Stone/Feldwicke Heir Hunters

Each year, thousands of people die with no known family,

and without leaving a will.

If no relatives come forward, their money will go to the Government,

and that's where the heir hunters step in.

They married in the second quarter of 1927 in Fulham.

They're experts in tracing long-lost family members

who have no idea they're in line to inherit.

We believe, sir, that you'll be untitled

to a share in your cousin's estate.

Their work involves detailed research

and 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.

But it's also about reuniting families

and bringing people closer together.

I will now be able to spend more time keeping everybody together.

Above all, it's about giving people the news of an unexpected windfall.

The whole idea of suddenly coming into a shedload of cash

seems kind of seriously unlikely.

Could the heir hunters be knocking at your door?

Coming up:

Research into one case uncovers a runaway marriage

that made front page news.

Really what we're looking at is two people who were in love

who went to Gretna Green, and it all went horribly wrong in the end.

And the heir hunters are given a clue

that could blow a case wide open.

That's incredibly useful

because we've got a maiden name of the wife as well.

Plus, how you could be entitled to inherit an unclaimed estate.

Could a fortune be heading your way?

Wednesday morning in central London,

and the team at heir hunting firm Finders

are hard at work trying to trace the final heirs to an estate.

The case of Eric Stone was referred to us by a firm of solicitors.

They've spent several days working on the case,

which has an estimated worth of £300,000.

With such a high value,

it's their number-one priority to finish it as soon as possible.

Eric Stone passed away in March 2013. He was 84 years old.

Eric had lived all his life

in the coastal town of St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex.

For the last three years of his life, he'd lived at a care home,

and manager Linda Astell remembers him fondly.

When Eric came into us, he was quite a character at that time.

He was a very private man generally, but with a really dry humour.

And she still remembers how he used to make everyone smile.

To look at him, you would think he was quite miserable,

but - boy, oh, boy - he wasn't. A very witty man.

Very intelligent, very quick.

If you say something, he'll be in there with an answer.

He knew, he got the punch line every time.

And he would always have us in stitches.

Eric never married nor had children.

However, he was close to his brother, James,

who would often visit him at the care home.

Eric being the sort of quieter one of the two,

his brother, James, was more outgoing, more outspoken.

But him and James were so joined the hip.

They were a really great brother team.

Eric died, leaving a will.

He left his £300,000 estate to his brother, James,

who sadly died just two years before him in 2011.

As James had passed away, Eric's will was no longer valid.

And that's why the case has been referred

to senior general manager James Empson by Eric's solicitors.

If a beneficiary dies before the deceased, the funds will pass down

through the blood lines to the nearest generation of next of kin.

It's quite a daunting task for the solicitor.

That's where they will instruct a firm

to try and find the missing family entitled to the estate.

As it's a referral, the company take an agreed percentage

of the heir's share of the estate.

If they are unable to trace any heirs,

they won't get paid a single penny.

So they need to work fast to ensure it's beneficial,

and to make sure that they keep the solicitors happy, too.

When we take cases in from solicitors,

they come with their own pressures.

We have a client that wants answers as quickly as possible.

They may have clients that they've also got to answer to.

The solicitors believe they've already contacted beneficiaries

on both sides of the family.

The team need to confirm that the research is right

and find the remaining heirs to Eric's estate.

And they've been given some information

to speed up the research.

The solicitors provided us

with a copy of the deceased's death certificate,

some certificates relating to the family

they were already in touch with.

From this, they quickly established that Eric was born

to James Stone and Jane Brody.

He was the youngest of three children.

Both of his siblings had died before him,

without leaving any descendants.

So the team have to look to the wider family.

And James enlists case manager Amy for help.

She's been making progress with Eric's paternal tree,

and has identified Eric's grandparents.

The 1911 English Census indicates that William and Emma Stone

had nine children in 1911.

Eight were alive, one was deceased.

The census also shows that the family were living

in south-east London, in an area that is now known

as the London Borough of Lewisham.

Knowing this, Amy can narrow her search down

as she looks into Eric's aunts and uncles.

The majority of them were all women.

They all turned out to be spinsters, aside from one.

Constance Stone was the only one of Eric's aunts

who did go on to marry, at the age of 46.

