Catherine Gannon in 1879.

Thomas was a house painter, which, it seems, most of his children

followed him into that business after looking at the other certificates.

And then we worked out that they had eight kids.

Four of them out the eight got married...

um, and had children.

With four aunts and uncles having children, the family was

getting bigger and it meant there could be

a very large number of potential heirs to find.

Trying to narrow down the search is pretty much impossible.

It's just going to be a process of trying to disprove all the others.

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,

a file of unclaimed estates that have eluded the heir hunters

and have remained unsolved.

When the Bona Vacantia Division passes money to the Treasury,

it puts the case on its unclaimed list

and it stays on there for 12 years to be claimed.

If someone makes a valid claim within that period,

then the money's paid back.

Today, we're focusing on two cases that are 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 is the case of...

..who died on...

Anita was born on November 26th 1915 and she was the daughter of...

Despite all this information, there's been no success in

tracing beneficiaries to her estate.

Do you have information which could shed some light on her family?

Next, did you know...?

She died on...

Anastasia was born on...

Her maiden name was...

And she also sometimes used the name...

Both Anita and Anastasia's estates remain unclaimed and,

if no-one comes forward, their money will go to the government.

The money raised by the Bona Vacantia Division is passed

annually to the Treasury and it goes into the Consolidated Fund,

therefore, to benefit the country as a whole.

Do you have any clues that could help solve the cases of...?

Perhaps you could be the next of kin?

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

Margaret Spooner died a widow aged 85 at home in Portsmouth

in April 2013, leaving no will.

Heir Hunters at Fraser & Fraser have been told by her

brother-in-law that he knew very little of Margaret's family.

Initially, we looked through Ivor Spooner's family,

the deceased husband, but they seemed to believe that

she didn't have any family.

But researcher Isha is having one last crack at finding next of kin.

Having discovered Margaret was born in West Derby,

a suburb of Liverpool, Isha finds she married 350 miles away

in Cornwall and it's given her a glimmer of hope.

Because Margaret actually marries in Cornwall,

she may have lost touch with her family if they all stayed up North.

It happens quite a lot.

Margaret married Ivor Spooner in August 1965 in Kerrier, Cornwall,

near to the site of a Royal Naval base where both served.

Margaret was a petty officer in the Wrens.

'The Wrens were first formed in 1917 at the tail end

'of the First World War when'

there was an acute shortage of manpower

and they were looking for women to fill those roles.

The Wrens established themselves as a key aspect of naval life in

roles ashore which meant that men were freed up to serve at sea.

After the Second World War, the Wrens had proved how valuable they were

during the war, so it was decided to

sort of establish a permanent service of Wrens,

so they weren't disbanded as they had been after the First World War.

And the life of a Wren opened a wealth of opportunity.

Well, it could be a very exciting life.

There were opportunities to travel then,

which, for most women at that time, unless you were

from a very wealthy family, it wouldn't have been possible to do.

This was the days before people were travelling on package holidays

and so those opportunities to maybe travel overseas, um,

and the overseas aspect of it was a huge recruitment pull for the Wrens.

During the 1950s, Margaret was posted to Malta where

she worked as a stores accountant and counsellor.

Malta was the largest overseas posting within the Wrens and,

throughout the 1950s, there were probably between 200,

300 Wrens out there for most of the time,

so it was a hugely attractive place to be posted.

And they could be out there from about 18 months up to two years.

It was a really exciting place to be.

And it was on her return from Malta that she met Ivor,

a serving petty officer in the Navy.

It's quite common for Wrens to marry sailors.

You've got young people working together, you know,

relationships are formed.

Often, Wrens would be in the minority and, certainly,

I know the Wrens who were out in Malta there were only 200 to 300 of

them and yet there were thousands of servicemen at the time, so,

you know, they often joked that

even the ugliest Wren could always be guaranteed a date.

Also, known as Joe, Ivor was a bit of a ladies' man,

according to his brother, Michael.

'He was a bit of a rogue, but, um, it was usually with women

'and he would usually have a couple of girlfriends on the go

'at the same time, which'

led us into all sorts of difficulties!

I remember once there came a knock at the door

and one of his girlfriends said...

"Joe was going to meet me. Where is he?"

So, I said, "Well, he's out and I don't know where he is."

Knowing full well that he'd gone out with some other girl!

