Naish/Hughes Heir Hunters

Each year in the UK, thousands of people die without leaving

a will and with no known relatives.

We've certainly never seen anybody come to visit, in all the time

we've known the house.

If a member of the family doesn't come forward to claim

the estate all the money will go to the government.

And that's where the heir hunters come in.

They specialise in tracing beneficiaries and giving

them news of a legacy which can turn their world upside down.

I've never met him or anything, so this is out of the blue.

The heir hunting world is steeped in rivalry, as thousands

of pounds can be at stake.

There is talk that it could be upwards of £50,000

in savings accounts.

And families and long-lost relatives can at last be reunited.

Hello. Come in!

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

Could the heir hunters be knocking at your door?

Coming up... the race is on to beat rivals to an estate

worth in excess of £750,000.

I hope there's not going to be competition,

but until you get there, you just don't know.

And the success of a valuable case rests on the heir hunters

discovering crucial documents.

I've just, in the bottom of this wardrobe, I found a false floor.

I lifted it up and I have some boxes.

Plus, how you could be entitled to inherit unclaimed estates

held by the Treasury.

Could thousands of pounds be heading your way?

It's early on a summer morning and heir hunter Stuart is driving

across the Wiltshire countryside, in pursuit of a new case.

First case of the day, travelled up to Swindon.

What a lovely day to be out and about in Wiltshire!

Stuart works for London-based company Finders

and he's been dispatched by Senior Case Manager

Amy-Louise Moyes, who has spent the past couple of days

researching the estate of Michael Naish.

It's a private referral.

We've been given his death certificate

and informed that the estate, quite a large valued estate,

it's worth between £750,000 up to, potentially, a million pounds.

With such a high-value case at stake the pressure is now on Stuart,

because he's on his way to visit potential heirs to this fortune.

I hope there's not going to be competition, but you never know.

People... I've arrived at doors before

where somebody has been in there

and you just bow out graciously, but I don't know.

Until you get there, you don't know.

Michael Naish died, aged 79, on 24 October, 2011, at his home

in an Oxfordshire village.

Unfortunately, there are no surviving photographs of Michael.

However, he's remembered fondly by people in the village, as he was

a familiar face in the area, running the local pub for over ten years.

Very well known in the community, very well liked.

You only ever saw him working seven days a week.

The older people said he was lovely - a nice person,

down-to-earth, always willing to help.

Well, he would've been the centre of the community, because everybody

in the area would have come to see him at night, have a chat, a drink.

They would sit here all night talking, spitting sawdust,

as they used to call it years ago!

Michael was a bachelor

and spent his life living in the family home in Oxfordshire.

When he passed away in 2011, leaving behind a valuable property

but no will, solicitors were called in to handle his estate

and they turned to the heir hunters to help make sure

every relative was traced.

For boss Daniel Curran, this is not uncommon.

We get a lot of cases from solicitors,

because, obviously, it is a specialist field.

They might have situations they can resolve themselves,

but for every one of those there is another one where there is

problems or difficulties in locating the correct beneficiaries.

They also have to be sure they are finding and proving

they are finding the right people, as well.

The solicitors on the Naish case were already in contact

with relatives on Michael's father's side of the family,

but there was no trace of any family through his mother's side.

The paternal family believe that

Michael's mother was an only child,

but we need to verify the information, of course,

before the estate is distributed, so I'm looking into the maternal family.

When the case was handed to Amy two days ago,

she had a useful head start.

We've been provided with Michael's parents' names.

They were Kate Emma Hobbs and Walter James Naish.

We were also informed that Michael had an elder brother,

who actually predeceased him, in 2004.

This meant that Amy

and her team had plenty of information to work with.

They knew that Michael had died without marrying or having children

and it seemed the same was true of his elder brother, Gerald.

For all intents and purposes, they were living together,

the brothers, and the brother died a bachelor, without issue.

With no partners, children or siblings to inherit,

all heirs on this estate would come from the wider family and that

meant looking to Michael's parents, Walter Naish and Kate Hobbs.

The couple married in 1918 and moved to Oxfordshire, where Walter

was stationed with the 13th Rifle Brigade,

which was part of the highly decorated regiment which suffered

horrific losses during the First World War.

Fortunately though, Walter survived.

The solicitors had already established that Michael

was one of two sons born to Walter James Naish and Kate Emma Hobbs.

They had made contact with two paternal cousins,

each of whom would be entitled to a share of Michael's huge estate.

OK.

But the estate could not be paid out until all the heirs had been found.

