King/Dawson Heir Hunters

In the UK, around 30 million adults haven't made a will.

If anyone dies without one, or with no known relatives,

their estate is dealt with by the Bona Vacantia,

a division of the Treasury Solicitors Office.

When the new cases are brought to me

we make any enquiries that we can make to find kin,

and then if we can't find kin, they're then put onto the website

for kin to come forward themselves and claim the estate.

And that's where the heir hunters step in.

They use specialist skills to trace long-lost relatives.

12 children off their marriage.

Oh, Lord, so we want Mum to be alive.

Their investigations delve into the past

and uncover hidden stories.

Edward Burlton was a farm bailiff.

All the Burlton children were all involved in farming.

They bring family memories back to life.

You look like Mum a bit! Your eyes.

And, at the end of the day,

they bring news of an unexpected windfall.

With a little bit of financial help,

I will now be able to spend more time researching family,

keeping in touch with distant relatives...

Could the heir hunters be knocking at your door?

Coming up - the hunters have a majestic mission on their hands

as he attempts to track down a family of Kings.

King is a pretty bad surname to research.

And while searching through piles of belongings,

the team come across a gem of Imperial worth!

We've since discovered that the pearls found in Marion's house

actually belong to the Duchess of Windsor.

Plus, how you could be entitled to inherit unclaimed estates

held by the Treasury?

Could a fortune be heading your way?

It's Friday morning, and in the offices of Fraser and Fraser

the UK's largest probate research company,

it's a hive of activity.

So, what's the score?

We need the marriage, don't we?

The Bona Vacantia list has just been released.

This is one source of their work, and comes in daily.

This one's illegit.

I need you to phone me as soon as possible

so I can give you all the information. Thank you.

When the new list of names is released,

the team must quickly work out which cases might be valuable.

It's a race against time,

as there will be other companies on the chase.

And as heir hunters are paid by commission from a percentage

of the estate agreed by the beneficiaries,

their aim is to sign up as many heirs as possible.

Early signs are that one case has potential.

We think it might be an estate where the deceased

has died in a nursing home.

There is talk it could be upwards of £50,000 in savings accounts.

So from our point of view, it is a lucrative estate

that we obviously want to beat competition on.

James King died aged 78 in 2013 in Pimlico.

Unfortunately, no photos of James King have survived.

Neighbour Nadia Carcombe knew him for many years.

He was very nice. Polite.

But he was never a boisterous man.

He wasn't a man you'd...

Normally I could say to someone "Hello, Sunshine. How are you?"

Any man - builder - doesn't matter who. To make the day.

And he'd... I wouldn't do it to him, because I felt it would hurt.

Now, that's how I knew him. A delicate man.

James King had served in the army with the Royal Fusiliers.

We were both ex-forces. I was ex-forces.

Never mentioned it.

It seemed the past was a closed book.

He didn't want to know anybody really.

He would acknowledge you, but that was as far as it went.

And when he was growing older and iller,

he became even more reclusive.

In all the time I knew him,

I never... Apart from carers,

I never saw a visitor.

Never saw a soul.

Back at the office,

the team have started by looking for James's place of birth,

and case researcher Alan has made some good progress.

I went back to the records and had a look and I found a birth in Stepney.

James King was born in 1934 in the East London area of Stepney.

He was the son of Annie Ada Lane and James King.

With the parents identified,

the team are able to start looking for siblings,

and it quickly becomes clear this is a big family.

He was one of nine children,

so the team have their work cut out for them

as they must trace them all

if they are to find all the beneficiaries.

Ann dies aged five.

-Does she? I didn't find that.

-Died of whooping cough.

Eileen married, and died.

Alan and Dave have already established that

two of James's siblings were Ann and Eileen.

Both have died. However, Eileen had two children.

Could these be the first heirs to be found?

Alan soon finds a contact number for one of Eileen's daughters.

So then case manager Dave can make the call.

Good afternoon. Very sorry to trouble you.

I'm trying to trace a lady who may have been born in 1942 in Stepney.

Thank you.

Just got it in in the minute.

You only get one minute to leave answerphone messages.

So I try to cram it all in.

Alan continues to try and find James's six other siblings

but it's not an easy task.