She sadly passed away in 1965.

This certificate is a death for Constance Stone.

The informant is actually her widower, Reginald Johnson.

And as she married late, we weren't hopeful for any children,

as he's pretty elderly himself.

Putting it all together, it all points towards

them not having had any children.

In my opinion, it completes this stem

and I can focus on other branches now.

There are no heirs to be found from Eric's paternal aunts.

Amy has to now turn her attention to his two uncles,

Frederick George Stone

and William Arthur Stone.

Eric's uncle Frederick married Edith Brown

in 1918, and they had one daughter, Margaret Stone.

Margaret would be a cousin, and an heir to Eric's estate.

But unfortunately, she died just a month after him.

Because Eric died before her, it makes all the difference.

When a beneficiary dies after the deceased,

the funds that they were originally due from the intestacy

will be distributed as per the terms of their own will.

That could be left to friends, charities,

or whoever they deem fit at the time of writing the will.

If Margaret had died before Eric,

the beneficiaries from her will wouldn't be entitled

to a penny of Eric's estate, unless they were her direct descendants.

Yes.

Amy now has one last paternal uncle to research, William Arthur Stone.

He's a complete mystery,

but she hopes that the certificate she's ordered

will shed some light on him.

I'm waiting for a death certificate for him,

and a couple of marriage certificates.

The name Stone is fairly common,

and of course William and Arthur are very common English names.

So I need to wait for a death

in order to try and narrow down the research.

If the death I suspect is correct turns out to be correct,

then I'm hoping that the informant will give me a lead

to establish whether or not there are any heirs on this stem.

If the informant happens to be a widow or a child,

then of course that's a very important lead.

With no time to lose, and Amy waiting on the certificates,

the team turn their attention to the maternal side,

where they've already made some progress.

James has established that Eric's mother Jane

was one of seven children.

Once we had confirmed the top line of the maternal family,

we followed the line of inquiry down to surviving cousins

and cross-referenced the information

with that that had been provided by the solicitors.

The solicitors identified four heirs,

and Amy has confirmed that their research was right.

However, they've also found several other potential heirs

who might be entitled to a share of Eric's estate.

They need to find them and speak to them as soon as possible.

So Amy puts a call in for some help.

Of course. If you could double check that for us.

OK, let me know how it goes.

Peter's just one of many travelling researchers

that the team have at their disposal.

They're based all over the country, and their job out on the road

is to make enquiries, collect documents,

and crucially, sign up heirs.

We'll go and see if we can get any more information

about any other potential heirs to the estate.

They all revel in the chase, and enjoy it for different reasons.

I'm a people's person, really.

I find people extremely interesting, and it is surprising,

some of the people we come across.

Back in the office, and Amy has finally received

the certificate she ordered.

Hopefully the informant listed will hold the answer she needs

to finish work on Eric's father's family.

What I have here is a possible death certificate for William Arthur.

Unfortunately, the informant is listed

as the person that performed the cremation,

so it's a non-relative, which doesn't help.

And his death is in fact in a slightly different area

to the rest of the family tree.

William and his siblings were born and raised in London.

However, the only death record Amy has found is in Bedfordshire.

It means that I can't yet be certain

that I've found a correct death for William Arthur.

The search for Eric's heirs is proving harder than they hoped.

Will a stroke of luck help them solve the case?

That's incredibly useful,

because we've got a maiden name of the wife as well,

which means we can narrow down immediately.

Heir hunters never know where a case is going to lead them,

from talking to neighbours to tracing beneficiaries

halfway around the world and back again.

When heir hunting firm Fraser & Fraser

took on the £350,000 case of Viera Feldwicke,

they hoped the search for heirs would be straightforward.

But for case manager Gareth Langford,

it turned out to be one of the most memorable cases he's worked on.

We were made aware of the estate of Viera Feldwicke

several months after she passed away by one of our many contacts.

82-year-old Viera Feldwicke died on 8th November 2012

in the seaside town of Brighton, East Sussex.

She owned her own flat, so she left an estate worth over £350,000.

Viera spent many years working as an actress,

and took on the stage name Viera Shelley.

Barbara Whatley acted alongside Viera in the 1950s and '60s,

when they both worked at the theatre on Brighton Pier.