The team now focused on Michael's mother, Kate,

to see if she was an only child, as some believed.

With Kate, because she was born in 1896, the...

The best thing to do

and the fastest way to get results was to look at census records,

so the first thing to do would be to look at the 1901 Census.

This would give us an initial idea of whether or not she was an only child.

Censuses are compiled every ten years

and give a snapshot of Britain's population, by showing

who is living at every property on one particular day.

Censuses are usually only made public

100 years after being compiled,

but they contain details of people's age, marital status

and relatives, and for Amy and her team, this would prove invaluable.

Having a look at the 1901 Census, we found Kate

and we can see that she is living with her mother Clara, a laundress.

She's also living with seven siblings, so in 1901 she would

appear to be one of eight children of Clara and Edgar, her father.

And certainly not an only child, as previously thought.

This was crucial for the team, as it meant there was now a good chance

there would be heirs on the maternal side of the family.

For every heir they found,

the team would earn a pre-agreed percentage of the estate, so they

quickly began tracing descendants of Kate's brothers and sisters.

I would usually start with one of the male siblings,

because it is a lot easier to find a death record, but given that

one of Kate's sisters has a particularly unusual name,

Virtue Annie Hobbs is her name, I am going to look at Virtue first,

in the hopes of finding somebody fairly quickly.

Virtue was Kate's eldest sister and Amy was soon able to establish

that she was one of five daughters born to Clara and Edgar Hobbs.

Interestingly, records reveal that three of these sisters

worked in domestic service

and Michael's mother Kate was a kitchen maid.

The kitchen maid's role was probably the most tiring

role of any of the staff. She'd often be the first person to get up.

The kitchen would properly have risen between 4.30 and 5.00

and she would have then gone around the house before the aristocracy

were up. This was the key,

so she wasn't seen and would have started to prepare the fires,

she would stoke up the stoves,

and she would draw the curtains as well first thing in the morning.

After that it would be any job that the cook wanted her to do.

A good kitchen maid was very hard to find, because a lot of them

just could not stomach it.

It was whilst in service that Kate met Walter,

her future husband and Michael's father.

He was a footman from a neighbouring house.

The role of the footman was to support the butler

and it was a trainee butler, basically.

Often you would have a first footman and a second footman

and it was much more impressive in these houses if your first

and second footman matched, so if they looked very similar,

if they were of the same height,

footmen generally tended to come in pairs and they would be there

helping setting the table, serving at table, bringing the food and the

drink from the kitchen upstairs and then serving tea and coffee and any

other food and drink throughout the day and answering the door, as well.

The role of the footman was very much seen, as opposed

to the kitchen maid, which was not seen, at all.

One of the roles of the footman was to polish the silver.

It's quite a tiring job

because they would have lot of silver to polish in these houses.

If an employer found a piece of cutlery or a partridge

that was not in particularly good condition, then words would be had

with the butler and the butler would make sure that did not happen again.

Some employers didn't know what they were looking for but most of

them can tell a shiny piece of silver from a tarnished piece of silver.

In 1914, Walter was sent off to war, but he

and Kate married on his return and when the couple's first child

was born, her time in service would have ended.

There was no such thing as a working mother-type thing, as we have today.

Hopefully, the husband Walter would have moved up the ranks

and he would have been earning enough to support both of them,

because obviously Kate would not have been taking a wage,

but her role would have been to look after the children.

Having established that one of Kate's sisters had the unusual

name of Virtue, Amy could now begin tracing her descendants, to see

if it led her to living heirs.

Virtue Annie married a gentleman named Hedley Rawlings.

The surname Rawlings is a fairly common surname,

but given that it is combined with first names Virtue and Hedley,

I am pretty confident that the records I've found are correct.

Next, Amy established that Virtue and Hedley went on to have

five children who would have been Michael's cousins.

But all five had died,

meaning Amy would have to go down another generation.

Marjorie Ethel Rawlings, born in 1910.

Now, this again is one of the best name combinations of the five

children, so we have looked through the marriage records again

and we can see that Marjorie went on to marry a William Strange.

The birth indexes indicate that Marjorie

and her husband William had nine children.

The team have been able to establish that all nine of these

children are alive and potential heirs to the £750,000 estate.

It's now over to travelling researcher Stuart to visit

these heirs and, hopefully, to sign them up.

-Hi, Amy!

-'Hello.'

-Hi. I've got all the papers.

Everything's under control.

But will Stuart's task be as straightforward as he hopes?

We are very lost, actually. Turn left.