As he discovers, when looking into James's eldest sister - Jessie.

I can't find her. I'm looking on the electoral roll.

Whilst Alan and the team continue to dig deeper

into the King family,

researcher Dave Hadley is out on the road.

His job is to make enquiries, collect documents and sign up heirs.

You're bound to build up a relationship and a rapport

with the beneficiaries

because you're in contact with them throughout the process.

And sometimes these things can take quite a while.

It can be anything up to 18 months,

two years before the estate is finally distributed.

Back in the office,

Dave Slee gets a call from a lady

who he hopes is one of James's sisters.

Hello, Mel.

Mrs King, yes. Lovely.

Now, was you born in 1942, Mrs King?

So far so good.

Now, was you the daughter of James King and Annie Ada Lane?

George King. Right.

The fact that you're not related to the deceased...

Or, you could be, but very distantly,

and wouldn't be an entitled party, so...

Thank you so much for coming back to me, because it helps me...

It resolves a problem that I had. Yeah, exactly.

Not a great start for the team.

Thank you. Bye-bye now. Bye-bye.

King's a pretty bad surname to research,

so the more information they can give us

the easier it makes our life.

But they need to find a lead soon,

or risk losing out to another company

who are bound to be on this case too.

I'm making sure this one's right, because she's gained an initial.

And James's elusive elder sister Jessie

is causing Alan a headache.

Anyone know what Bethnal Green's postcode is?

E2? Thanks.

RINGING

Hello, David Slee.

But, at last, the team makes some headway.

They have established that James's younger brother was Alfred,

and Dave has been able to speak to him on the phone.

Fortunately, two of his siblings -

so other siblings of the deceased -

are also in the same area,

so hopefully we can get them all together.

It's a promising start.

But they need to move fast,

or else other heir-hunting firms

might beat them to those all-important heirs.

So far, they've managed to trace three of James's siblings,

and they all live around Harlow in Essex.

However, all the family were born and grew up in Stepney,

an area of East London

devastated by the Second World War.

AIR RAID SIREN WAILS

In 1940, when James would have been just six years old,

Hitler's forces embarked on a brutal bombing campaign,

and the East End bore the brunt.

For case manager and fellow East Ender Dave Slee,

the story strikes a personal chord.

I can imagine that for this family growing up

as young children in Stepney during the war,

it would've been harrowing.

This is an area, where the docks were,

that were bombarded from 1940 onwards.

My family were in London during that time,

my mother was evacuated out of London.

Yeah, harrowing for youngsters in that period.

You can understand why the deceased's siblings

have moved out towards Harlow.

This was a town that was really a new town built after the war

to re-house people that were bombed out from the East End.

All down to David Hadley now.

I've had a call from the office and they've got the name and

address of a brother of the deceased, so I'm on my way to see him.

Dave is in Harlow,

where he's meeting Alfred, James's youngest brother.

-Mr King?

-Yeah.

-Dave Hadley.

-Oh, pleased to meet you.

It's the heir hunters who have had to break the news

of James's death to his brother.

Nobody knew very much about him. You know, he was one of these guys,

he seemed to keep himself very much to himself.

It's all come as a shock to Alfred,

who hadn't heard from his brother for over 50 years.

-How did he die, d'you know, or...?

-Well, I don't know for sure.

And Alfred reveals some surprising news about his older brother's past.

I mean, I only knew him when I was young, you see. He was in the army.

I'm sure it was Korea, but he was shot in the head,

and, er, the telegram come. Me dad took it,

and being the eldest son, it said, "Missing believed dead."

Of course that caused him to have a stroke soon afterwards.

-What, the...?

-Me dad.

-Oh, your dad?

-Yeah.

-Oh, right.

In 1953, 12 years after the Blitz in London, 18-year-old James was

conscripted into the army and sent to fight in Korea.

Jim Jacobs, a veteran of the Korean War,

describes what life would have been like for such a young man.

As an 18-year-old going to Korea from the United Kingdom,

there was an incredible difference.

I saw gunshot injuries, I saw shell and mortar injuries,

and they're the worst, because a man in Korea generally was not shot

by a single sniper's bullet to the forehead as you see a lot in films.

Most of them were killed by artillery.