'I first met Viera when I was doing a play.

'It was the beginning of a season.'

She slightly over-awed me. She was about 26.

Very upright, very professional, script in her hand.

And that was my first impression.

But there was always a warmth there.

I went over and I said, "I'm Barbara,"

and she said, "Oh, I'm Viera, darling!"

and gave me an enormous hug and a kiss on the cheek.

The company would perform various different types of plays,

and Viera's talent stood out.

She got amazingly good notices,

I mean, the Evening Argus raved about it,

and got many a standing ovation at the curtain call.

And Viera's talent wasn't restricted to the stage.

She was a valued member of a local playwriting group,

where she met close friend of 20 years Nicolas Quirk.

'She was eccentric.'

She was passionate with her opinions and how she looked,

and she was a really charismatic character.

You know, she was very distinctive

and you would notice her. Wherever you were, she would stand out.

And Nick remembers how she had a passion for all genres.

She always enjoyed dramas, and she always liked very good comedy.

She quite liked farce. And she had a very distinctive laugh as well,

so you would always know that one had entertained her.

Although Viera was the centre of attention in a crowd and on stage,

when it came to her personal life it was a very different story.

She would let you in...let us say the front door of her life,

and maybe into one room.

But no further.

However, there was one person who she was extremely close to.

'Viera was devoted to her mother.'

She did everything with her mother.

Her mother was her best friend. Her mother was her emotional stability.

And she lived with her mother all her life.

Having such a close relationship had an effect on Viera.

It prevented her from getting married, from having children,

and probably, I would suggest to you,

having some close friendships.

Because her mother was her entire emotional existence.

Having lived with her mother all her life,

Gareth had already discovered

that Viera never married nor had children.

So he needed to start the search for her wider family.

The two bits of information we had

were the date of birth of Viera, and the surname Feldwicke.

Gareth searched for a birth record for Viera Feldwicke.

Unfortunately, none could be found.

But the team had been told that Viera's mother's maiden name

was Williams, and they had luck on their side.

Fortunately Viera spelt her name in a very unusual way.

So we could actually look at all the births of Viera in that period.

Viera spelt her name with an I,

whether she was using her stage name, Shelley,

or her legal name of Feldwicke.

It was this an usual spelling that made all the difference to the team.

And we came up with one record, which was Viera Williams,

also known as Viera Koch.

The team now had her parents' surnames.

However, this didn't explain where Feldwicke came from.

It was very difficult to move the case forward.

We couldn't find a marriage for Mrs Williams to Mr Koch.

Without the parents' marriage certificate,

they couldn't identify if Viera had any siblings or any wider family.

Now, that meant we couldn't really progress on this case.

So, we needed a birth certificate.

When we got the birth certificate,

it was obviously quite a surprise, the information on it.

Viera was born in November 1930.

However, five years after her birth,

several changes had been made to her birth certificate.

The first thing we saw when we got the actual original certificate

was that the father was Alfred Koch and the mother was Kathleen Williams.

Alfred was born in 1905, and Kathleen in 1902.

They were both born in Scotland,

but the certificate shows that their daughter Viera was born in Kent.

And this wasn't the only surprise.

What was interesting was the amendment to the certificate.

Her father, Alfred, has been added at a later date.

Also, the marital status of Kathleen, the deceased's mother, has changed.

Whereas she is stated as Kathleen Koch, formerly Williams,

she is now described as Kathleen Williams, otherwise Koch.

A subtle difference, but a difference nonetheless.

Kathleen had reverted back to using her maiden name.

From this, the team knew that Alfred and Kathleen had married,

but at some point they'd gone their separate ways.

The team were struggling to find the elusive marriage certificate,

so they widened their search,

and came across a rather intriguing news article.

Her parents' relationship had turned into front-page news.

From the article, we know that the couple were in love with each other,

but their friendship was opposed by the girl's parents.

To overcome that opposition,

they entered into a scheme to bring pressure to bear in April 1929.

They motored to Gretna

where the ceremony was performed by a shoemaker.

Couples had been heading to Gretna Green to get married

since 1754, when a new civil law came into force in England.

They had to be over 21 to marry

unless their parents or guardians agreed to it.

The marriage had to be a public ceremony in your parish,

and overseen by an official of the Church.