-SAT-NAV:

-Turn right.

-Turn right here, do you think?

I don't think that's saying right here.

Across the UK, there are thousands of homes lying empty,

and, in many cases, their owners have passed away with no known

relatives to inherit property.

With ownerless houses often becoming derelict and overgrown,

concerned neighbours sometimes turn to the Heir Hunters for help.

We find a number of people contact us because of these properties

lying empty and hope we can find the family.

This is how senior case manager David Pacifico

heard about an unclaimed estate in Manchester worth around £100,000.

Peter Hughes was 81 when he died on 12th August, 2011.

He had lived alone on a quiet street in Salford, Manchester.

Debbie Freer was his neighbour for over six years.

I'd describe Peter as a really friendly old gentleman,

but he kept himself to himself.

He'd do his garden,

and when he was in his garden, he'd say hello to people passing.

His death came as a shock to all his friends and neighbours.

People do miss him on the street because people have spoken about him this summer.

I've talked to the next-door neighbour and the lady across

the road and the lady next door about Peter only in the last couple of months,

because people are concerned what's happening to Peter's house.

Peter wouldn't just let it go to rack and ruin.

Peter's house sat neglected for two years,

before one of his neighbours contacted the Heir Hunters.

Highly-experienced case manager David Pacifico immediately began

work to track down beneficiaries.

Because of the property involved,

they believe that the estate has an estimated value of £100,000.

But until their research could confirm this,

the team were taking a gamble.

We couldn't trace records of his actually owning the property.

If he was renting,

we were then possibly looking at much lower value case.

And the team didn't have a lot to go on.

The information we had - obviously the address,

the name of the person, but that was about it.

So they checked to see if he had been married.

We believe he died a widower, and also checked to see

if there were any children born of that marriage

before we traced the further family.

The team quickly discover that Peter had no children

and that he was an only child.

With no wife, children or siblings, the team would have to look

to the wider family to have any chance of finding heirs.

Next step is to identify the parents,

when they were married, when they died, and also when they were born,

to find siblings of both the father and of course the mother.

They would, then, be aunts and uncles of the deceased.

Peter's parents were Peter Hughes and Elizabeth Williamson.

They married in 1922 in Salford.

David began by looking into the paternal side.

Hughes is quite a common name, more common in Wales.

It's more of a Welsh name.

So on that basis, we hoped that the father was English,

so it would be better to research

and we then identified a number of siblings of the father.

Peter's father had six brothers and sisters, and the team began

the tricky task of tracing all the Hughes siblings,

to see if any of them had gone on

to have children, who would be Peter's cousins.

Can we have a quick look for the parents' deaths, as well?

David now turned his attention

to Peter's mother Elizabeth's side of the family.

Peter's mother Elizabeth, or Lizzie, was born to William

and Margaret Ann Williamson in 1898.

She was one of five children.

The eldest of the mother's siblings was Henry Williamson,

who would have been born in 1895.

So he would have been 19 at the outbreak of the First World War

and could have fought in the First World War.

Records show that Peter's uncle, Henry Williamson,

did fight in the First World War.

He was on the front line with the King's Royal Rifle Corps.

He goes with his battalion to France in July, 1915,

and he remains there until he's wounded in September, 1917.

So, he has almost a year and a half

when he's in and out of the front line.

He takes part in two major battles, Loos, in the autumn of 1915,

and he's right at the centre of the Battle of the Somme.

The Battle of the Somme is characterised by high casualties,

60,000 killed and wounded on the first day alone.

These levels continue right through to November.

So, Henry Williamson, a young man in his early 20s,

is trying to come to terms with seeing his comrades killed,

wounded, trying to stay alive,

defending himself against German counterattacks.

Frontline fighting clearly took its toll on the young man,

as he was diagnosed with shell shock.

Typically, shell shock manifests itself in fatigue,

exhaustion, joint pains, sometimes chest pain, as well,

difficulty breathing, nervousness, difficulty sleeping.

So, the combination means that the front line soldier can't do his job.

Henry was sent to hospital for treatment.

Shell shock is treated in a variety of ways.

Psychologically-minded doctors who've got experience

of the front line will treat men with respect,

with appropriate treatment

and understand what they're going through. Some of the high-ranking

officers, who haven't necessarily been in the front line,

will adopt a much more rigorous,

tough line, and say that to what extent is

the shell shock actually cowardice or people shirking duty?

The treatments they're looking towards are much more punishment

and military discipline,

so there's a split in the army, as the appropriate way

to deal with these nerve-damaged troops.