James returned home, but things had changed whilst he'd been away.

Of course, he come home from the army and me dad had passed away,

and he wanted to be the head of the family and tell everyone what to do.

He was a bit forceful like that.

And she said, "No."

And he said, "Right, I'm going,"

-and he left the house and we never seen him any more after that.

-Yeah.

But can Alfred shed any light on the mystery of Jessie?

She's apparently still alive.

She's about 83 now.

She was in Tower Hamlets but no-one could tell us where she is.

She won't tell us.

With information about Jessie trickling in,

the heir hunters hope to piece it all together.

Alfred is happy to sign and has agreed with Dave a percentage

of his estate to go to the company for acting on his behalf.

So a good result for the team. But it's also a time for reflection.

-Thanks very much.

-Cheers, then, bye-bye.

Although I haven't seen me brother since I was 12 years old,

then suddenly realised that he's passed away

and I haven't seen him, you know, it's sad, very sad.

After all this time, you know,

all of a sudden he's not here no more.

And I can't speak to him no more, you know.

Me eldest brother, you know, lost him. Yeah.

He's going to have a chat to his brothers and sisters now and, erm,

he's going to break the news to them, which is the best way of dealing

with it, and I'm going to come back tomorrow and interview some of them.

With their first heir signed, the team are making good progress,

but with James's sister Jessie proving elusive,

this case could yet have a sting in the tail.

It's always the way, you think you've got it all finished

and then there's always one nagging step that needs to be completed.

Finding long-lost relatives is the main job of the heir hunters.

But sometimes, when a person leaves behind a property, it can be up to

the team involved in administering the estate to clear the house.

It's great that a property exists, and it can be sold, but so many of

the people who die intestate, their houses are in very poor condition.

Today in Shropshire, probate executive Michelle Parry

and house clearance company manager John Thacker have been tasked

with clearing the home of a lady called Marion Dawson,

who died in 2012 without leaving a will.

When I saw the state of the property

I realised it was going to take quite a lot of time to get through

all of the paperwork in order to assess the extent of Marion's estate.

The house clearance has been the latest stage of the process,

and Saul Marks of Celtic Research is in charge of administering

Marion's estate, having taken up the search for her heirs.

It became clear that we would need to commission a house clearance firm

to remove, basically, all the junk,

in order to make the house presentable in order to be sold.

Marion Dawson died in hospital on the 17th of October 2012.

Her neighbours, Steve and Jan Austin, talk fondly of her.

We moved here about May 2012, and we saw Marion strides away, really.

She was pottering backwards and forwards between the garage

and the back door, so we'd just stick our heads over the fence

and she'd do the same and she'd find out what we were doing,

just exchange pleasantries. She was a nice lady, really.

She seemed to have quite a nice little self-contained life.

-She was happy.

-Yeah.

-She was really happy.

She was always smiling

and she was always up for a conversation, a chat.

And very proud of her garden. She used to have a gardener come.

It was quite a nice garden

so somebody used to come round to cut hedges and lawns and that.

But she seemed to spend a lot of time just sat out.

Last summer, in between the rain,

she used to sit out quite a lot and enjoy the wildlife and that.

Yeah, just enjoy the wildlife and the sunshine.

While Marion spent time ensuring her garden always looked presentable,

her house remained a mystery.

-Not many people were allowed into the house.

-No.

She was private, she was private.

She'd obviously had a difficult life.

I think she'd battled with breast cancer and her husband died of

cancer, and she'd had a difficult life, certainly in the latter years.

She couldn't cope with moving around the house, so I think she got a bed

moved into the kitchen, and that's where she spent most of her time.

Her neighbours say she found a lot of comfort up on Prees Heath.

This is where Marion grew up, and was also where she spent a lot

of her time later in life, helping out on the butterfly reserve.

Evelyn Calder has many happy memories

of time spent there with Marion.

I've known Marion since I was about three years old.

She was three years older than me.

They lived a few yards away from where we lived,

and Marion's mother used to come and help my mother do the washing.

Mrs Burlton was very nice. We always got the sweet coupons off them.

When Marion died aged 79, there were no known relatives, so her estate

was advertised by the Treasury, and Saul decided to take up the hunt.