However, the Scottish didn't change their law.

It remained the same as it had for centuries.

Once you reached 15,

you could make a contract with the man or woman of your choice,

so long as you followed

the basic convention,

that you were not closely related

and not in a relationship with someone else.

You could make that agreement anywhere you wished,

in private or in public,

in the presence of anyone at all you wished, or no-one at all.

So these English people down in England, very much in love,

no approval, complete disapproval by unhappy parents,

would come here to Scotland,

and marry by the Scottish custom or convention, anywhere on Scots soil.

Being so close to the border, the small village of Gretna Green

soon became renowned for eloping couples.

The concept of runaway marriages to Gretna Green

became much more popular through the references

of people like Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters,

and one or two others who made reference to runaway marriages.

And they would refer to Gretna Green.

However, coming from England,

couples wanted to keep some of the traditions that they were used to,

and rather than just declaring the marriage to one another,

they would look for someone in authority to oversee the ceremony.

When they come to a place like this,

there are obviously very few professionals,

but there were the artisans, the skilled technicians,

the blacksmith being the senior craftsman in the countryside.

So the young couple would come here, and see the blacksmith working away.

This is a very important man in his community, well respected.

"He will be the one who will hear our promise, one to the other."

Running away to Gretna Green wasn't just reserved for the English.

It had become a tradition itself,

and many Scottish couples decided to elope there too.

Alfred and Kathleen were both born in Scotland,

and like many couples before them,

they ran away to Gretna to get married.

The ceremony was held at the Toll Bar, just a stone's throw

from the English border, in the presence of a local shoemaker.

He'd bring them into the little room,

in the front of the toll house, and he'd go through the questions -

are you of marriageable age? "Yes."

Are you free to marry? "Yes." You are now married.

And he'd give them that little piece of paper and send them on their way.

The two words Gretna Green

have become part of the English language, really.

And to do with this idea of love and romance,

and a happy marriage, and living happily ever after.

But Alfred and Kathleen's marriage didn't have a fairy-tale ending.

After three years, the couple wanted it annulled

on the basis that neither of them believed it was a proper marriage

but instead the ceremony was intended to be

a show of their commitment to each other.

It caused quite a stir in the press

and the article also stated

that the couple had never lived together as man and wife, even

though their daughter, Viera, was born two years before the annulment.

Really what we're looking at is two people who were in love

who went to Gretna Green, got married, their parents opposed it,

and it all went horribly wrong in the end.

But what is very interesting is that there is no mention of Viera.

Viera was the only child born from this marriage,

so the team had to widen the search for heirs.

At that point,

obviously, we need to see if there are any other near-kin relatives.

I think the first port of call really was to establish

what happened to the parents.

During the research, we discovered that Kathleen remarried

to a Mr Feldwicke, Charles Feldwicke.

And that's obviously where Viera got the name from.

Viera's mother, Kathleen, married Charles Feldwicke

in 1933 in Brighton.

In 1947, when Viera was 16,

she changed her name by deed poll to Feldwicke.

Viera had several surnames that she was using.

Viera Williams, which was her mother's maiden name,

Viera Koch, her father's name,

Viera Feldwicke, which was her stepfather's surname,

and Viera Shelley, her stage name.

But would Gareth be able to crack the case

with not one, but four surnames?

If Viera had any half-siblings from her mother's marriage

to Charles, they'd be entitled to a share of her estate.

Unfortunately, from a research point of view,

Charles and Kathleen had no issue.

So that meant we then had to start looking at other possibilities.

With no near kin on her mother's side,

they looked to the father's family.

Gareth was making progress on the case,

but would one vital piece of information

have huge consequences for the team?

We'd found out quite a lot of information at this stage

about Viera,

but there was one last major surprise that she had up her sleeve for me.

Heir hunters trace thousands of rightful beneficiaries every year,

but not all cases can be cracked.

There are thousands out there that have eluded the heir hunters

and remain unsolved.

Today we're focusing on two Scottish cases.

Whereas in England and Wales, unclaimed estates are dealt with

by the Treasury Solicitor, and their value is not revealed,

in Scotland,

they are advertised by the Queen and Lord Treasurer's Remembrancer.