Treatment is simplified because the army wants to return

as many men to duty as quickly as possible.

So it's rest, sleep, encouragement, good food,

and then graduated physical exercise, to encourage the man

back to duty, to get him functioning in a physical

and mental sense as a frontline soldier.

Henry didn't recover enough to return to the battlefield

and was discharged from the army before the end of the war.

In the office, the team discovered that, after the war,

Peter's uncle Henry returned to Manchester, where he married

and had six children, all of whom were potential heirs to the estate.

From the birth records, we identified any children of the name

Williamson with the mother's maiden name, in this case Roberts.

However, it is possibly quite a common combination.

We know they got married in Salford

and the chances are any children would be born in Salford,

so we wouldn't look at any children with that combination of surname

that might have been born, say, in London,

because there's obviously a number of marriages of Williamson

that married Roberts.

So the family we found were all, I believe, born in Salford.

The couple had six children in total -

one boy, Henry, and five girls.

David quickly found one of the daughters, Iris,

who would've been Peter's cousin.

She was still alive and still living in Salford.

I remember Peter, but only because he was older.

I don't remember him as a child.

I've not really seen that much of him.

The only recollection that I have of actually seeing him

was after my father died

and he brought a Christmas card round here for my mother.

I remember, as he walked off the path,

thinking how much like my dad he was.

This is my cousin, Peter Hughes,

and his wife, June.

As far as I know, they always lived with Auntie Lizzie and Uncle Peter.

With their first heirs signed up, the team were making good progress.

But they still had many more beneficiaries to trace,

and at this stage they still had no idea of the true value

of the estate.

In fact, the team would have to wait several months to find out

if the case really was worth the £100,000 they'd estimated.

We have to try and find some paperwork that will justify

that this is actually his home.

While the Treasury Solicitor publishes a list of new cases every day,

the Heir Hunters can't always find the vital clues

that lead them to entitled relatives.

These cases remain on the government's unclaimed list

for up to 30 years.

When the new cases are brought to me,

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

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

so that people can come forward and claim estates they're entitled to.

Today, we have details of two unclaimed estates

where heirs are yet to be found.

Do you have information that could help solve either of these cases?

The first is Ann Patricia Barnes,

who died on ninth January in 2009 in Hampstead, London.

However, she hadn't lived all her life in the capital.

She was originally from Coventry,

born there on 25th February, 1942.

She had been married, but at the time of her death she was a widow.

Her maiden name was Ladbrook,

and she also used the name Annie Barnes.

Despite all this information, there's been no success

in tracing beneficiaries to her estate.

The second case s Mary Ann Margaret Wraight.

She died a widow on 17th September, 1997,

in Kenton, Middlesex.

She was of Irish descent

as she was born in Ireland on 27th August, 1916.

Her maiden name was Simpson

and she also used the name Molly Simpson-Wraight.

Both Ann and Mary's estates remain unclaimed.

However, there is hope beneficiaries could still be found.

If someone is aware of an unclaimed estate that they don't believe

somebody else's already dealing with,

they can give us a ring

and we'll talk them through how to refer the case to us.

Do either of these people ring a bell to you?

Could you be the relative the Heir Hunters are looking for?

If so, you could be entitled to thousands of pounds.

Retired pub landlord Michael Naish died a bachelor in 2011.

He hadn't made a will, but, having inherited the family home

in Oxfordshire, his estate was worth in excess of £750,000.

Having been told there were probably no maternal heirs,

Amy Louise Moyes and her team have actually traced

multiple family members

who should be entitled to a share of the estate.

I was expecting the deceased's mother to be an only child, as suggested.

So when it turned out that she was actually one of nine,

it was surprising to say the least.

Two days after the team began working on the case in the office,

it's now up to researcher Stuart to visit

these potential heirs and hopefully sign them up with the company.

It's more than likely they've never heard of the person.

It's quite interesting with families.

But they're obviously quite hopeful

there's some money in the pipeline.

Stuart is one of several researchers that the company

employ to travel around the country visiting heirs.

He may be asked to collect certificates from register offices

and speak to neighbours to try to paint

the picture of somebody who has passed away,

and to find any family collections they may know about.

But whatever the challenge, it's clearly a job he loves.

I'm a people's person, really.

I find people extremely interesting, and it is surprising,

some of the people you come across.

They're shocked and it's very sad,

and then suddenly it might not be sad if they didn't like the person...

It's very interesting.

Stuart's first port of call today is to Marion.