He was a good-looking chap and I think the girls liked him

and he'd got a way with words, so...

I'm sure he charmed Margaret too.

And he remembers how their love affair

started rather unconventionally.

Joe met Margaret after he was accused of some crime in the Navy

and he was reduced to the ranks

and, I think, instead of being at jankers,

they gave him counselling with a Wren officer, who was Margaret.

Um, Margaret took him under her wing

and they got on so well together that, obviously,

they got married and that's how I know that, uh, he met her and what

association she had with him, so, she was, in fact, his counsellor.

Known by friends and family as a reclusive couple, Ivor passed

away in his sleep in 1993 leaving Margaret a widow at the age of 70.

In the office,

researcher Isha thinks she's had a breakthrough in her search for other

children born to Margaret's parents, John Grogan and Sarah Allinson.

The problem is there's four births under Allison, so there's

two in Longtown, Cumberland, which I didn't think was correct.

As Margaret was born in Liverpool, Isha is unsure if these other births

could be correct, especially as they're registered with

the slightly different maiden name of Allison.

As there's no other marriage, we decided to just go with it.

It's a risk as the team could now be tracing the wrong family,

but Isha remains confident.

I'm hopeful that I've found an heir.

John Grogan and Sarah Allinson had six children, including Margaret.

The team believes some of them are still alive.

-Make sure you pass the information to Bob...

-Yeah.

-..to phone Sue later.

I want that person spoken to later.

Hopefully, then, at some point she'll be back.

With no time to lose,

Ewart gets travelling researcher Bob to start visiting potential heirs.

Isha's found a possible two. Let me just give you all the names, OK?

We've got the deceased, Margaret...

'Although late in the day,

'the team is keen for people to be contacted as soon as possible.'

Dave Pacifico was just asking

if you can actually just call her later on tonight, if you can.

I've been calling her, but she's not in.

Now, she lives up in Northumberland.

With Bob under orders to visit a potential sister,

the team continue their research in the office.

They discover Margaret's brother, Arthur, has died,

but they manage to trace his four children, one of whom is Ken Grogan.

When they contacted us with the name Margaret Spooner,

we didn't realise exactly who it was.

Um, it was only when we went through the family history

and I contact my mother and the rest of the family that we realised

it was actually Margaret Grogan, my father's sister.

We knew her as Peggy. Some call her Peg, some call her Peggy.

It was 1957 was the last time Peggy actually contacted the family.

I was only three years of age, but, obviously as we're growing up,

we have been told that we have Auntie Peggy and

other relatives, but we never, ever seen her or heard from her

since that particular time.

But can Ken shed any light on how his Aunt Margaret became

estranged from her siblings?

My mother was a great friend with Peggy.

Mum and Peggy used to go to the dance halls every weekend

and trip the light fantastic, as they called it in those days,

but I've been told there was a fallout between the sisters.

There was some drama happened between them,

and they just never kept in contact again.

That was it.

Finding out about his Aunt Margaret has been a real eye-opener for Ken.

I didn't even know Margaret was married.

What we were told growing up was that we had an auntie

and she farmed in Australia.

The team in the office have heard back from

travelling researcher, Bob.

His visit to an elderly sister of Margaret

has revealed a similar story.

She confirmed that she had a sister Margaret,

but she's not seen her for many years.

No contact whatsoever,

and didn't even know that her sister was married...

and living in Portsmouth, so, um...

it would seem that she was under the impression that her sister

emigrated to Australia.

The team manages to contract both of Margaret's

estranged elderly sisters, as well as three nephews and a niece.

None of whom were in touch with Margaret.

It happens more often than you think,

where close family lose contact for one reason or another.

Um, we're finding an awful lot of siblings losing contact

and we're tracing close kin.

It's the end of the search for the heir hunters and a few days later,

case manager David has heard back from all of the beneficiaries.

It's been a very good case this Spooner case.

We've now signed all the heirs, of which there's six in total,

and we believe there is value to it

because we believe the deceased had owned her property.

And those sad to hear that Margaret died alone,

for nephew Ken, the whole experience of finding out about his family

has brought back happy memories.

It was quite a big surprise,

because, after all these years, you know, since, basically,

we were told about Peggy,

we were brought up and told about her in our childhood and then,

obviously, as you get on, you forget things and...

a bolt out of the blue...