And there's a key difference, as they DO list the value.

Could you be the beneficiary they're looking for?

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

First up is a case worth just over £15,000.

John Shaw was born on 19th May 1931 in Toronto, Canada.

John moved to Scotland and died on 30th May 2008 in Edinburgh.

He left no well and no-one has come forward to claim his estate.

Did you know John?

Do you have any information that could be the key

to cracking this case?

Next is the £8,853 case of Agnes Young,

who was born on 8th April 1919 in Paisley, Renfrewshire.

Agnes was a widow and her maiden name was Shiels.

She lived all her life in Paisley, and died on 17th February 2008.

But despite this information, there's been no success

in tracing beneficiaries to her estate.

Does her name mean anything to you?

Perhaps you know of some clues which could help find her family.

Both these estates, totalling over £20,000, remain unsolved.

And if no-one comes forward, the money will go unclaimed.

Do you know anything that could help solve the cases

of John Shaw or Agnes Young?

Perhaps you could be the next of kin.

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

Heir hunting firm Finders have been referred

the £300,000 case of 84-year-old Eric Stone,

who died in March 2013.

For many years, Eric had lived at the family home

in the picturesque coastal town of St Leonards-on-Sea in East Sussex.

And for neighbours Anne Graham and Margaret Niss,

Eric was a character who will be dearly missed.

A lot of people called him Father Christmas, because he had a beard.

-And...

-It grew and it grew...

-And it grew.

And he was quite a character, because everybody would see him

going along with his shopping.

He'd go up to the village and do his shopping.

And he was quite a figurehead, really.

It's like part of the scenery's gone.

-Well, yes. He was part of the scenery, really.

-He certainly was.

Eric had been a resident in the street for decades,

and in later years he was joined by his older brother, James.

Jim didn't live here in the beginning,

because when the parents were here, when they died,

Eric was on his own there.

And it wasn't till some years later that Jim came down to live here.

They were very close brothers.

They were not just brothers, they were best friends.

They went on holiday together. They did most things together.

It's clear the brothers were close, as Eric left his estate to James.

But as he died before Eric, the will was no longer valid.

And this is why the heir hunters have stepped in.

They've spent several days working the case,

and it's proving harder than they hoped.

I'll look for births instead.

A travelling researcher has been sent

to hopefully sign up maternal heirs.

But on the father's side of the family,

there's still plenty of work to do.

The team still have to find out

if Eric's uncle William Arthur Stone left any living descendants.

We're currently trying to determine whether or not he left issue,

and indeed surviving issue,

that we will need to trace as beneficiaries to the estate.

Amy has already received

a number of certificates for William Arthur Stone,

but as he was born and raised in London,

and the certificates are from other areas,

she's doubtful that they are right.

But has some new information come to light that can help solve the case?

Some of these were friends and neighbours of the deceased.

The solicitors have sent the team some of Eric's personal effects,

which could prove invaluable.

From time to time, especially with a referral case,

we might get given a bunch of photographs.

That's not unusual,

but it's not often that you actually get

something written on the back that is useful.

Eric's photographs just might hold the answers they're looking for.

I've just noticed one referring to William Arthur Stone,

and it refers to a wife, Grace, maiden name Hare.

This is really good to have come across.

It means I can now double-check the marriages

I was considering yesterday.

It's great news, but there's even more to come.

This also refers to William Arthur. It's actually got an area on it.

It relates to Bedfordshire,

which makes me more confident that the death certificate

that came through earlier is almost certainly correct,

because the death occurred in Bedfordshire,

and in this picture, William is looking a little older.

So I'm more and more confident

that he actually did die in Bedfordshire,

and that I think I've found the correct death for him.

Amy is now certain that the death certificate

she has for William Arthur Stone in Bedfordshire

is the right one,

and armed with his wife's maiden name,

and knowing that they were married in Lewisham,

she starts looking for children from that marriage.

There are three possible births,

but none of them occur in the Lewisham area,

which is where William is from, and also where he married.

And also, out of all three births, none of them are together.

They're all dotted about the country.

Which makes it difficult to tell straightaway

whether or not they're connected to this marriage.

The team are finally making progress

on Eric's father's side of the family.

And on the mother's side, while there is still work to be done,

the team hope they've tracked down an heir.