He works for a probate research company run by Peter

and Hector Birchwood, and they have offices all over the United Kingdom.

Saul Marks is their man in Liverpool.

The first thing I did was looked up her marriage,

of a Burlton to a Dawson,

and I found her marriage to Geoffrey Dawson in 1966.

I also then found Geoffrey's death in 2000,

and that rounded off that part of the investigation.

But when Saul began the search for children he didn't have much luck.

It seemed there were none.

I did find that the deceased had an elder brother, Cyril Burlton,

but he died in 1985.

There were no marriage listings for him and we were able to prove

quite conclusively that he'd not had any children.

That meant that any heirs to this lady's estate would be cousins,

either on the paternal side or the maternal side.

Saul started with Marion's father, Ellis Joseph,

who was one of ten children born to Edward and Sarah.

Edward Burlton was a farm bailiff and it seems from the censuses

that all the Burlton children were all involved in farming in that area.

The community in Shropshire that Marion grew up in was

built around agriculture and a farm bailiff was a significant job.

The farm bailiff on many farms

would be essentially the foreman of the farm,

carrying out the day-to-day instructions for the farmer.

At the time, farming was perceived

as a relatively high-status profession.

A lot of farming families would have brought their children up to see

little option or little type of work which would be suitable for them.

Farming was a relatively prestigious occupation and there was a

tendency for, particularly the sons, to follow their fathers.

And that was certainly true of the Burltons.

Both Marion's dad Ellis and her uncle George

followed in their father's footsteps and worked on the farm.

But no-one else decided to follow the family trade.

Despite being a large family,

only two of Ellis's siblings had children.

These would be Marion's first cousins and heirs to her estate.

The only other Burltons who actually had any children

were his brother Arthur and his sister Lily.

Arthur had one child named Dora,

but she died without issue so there were no heirs on that branch either.

So, having been through this enormous Burlton family with nine possible

branches apart from the deceased's own branch, there was

only one branch left that could possibly have any heirs on it.

Saul's search rested with Marion's aunt Lilian.

If she had children they would be heirs.

Lily Burlton married a gentleman named William Pugh

and had three children.

Sadly all those children have since passed away,

but they had quite a number of children amongst the three of them.

So, finally, after a bit of a scare that there might not be any heirs

at all, I suddenly had a nice group of heirs who were all

cousins of each other who I could then contact.

Saul was close to getting the case tied up.

But before he could relax, a curve ball was thrown his way.

All our research would have just been for nothing.

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 remain unsolved.

The money raised by the Bona Vacantia Division

is passed to Her Majesty's Treasury,

and if a claim is made within 12 years to an estate on the

unclaimed list, for example, then we'd pay that money back out again.

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 Paul Bernard, a widower who died

on the 12th of October 2008 in Camden, North London, aged 82.

Records reveal he was born in Lagos, Nigeria, on the 1st of July 1926.

Paul also used the surname Akinola

and was sometimes known as Paul Akinola Bernard.

Paul wed his second wife, Maria Vidarte de Castro, in 1970.

But she died just two months before him in August 2008.

It's believed he may have had a daughter from his first marriage.

Despite all this information,

there's been no success in tracing beneficiaries to his estate.

Do you know anything which could shed some light on his family?

Next, can you help with the case of Stefan Bohdan Adams?

He died on the 21st of February 2012 in Hammersmith, London.

He was born in January 1950 in Leeds,

and also went by the name Stefan Kwiatkowski.

The name Kwiatkowski originates from Poland,

and means "one from the place of little flowers."

Could this name be the key to unlocking Stefan's past?

Did you know Stefan?

Both Paul and Stefan'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 information that could help solve these cases?

And if you're related,

you could have thousands of pounds coming your way.

Heir hunter Saul Marks and the team from Celtic Research

were hard at work on the case of Marion Dawson,

whose estate was estimated to be worth up to £350,000.

After an initial scare that there were no heirs to her estate,

the team were now on the hunt for five of her first cousins.

Marion was born into a farming family and spent her whole life

in and around the beautiful rural area of Shropshire.

However, there was one particular spot

that held a special place in her heart, Prees Heath.

It was here she lived with her parents

and spent most of her childhood.