Her mother, Marjorie, was Michael's cousin.

Hello, I'm Stuart. Lovely to see you.

So she should be due a share of his estate.

Basically, we're trying to get the estate sorted out.

Stuart must run through some family details with Marion

to make sure their research is correct.

And as Marion is a keen amateur genealogist,

his job is made a lot easier.

-This is going back to my dad's side, William.

-Mm, yeah..

Then his father, George. It goes on to the Rawlings. Henry.

A few things down here.

Having established that Marion is definitely an entitled heir,

Stuart gets down to business and explains that,

in return for an agreed percentage of her inheritance,

the company will act on her behalf when she makes her claim.

Marion is happy with the agreement,

and the company have their first heir.

If you could put your birth certificate into the envelope

-and send it off, that would be great. OK, lovely to meet you.

-Thank you.

-Safe journey.

-Bye, Ken, bye.

Thank you, Stuart.

His next appointment is with Marion's brother, Tony.

But getting to him may be easier said than done.

We are very lost, actually.

-SAT NAV:

-Turn left, then turn right.

Look at the midges. Turn left.

-'Turn right.'

-Turn right here, do we?

I don't think that's saying right here. I think...

I just feel I'd better go up a bit.

I might be wrong.

'Arriving at destination on left.'

It's garages or something, a white garage.

But with a £750,000 estate at stake, there's no time to lose.

Oh, there he is!

Hello there.

Stuart runs through the same process as with Marion.

I'm sorry to say Michael James Naish,

-a nephew of your grandmother, so it's your first cousin...

-No.

-You don't know.

-No.

YAPPING

Now, this is for you. I need you to sign there.

And Tony is also happy to sign.

The news of this inheritance has come as a huge surprise.

Thank you very much. Goodbye. Goodbye.

But Tony has already earmarked a good use for any money

that comes his way.

I think he was my first cousin,

but I never met him or anything.

So this is out of the blue.

I'm going to be a great-grandfather soon.

Me granddaughter, well, I always try and help her, as well.

Yeah, because they're struggling paying their way and all that.

It's been a very successful day for Stuart,

and with two heirs signed up,

the company are well on their way to completing this case.

A few days later in the office,

and case manager Amy has now finished her research

into the estate of Michael Naish.

She and her team have managed to trace every maternal heir,

and their search has gone far and wide.

With a total of eight branches to look at,

two or three of these branches ended up overseas,

several in New Zealand and several also in Australia.

We managed to identify and locate all of those overseas beneficiaries

and our representatives went on to sign them up for us.

All in all, we have identified 44 maternal beneficiaries.

Another maternal heir traced by the team was John.

His mum Dorothy was a sister of Michael's mum Kate.

John recalls meeting Michael on various family gatherings.

I first met Michael in '53, and I would have been about 26.

There was just my auntie Kit, uncle Walter and the two boys, Gerald,

who was the oldest, and Michael, the youngest.

They seemed a very friendly lot and I was delighted to meet them.

He had fond memories of playing with the brothers.

I would say that Michael...

..was the quieter of the two brothers, and...

..struck me as being the studious kind.

I can remember Gerald digging up worms, so that I could go fishing.

It wasn't quite so much Michael.

He might supervise, but it was Gerald who managed to find a few.

And I didn't really do justice to them,

because I fished all day and had to, in the end,

wriggle the worm off the hook,

which I wasn't very happy about, at that time.

Sadly, the cousins lost touch and never saw each other again.

After we had lost touch, we didn't really exchange any letters

other than Christmas cards, which, in hindsight...

..is rather regretful.

John now wishes things could have been different.

If we were fortunate enough to have been living closer together,

I'm sure that we would have got on extremely well

and would probably have met up more often.

I only regret that, in his passing, that we hadn't known each other

a bit closer in these recent years,

as I'm sure that we could have made a difference to each of our lives.

That will always be a regret, as far as I'm concerned.

The heir hunters were investigating the case of Peter Hughes

after they'd received a call from a member of the public,

who had become concerned about a house that had been abandoned.

Friend and neighbour Debbie remembers Peter well.

For an elderly gentleman, he was rather tall, upright,

silver haired, well-kept for his age.

With the estate estimated at £100,000, the team had thrown

all their resources into cracking this case ahead of any competition.

So far, they'd found 16 beneficiaries on the paternal side.

One of Peter's heirs, Iris,

was able to offer a fascinating insight into her cousin.

As we were growing up, I heard he was a conscientious objector.