..Peggy's back in your life again.

Ellana Carteret died at her home in Clacton-on-Sea.

She had a difficult start to life.

She was born Illegitimately

and was abandoned into an institution by her mother...

but, after leaving care,

it seems she had a successful and interesting life.

Ellana would often talk about her globetrotting with husband John.

Her husband and Ellana, they travelled the world, they went

to India, Dubai, the world Kenya, they had a very nice place in Dubai

and I think she liked all the fuss and attention she got there.

Um, she had servants, so, that was really nice.

I think that was one of the things she liked best,

people fussing round her.

Unfortunately, no photographs of Ellana have survived.

As she died with no known relatives and didn't leave a will,

heir hunter Mike Pow had to track down beneficiaries

to her £80,000 estate.

And Mike was making progress,

having found Ellana had seven maternal aunts and uncles.

Four of them of the eight got married...

um, and had children.

Now, they was all born in the 1880s,

so it's pretty certain that none of them are going to be alive.

Mike's research uncovered 20 cousins, but many had died.

One, Percival, had a son, Ray,

and he was one of the first heirs Mike traced.

He was the first cousin once removed of Ellana.

I never met any of the members of my father's mother's family,

including Ellen or knew anything of her at all.

But I was surprised to find out I had this lady who had lived

just 60 miles down the road from me and who had spent all her

life in isolation from her family who she presumed she never even had.

There was no...

hints or clues in the house, there was no memorabilia, there was

no conservations about Auntie so-and-so or Uncle whatever,

it was as if nobody else...

Um, and, of course, after two World Wars, you can

sometimes presume that family members have died being killed or

whatever, so these things you just accept as a child

and you don't question any more.

The sadness in it, of course, is the fact that...

family break ups and the isolation within families can cause

a lot of heartache for people

because they could actually be living round the corner from relatives

who don't even know of their existence.

This is exactly the same in this case.

Tracing their first heir had, unfortunately,

failed to unlock the riddle of Ellana's life.

It appears her existence was a complete mystery,

even to her own family.

This family seems to be very separated from each other, even

cousins. I think we found one stem where cousins knew each other.

Um, everyone else is very separated and, as the deceased was so...

far apart from the family, none of them knew

absolutely anything about her.

The fact that she was given up when she was young, um,

would suggest that her mother didn't really want anything to do

with her, so, whether she was pressurised by her mother or

anything like that, we won't know,

but, no-one in this family has any idea who the deceased was.

With one stem of the tree complete,

Mike turned her attention to another...

only to uncover a remarkable story.

Peter Murray, Ellana's uncle, married Harriet Russell in 1915.

They went on to have 14 children and, of these 14,

there were four sets of twins.

The most surprising part about the family is that's a lot of them

died when they were very young, um...

Most of the twins passed away together.

For Ellana's uncle and aunt, bringing up

so many children in working class Liverpool during the 1920s

would have been a struggle and the loss of many of their children

would have hit the family hard.

Twins were at four times the risk of mortality than

singleton children during the first year of life,

so, if infant mortality, for example was 100 per 1,000,

then twin mortality would be about 400 per 1,000,

so it's not really surprising that this number of twins died.

During the 19th century, infant mortality was rife and,

due to poor sanitation and disease, roughly 150 children

out of every 1,000 born died before the age of one.

Infant mortality was definitely high in industrial towns

and Liverpool was among the worst.

Out of the 14 children,

Mike discovered that only nine actually made it into adulthood.

So, he had to trace them or any children they may have had.

We did find one of the 14 children still alive,

but she was very, very old.

So, we tried to go through her daughter and her son first,

cos we didn't want to cause any distress or anything like that.

Margery Murray is the sole surviving cousin of Ellana

and an heir to her estate.

As she is now in her 80s, Mike managed to find a contact number for

her daughter, Penny, to see if she could shed some light on the family.

It turned out that they didn't really know a lot about the family.

It seems that the family lost touch with each other

and none of them hardly know anything about each other.

As the family appears to have been separated for a long time,

it's come as a shock for Penny to hear from Mike,

but she's grateful for the opportunity to find out

more about Ellana...

the cousin she never knew.

I don't know anything about her at all, absolutely nothing,

you know, my mum's cousin, um...yeah, didn't know that she existed, uh...

and, yeah, it'd be nice to find out a bit more.