But all that changed when Britain went to war.

Marion and her family were uprooted from their beloved moorland as their

house was knocked down to make way for one of several pop-up

airfields, set up by the RAF to cope with wartime demand.

RAF Tilstock was built in 1942 by Sir Alfred McAlpine,

and in the particular area that her house used to occupy, erm,

it was replaced by runways and several hangars.

The airfield itself was initially used

for an operational training unit,

which is where crews would come together from their initial training,

they would be trained to operate heavy bombers,

so the type of aircraft they would

train on would be Armstrong Whitworth Whitleys and Vickers Wellingtons.

They would be trained to carry out bombing raids over Europe,

so the main offensive came through the use of these heavy bombers.

Marion and her family had to leave everything they knew behind

and were re-housed.

They lived in two railway carriages,

er, for some years.

Yeah, they always had ducks and chickens running about everywhere.

In the railway carriages and everything.

After the war, Marion married and set up home in Whitchurch,

not far from where she'd built those childhood memories.

And it was here she would remain until her dying day.

For Saul, tracking down heirs to the estate, it seemed that,

like Marion, the wider family hadn't ventured too far away either.

Eventually, he had managed to speak to one of the heirs...

Hi, my name's Saul Marks...

..who then put him in touch with all her cousins.

In total there were seven heirs on the paternal side who were all

descendants of that branch,

and we were able to secure agreements from all of them.

Having successfully signed up a number of heirs,

Saul was about to get a nasty shock.

There was one heart-stopping moment in the administration

when Michelle told me they'd actually found a will in the house.

And if that will had been valid,

all our work would have gone out the window.

This was potentially disastrous news for Saul

and could mean all his hard work would have been for nothing.

Michelle, the probate executive, set about checking the will

to see if it was valid.

It was written in the 1970s.

She had left everything to her husband

but her husband unfortunately passed away before she did.

And Marion never updated it.

Saul could finally distribute the estate as the will was invalid.

It's with great relief that we were able to sit back knowing

that the heirs that we'd found were indeed heirs to the estate.

One of the heirs is David, the son of Marion's cousin Grace.

He lives just 35 miles away from Shrewsbury in Stourbridge.

That's their wedding, I didn't even know I went to it,

but that's me at the back.

David has been shown one of Marion's photo albums

found among the treasured possessions in her house.

The familiar faces spark a lot of memories.

Did use to visit Marion in the '60s and late '50s.

I've always had the impression that Marion's family

were quite well off in those days.

These were people that had gone through the Second World War,

used to rationing, and thereby quite frugal,

and I think they carried that on in life.

Like myself, we hoard things and keep things.

If I don't use it in 10 years it might come in handy in 20 years!

This is my wedding.

And we've just about got Marion on here

and Geoffrey just at the back.

Back in 1973 was the last time I saw Marion when she came to my wedding.

And we just gradually lost touch.

For Saul, the case was pretty much wrapped up,

as he had also traced Marion's mother's side of the family

who were all abroad.

The deceased mother's death certificate

showed that she was born in Belgium in 1892,

so what I had to do was then look for any other occurrences

of her surname in this country.

She came from a large family herself

and there were actually quite a number of heirs

who still lived in Belgium.

But there was one more surprise for Saul, hidden in Marion's house.

While searching the house,

two sets of pearl necklaces were found,

together with a Sotheby's catalogue.

We've since discovered that the pearls found in Marion's house

actually belonged to the Duchess of Windsor.

The pearls have been brought to an auction house

where they'll soon go under the hammer.

So Marion purchased these necklaces

as two cultured pearl necklaces,

but obviously that isn't quite the reason that she chose these two.

She could have picked up a cultured pearl necklace anywhere,

but the fact that she bought both of these,

and the fact of this providence,

really means that she obviously has some interest, or had some interest

in the royal family, maybe in particular Wallis Simpson.

The Duchess of Windsor, of course,

very prolific in the media in the 1930s and 1940s,

height of the Art Deco style.

She became, if you like, a bit of a poster girl for it.

She was looked upon as a style icon -

beautiful clothes and basically beautiful jewellery,

that's what she was known for.

The pearls were recently sold

and boosted the value of the estate by £2,000.