Eric's uncle Thomas married Florence Ivory in 1927.

They had three children, the youngest being Rose,

and travelling researcher Peter is hoping he can sign her up

for an agreed percentage of her share of the estate.

The person concerned is that of a cousin of yours called Eric Stone.

Peter needs to make sure they've found the right family,

so he confirms some details.

Do you know his date of birth, by any chance?

-I'm sure it was 7th September.

-Do you know his date of birth?

-1958.

-That's it.

-Dulwich.

-That's fine.

With confirmation that Rose is a cousin of Eric's,

and entitled to a share of his estate, it's good news for the team.

And for Rose, it's brought back many memories.

As children, I met Eric, and very often we used to see them.

Eric was very jolly, a very jolly fellow.

We got on very well as cousins.

We used to see quite a lot of them.

But then, obviously, as we grow up,

we all sort of drift apart.

Although they hadn't seen each other for years,

hearing news about her cousin has come as a shock.

I didn't know Eric had passed away, not at all. I didn't.

I feel very sad. I just can't believe it.

Back in the office,

and the news has come through that they've signed up Rose.

And with the information that she's given Peter,

the team are sure they've found all the maternal heirs.

But is it also good news on the paternal side?

They've received the certificates they were waiting on

for Eric's uncle, William Arthur Stone.

And they're in for a surprise.

William Arthur Stone was in fact married twice.

The first time, he was married to a lady named Dorothy Maud Hooper,

and this marriage occurred in 1923.

Sadly, Dorothy passed away in 1932.

So if William had any children from either his first marriage

or second, to Grace Hare,

these children will be entitled to a share of Eric's estate.

Our research indicates that there were no children

from either marriage, and that William Arthur died himself in 1969.

With the news that William didn't have any children,

both sides of the family tree are complete.

In total, there are 12 beneficiaries, who will each inherit

a share of Eric's £300,000 estate.

So for Amy, the hard work has paid off.

All in all, this case went really well.

It's a decent-sized estate, so overall very pleased with this one.

And for Rose, the news that she is one of the heirs

has come completely out of the blue.

Who would expect someone to knock on your door

and tell you that you're being traced?

It is just a big shock.. I can't believe it.

Heir hunting firm Fraser & Fraser

were on the trail of the £350,000 estate of Viera Feldwicke,

an actress who died in 2012 in Brighton, Sussex.

Barbara Whatley acted alongside Viera in the 1950s and '60s,

when they both worked at the Brighton Palace Pier Theatre.

Viera had a lot of fun in her. Viera was incredibly sincere.

She was amazingly generous. She was a lovely person, absolutely lovely.

Case manager Gareth Langford had made progress on the case.

He knew that if any close kin were going to be found,

it would be through Viera's paternal side.

So he started to research into her father, Alfred Koch,

who was born in Glasgow in 1905.

When we were looking for Alfred, we picked up

on a marriage in Middlesbrough.

We didn't expect him to be in Middlesbrough.

And it was also complicated by the fact that he was using,

or appeared to be using, a different surname as well.

Viera wasn't the only one in the family who had more than one name.

When Alfred married his second wife, Mary, in Middlesbrough in 1942,

he was going by the surname Nielson.

But it was noted on the marriage certificate

that he was also known by the name Koch.

If any children were born from this marriage,

they would be Viera's half-blood siblings,

and they, or their descendants, would inherit her estate.

From the marriage, we were able to establish

that there was certainly one son, and obviously we needed to trace him.

Trying to establish what happened to Alfred and his son

became quite tricky, because there were simply no records

that we could find in the birth, marriage and death records.

It simply looked like they'd vanished.

Gareth desperately needed to find Viera's half-brother,

but had the research hit a dead end?

Because we couldn't find any records in England and Wales,

and indeed Scotland, we started to widen the field.

And after quite a bit of searching, we started to pick up names

that were relevant to our case - in Chile.

In the mid-1940s, Alfred and his new family left the country

when an opportunity arose for them overseas.

Alfred was working as a sheep farmer,

and throughout history, there'd been a demand for Scottish sheep farmers,

which allowed them to travel the globe.

During the 1850s, they were emigrating to the Falkland Islands.