I'm intrigued to find out sort of, uh, what she did and, um,

where she lived, even.

Sadly, Penny's 83-year-old mum Margery is

recovering from a stroke, but, today,

Penny has come to London, hoping to find out more about her family.

I think my mum's going to be really interested in, um, what

I find out and I'll, yeah, report back to her all of my findings.

Company boss Neil has agreed to talk her through the family tree...

-Hello, I'm Penny.

-Hi, I'm Neil.

-Let me take you downstairs and we'll show you what we've found.

-OK.

..and fill in the missing pieces about her relatives.

Which we hope is that one.

Yeah.

-Now, this marriage in 1915 is of your grandparents...

-Yeah.

-..Peter and Harriet.

-Yes.

We know that Peter's father is Thomas and he's a house painter.

-See your great-grandfather up here.

-Right, OK.

So, same occupation coming down.

So, they've got...

-the house where he's living backs onto the church.

-Yeah.

And the house where she's living is a T-junction off it,

so, we can be fairly sure that they met by being virtually neighbours.

-Neighbours, yeah.

-You can imagine them playing out in the street...

-Yeah, yeah.

-..as they were kids in the '20s.

-Mm-hm, yeah.

-They probably knew each other the whole of their life.

-Yeah.

Having shown Penny the documents relating to her mum's siblings,

Neil now reveals the remarkable story of her grandparents,

who gave birth to several sets of twins.

-And this is where we start getting onto the interesting bit.

-Yeah.

We have an aunt called Vera...

-and an uncle called William.

-Yeah, I don't now that one either.

-Now, Vera and William were twins.

-Right, yes.

Now, there were meant to be three sets of twins, do you agree or not?

-No.

-No? Two?

-Four.

-Oh!

So, we have Vera and William, and Vera died as a very young child,

then we have Dorothy and Joan, again twins, and they both died at birth.

Oh!

And then Bernard and Eric, and, again, they lived for six months

-and then, unfortunately, Eric died and then Bernard died.

-Oh, God.

-Before we move onto your mother...

-Yes.

-..and her twin brother...

-Yeah.

-..Reginald Joseph.

-And then the youngest of all your aunts, Sybil.

-Sybil, yeah.

-So, yeah, we think there are four...

-(Oh, gosh!)

-..four sets of twins.

-And the ones you don't know about, I think, are these ones...

-Yeah.

..which is your Uncle William. He only passed away in 2006...

-(Oh, gosh.)

-..but when you get a family of this size...

-Yeah.

..we often find that they are either incredibly close together...

or they all split up and all go their separate way.

And he also has information about her uncle Reginald,

her mother's twin.

The certificate we have here is the death certificate for

-your mother's twin brother, Joseph Reginald.

-Mm-hm.

-So, he's moved away from Liverpool...

-Yeah.

-..and he's come down to London.

-Mm-hm.

When he's passed away, actually, the only people to be the

-informant on his death is someone who's working in the hospital.

-Oh.

-So, Charing Cross Hospital.

-Yeah. Gosh, that's really sad.

Hmm.

-Did you know Reginald at all?

-No, no.

You know, my mum's spoke of him, um, I know his name,

but I never knew him, never met him.

This news has come as a shock to Penny.

I'm just finding it hard to take it all in, you know, there's just

so much information there.

One of my uncles, Joe, sort of passed away with nobody...

..there for him was just...

yeah, just heartbreaking, really.

To have not known him, not been able to talk to him

and find out what his life was like.

I think family...

should have been important and, uh, it would have been nice,

yeah, to have been there for him.

The heir hunters trace 21 beneficiaries to Ellana's estate,

but it's learning about the wider family which has had

the greatest impact on Penny.

It's just mind-boggling to see the family tree

and just how big it is, you know, all those aunties and uncles, cousins,

I didn't even know half of them existed.

Having found out about the sad news of her Uncle Reginald's

lonely demise, Penny has come to pay her respects.

It is nice to know where Reginald is.

I feel like it would be fitting and appropriate to get his name

put on the stone so that, you know, people can actually know where he is.

The whole experience has reminded her of the importance of family.

Since finding out about Ellana, you know,

the family history has just come to life, really.

Yeah, it's been a real journey and, uh,

although it's been sad that so many people have gone...

um, but, yeah, looking forward to, uh...

what could happen in the future.