But, for heir David, Marion's legacy is more than financial.

The whole experience has revived memories of his long-lost cousin.

With hindsight, it would have been nice

to have perhaps got to know her a little bit better.

It's quite sad that Marion was alone

and I wish I had more information and would have known,

because I would have been able to visit, because I do frequent the neighbourhood quite often.

Hopefully, with a little bit of financial help,

I will now be able to spend more time researching family,

keeping in touch with distant relatives,

generally keeping everybody together.

Heir hunters Fraser & Fraser are working on the case

of 78-year-old James King who died in Pimlico.

Unfortunately no photographs of James King have survived.

Researcher Dave Hadley is making good progress,

having signed one heir and with two more visits planned.

It's important they sign as many heirs as possible.

They've ruled out three who died with no issue,

and have spoken to one on the telephone.

But one stem is proving problematic,

that of James's elder sister Jessie.

She's the only stem outstanding.

There is issue on that, lots of issue.

But the team are persevering.

Sorry, Dave, when was Jessie born?

Jessie - born Sep 30.

Last known living in Bethnal Green area.

Jessie was the first child of Annie and James King.

So far, all the team have to go on

is the name of her husband.

12 children off their marriage.

Oh, Lord.

So we want Mum to be alive. Bye, now. Bye-bye.

David Hadley's just managed to see

one of the deceased's nieces.

She's given us some information about the last remaining stem,

which appears that one of the sisters of the deceased,

she married and had 12 children.

So I'm keeping my fingers crossed that she's alive and entitled,

otherwise it would mean we've got to find 12 further heirs entitled,

so it makes more work for us.

The news that Jessie had so many children

puts the pressure on Dave and Alan

as rival heir hunters are also likely to be working on this case,

vying to sign up the heirs first

and secure their commission as agreed by the beneficiaries.

Husband was a proprietor of a cafe,

or something like that.

And their research exposes

the enormity of the task ahead.

-Are these all with mother's maiden name...?

-Yeah.

-King?

So, whose name is...? M-U...

We'll just have to write that in.

It's all Greek to me.

But it looks like their persistence has paid off.

Just two hours later,

Dave thinks he's got a lead on Jessie.

Right, I think we've got lucky

and we've just found the last remaining heir

outstanding on this estate.

The team have a number for Jessie,

and if she's alive and they can speak to her

it means they will have their final heir

and won't have to trace her 12 children.

Uh-uhh.

But it's not looking good.

And there's no answer.

So he tries another number.

It's always the way - you think you've got it all finished

and then there's always one nagging little stem

that needs to be complete.

It's not what Dave was hoping to hear.

So as he can't get hold of Jessie,

the team's only option now

is to start searching for her 12 children.

She's done what a lot of women do

when they split up from their husbands...

she's reverted back to her middle name.

Good afternoon, I'm trying to get in contact with a Philip.

Thank you for your time, bye-bye.

We can't do any more than that, can we? Jesus.

With the strain of finding the last heir

taking its toll in the office,

Dave Hadley is out on the road

visiting potential heirs.

Today he's on his way back to see James's brother Alfred

and meet two other siblings,

John and Patricia.

He's got a number of brothers and sisters living in the same area

and he very kindly agreed

to get them all together

so that I can meet with them all in one go.

Saves me a lot of time and travel.

Hello. How are you?

Dave explains to John why he's there.

I mean, basically James passed away last year

and didn't leave a will.

-Left a little bit of money.

-He had a hard life, Jimmy.

-Did he?

Yeah, he did, yeah.

For John, hearing about his brother's death

has brought memories flooding back.

One fond memory I have

is when Jimmy used to play the maracas

and we used to have a laugh and I used to sing.

I was always singing Dean Martin songs,

cos they liked that sort of thing.

Being in the army I think really affected him.

John's sister Patricia then arrives to meet Dave.

-Where were you born?

-Bethnal Green Hospital.

I don't really want it this way.

If he was alive, you know...

But my mum chucked him out when he was younger

and he didn't want to know us.

The news of her brother's death

highlights the importance of the here and now,

and keeping in touch with all the family.

As it appears Jessie is as elusive to her siblings

as she is to the heir hunters.