The rationale for choosing Scots was partly

that the topography of the islands

was reckoned to be very similar

to the West Highlands, to the Hebrides, and also to the Shetlands.

And there was a comment by one contemporary in the 1850s

that soft Southerners wouldn't settle

and wouldn't thrive in the harsh climate of the Falklands.

But these Hebrideans and Northern Irelanders were used to

that sort of climate, and would settle down and make a go of things.

With stories of their new lives reaching the homeland in Scotland,

many more decided to make the journey.

And 100 years later,

Alfred followed his countrymen to the other side of the world.

There is a traditional wanderlust amongst the Scots

that has led them to emigrate since time immemorial.

So in some ways it's not surprising that Alfred emigrated.

One of the triggers wherever Scottish emigrants went

was a belief that pay, living conditions, life in general

would be better than they were at home.

The grass was always greener on the other side of the ocean.

For example, what could be earned in a year at home,

there was a belief that this could be earned in a month overseas.

By the early 1900s,

sheep farming in the Falkland islands had declined

due to overgrazing of the land,

and the spotlight had moved to Patagonia, in Chile and Argentina.

Alfred and his family moved to this region,

which at the time was home

to the largest sheep-farming company in the world.

The Scottish immigrants were employed not only as shepherds,

but also as managers.

And they would operate the slaughterhouses as well,

and had various jobs at various levels.

If you went out as a shepherd it was a pretty lonely life

and a very hard life, and winter conditions were very challenging.

Blizzards in which people could lose their lives pretty easily.

It was hard work, and the region's ability to farm sheep didn't last.

By the 1960s, it had started to decline.

With farming opportunities demising,

the Scottish farmers had a choice to make.

There were two trajectories that the Scottish emigrants could follow.

They could either put down roots in Patagonia,

and become really Patagonian Scots, or Scottish Patagonians,

or they could operate as sojourners, as temporary settlers,

who came back to Scotland.

And I would say there was about a 50/50 divide.

Alfred and his family decided to stay in Chile,

so Gareth had to search for any other children

born to Alfred and his wife, Mary.

We eventually discovered that Alfred had four children,

and obviously they were the heirs we were looking for.

Alfred had one child in England before moving to Chile.

He then went on to have three more children.

The eldest son sadly died in 2012, leaving a son.

So it was the remaining half-siblings and a half-nephew

who were entitled to Viera's estate.

We were able to make contact with the heirs on this case,

and it became evident quite quickly

that they had absolutely no knowledge that they had a half-sister.

So it obviously came as a huge shock to them.

Gareth had signed up the heirs, and he hoped all the hard work was over.

Our research in the case had finished.

We'd signed the heirs,

and we began looking to the administration of the estate.

And at that point, that's when we got our big surprise.

A simple call changed the course of the case.

We were contacted by the authorities, who made us aware

that there was a potential will for the deceased.

And obviously if there was a will, it would have a massive effect

on our heirs.

Although the team had run various searches for a will,

occasionally some are missed,

and more detailed searches have to be run to find them.

It was looking like all their work had been in vain.

The first thing that we had to do at this point

was confirm the validity of the will,

so I contacted the solicitors who were holding it.

Unfortunately, they were able to confirm that the will was valid.

So our heirs, unfortunately, were not going to be entitled parties.

So all the time and resources spent on the case

turned out to be worthless.

From our point of view,

we were obviously quite upset that a will had been found on this estate,

because we'd put in a lot of time and a lot of effort into this case.

But we look at these things at our own risk,

and occasionally they backfire on us.

Gareth had discovered Viera's next of kin,

but when he got a copy of her will,

he was able to find out exactly who she wanted to inherit.

On reading of Viera's will, she'd left her estate to a charity.

I think what we can establish from that

is that she also had no knowledge that she had half-blood siblings.

Viera's wish was that money be spent on facilities

for the elderly, with a special request

that a room be named after the mother she was so devoted to.

You know, that's a lovely sentiment.

Although the team's research has been in vain, and the company

won't earn a penny from their work, Gareth remains optimistic.

We'd obviously put in a lot of time and effort on this,

and there's no reward for us at the end of the day,

but it's important to accept that Viera's wishes are being carried out,

and that's an important aspect of this estate.