If they do find Jessie and I send the letter for her to read,

or whoever picks it up,

I'll be very grateful.

And if she is alive I'd like to see and find out where she lives.

Back in the office, the team has also been wanting to find Jessie

and the hunt has taken a twist.

Dave Slee has managed to find contact details

for one of her daughters.

A genuine matter, I'm trying to trace a family by the name of King

and I'm hoping you're the daughter of Jessie Ali,

whose maiden name was King.

Was King...

Now, we've been in contact

with your other aunts and uncles in the last day or so

who would also be entitled to a share in the estate,

but so would your mother. Erm...

Has she? Oh, I am sorry to hear that.

Not the news Dave was hoping to hear.

Oh...

The worst scenario.

One of the deceased's sisters has unfortunately died

about three years ago.

Finally the team has found their remaining stem - Jessie.

What is a shame

is that one of the sisters that we've interviewed today

was desperate to try and speak with her sister

that she's lost contact with,

and now it's not going to happen

because she died about three years ago.

The team now have their work cut out

as they have to find all of her children.

Jessie had 12 offspring, four were adopted out,

so the heir hunters don't need to find them.

However, there are eight remaining children

who are now heirs to James's estate.

One of those heirs is Sharon.

Now in her 50s, Sharon grew up in care

after being given up by her mother Jessie as a young child.

Having never really known any of her wider family,

the news that she's an heir

is a precious chance to connect with her roots.

You feel like you're not relevant to people

and you don't know your family history.

You know, you hear certain things but you're not sure if it's true,

you question things but you don't really get a straight answer.

The death of James, an uncle she never, and will never know,

has at least put her in contact with other family members

so she can start filling in gaps of her life.

So when I did get the phone call

and it was confirmed that it was actually a definite relative,

I did feel, "Oh, it's relevant."

I felt, oh, there is someone out there

that I can call an aunt or I did have an uncle.

And for the first time

she can be part of a family.

So, yeah...

It's important for me to feel relevant.

So as Dave Slee wraps up the case,

he feels a sense of fulfilment.

What is nice is that they've expressed a desire

to make contact with their aunt

who they haven't seen...

I don't think they've ever seen.

So hopefully there'll be a nice reunion

and from our point of view that's quite gratifying.

While the work of the heir hunters is complete,

for Sharon it's just the beginning of her journey.

She's off to meet her aunt Patricia.

I'm feeling very nervous,

but very excited at the same time.

Yes, and I'm looking forward to meeting her

and I hope, erm...that she likes me.

Patricia has invited Sharon to her home.

DOORBELL RINGS Hello, Sharon.

-Hello, Pat.

-Hello, come in.

-Come in. Come in.

-Thank you.

The ladies have plenty to talk about.

Well, when I opened the door...

You did look like Mum a bit, your eyes, yeah.

Your eyes... The eyes feature look like Mum, yeah, they do.

The conversation soon turns to Sharon's mum,

Patricia's sister Jessie.

When I was told she moved back to London I went to the council.

-Tower Hamlets.

-Tower Hamlets, yeah.

I went to them and asked and gave them me name and that, and they said,

"No, we can't help you." But then when these people...

When my brother died, they found yous and I couldn't believe it.

I tried and I couldn't get nowhere.

I've been trying through a long, long time.

But, you know what, thankfully we've met each other.

-Yeah, yeah.

-That's been really good.

Patricia then shares some family photos with her niece.

That's Nan there, she's drinking.

-Mum looks like her there. Definitely.

-Yeah, yeah.

I didn't realise I had so many.

These are lovely, what you've given me, thank you.

That's Eileen and me going out for the day. That's Nan.

'It's been a really nice day.'

I was a bit worried what to say, what not to do, that,

but I had a load of photographs, that sort of sealed it a bit.

For me, trying to look for them,

where I've failed,

because of Jimmy dying, it's paid dividends.

I'm glad she's here and she can see us

and she's got connections on Mum's side.

Brilliant.

It's been actually awesome,

is the word I want to use.

Erm...

It's been such a blessing meeting Aunt Pat,

I feel so relaxed around her, I felt like I knew her for years.

Yeah, it's awesome. Awesome.

I can't believe that it happened.