A conscientious objector normally means someone who has refused to be

conscripted into the military and some people conscientiously object

to other things besides that, but in a normal context, it is someone who

refuses to kill somebody else and be trained to kill somebody else.

The term "conscientious objector", or CO,

was initially used during the First World War, when men were

allowed to appeal against conscription into military service,

on the grounds of occupation, hardship, faith or moral beliefs.

This was not an easy path to choose, and many in society judged COs or

conchies, as they were also known, harshly, branding them as cowards.

They were forced to face a tribunal, who would decide their fate.

One possibility was to be given a complete exemption.

In other words, the tribunal you were up before would say you did

not have to do anything, you were not given any orders at all,

you did not have to join the military or do any directed work, at all.

More commonly, people were given another alternative.

They were told, you can avoid being in the forces,

but you do have to do labour, work which is thought to be of national

importance, or towards the war effort, or is in some way valuable.

Obviously, that could vary, according to the tribunal.

Obviously, there was a fourth option, that people were

turned down altogether and people didn't get any option.

People told, tough - in you go.

But the consequences could be far more severe than simply being

forced to go into battle.

If they were genuine COs, which most of them who applied were,

they would then end up being punished for it and they might be locked up.

In the First World War, some of them were sentenced to death.

And even when the war was over,

being a conscientious objector was not forgotten.

I imagine people who had been COs were probably treated

after the war in a similar way as during the war.

Some people would have hated them for it

and other people would have been very sympathetic.

Clearly, if you are in a situation post-war where the economic

situation is such that there aren't enough jobs to go around,

which is something that happens

when there are lots of people demobbed and the economic situation

changes, then you may be at the bottom of the queue to get a job

sometimes, and, clearly, people are going to be prejudiced against you.

During the Second World War, Peter told his family

he planned to be a CO.

Fortunately, the war ended when he was 15,

so still too young to be conscripted.

He went on to carve out a successful career as a joiner,

and carried on this trade until he died.

Peter's cousin, Iris, had one sibling still alive,

who was also a beneficiary of Peter's estate.

All the other brothers and sisters had died,

so their estates automatically passed down to their children.

One of them is Lynne, the daughter of Peter's cousin Henry,

and granddaughter to Henry Williamson Senior,

who had suffered from shellshock after fighting on the front line

during the First World War.

I'd never heard of Peter Hughes.

It's fascinating to see where he fit into the rest of the family.

Lynne was unaware of her father's wider family, as he never

really mentioned it when he was alive,

focusing more on his everyday family life.

My dad kept to himself.

Like his father, he kept himself a lot to himself,

but he was one of those people that had to be earning to put

food on the table, so he did a vast number of jobs.

In the early days, he worked on the railways.

That's before I was born, I believe.

After that, he did markets,

and he became what they used to call a commercial traveller.

So he would go to Yorkshire and places like that, selling...

..from memory, I think it was some sort of clothing.

The call from the heir hunters has introduced Lynne to a side of her

family she never knew about.

I spoke to one of my aunties and went down a totally different

line, so it's very nice today to find out who Peter Hughes was.

I'm really stuck between feeling for him, because he is no longer

here, and wanting to know what he was like and who he was.

It is a double-edged sword,

because, one, it's very nice to receive some money,

but on the other hand, you know that somebody has died

to do that, and I wish I had known him.

For David and the team in the office,

the family research was almost complete.

-Do you need anyone to give you a hand on that?

-I think we said yes.

We've chased round about 25 heirs.

David, was it?

'But I would imagine there could be another 10 or 15,'

possibly even more than that.

In addition to the six heirs they found on the maternal side,

they'd also cracked the trickier Hughes side of the family,

and found a further 17 heir - and still counting.

But having put hours of valuable manpower into solving this case,

one important question remained.

Did Peter own his house

and was the case worth the original estimate of £100,000?

It's now 11 months since the team first began

their investigations into this case, and Andrew Fraser, one

of the partners of the firm, is on his way to Peter's home, to see if

there are any documents that could confirm who owned the property.

We have to try to find some paperwork that will justify that this is

actually his home, and he's not renting a property.

A house visit like this is an important part

of administering an estate, a process which can go on for

months and years after the initial work to trace the heirs is complete.

Andrew will also have to make a thorough search for any other

important documents, apart from confirmation of the house ownership.

Unfortunately, there is also the very high risk that we could find

information which shows there is a will,

or that he actually doesn't have any assets that will make up his estate.

In which case, the 20 or 30 heirs

and beneficiaries we've hoped would inherit something

will actually end up with nothing, and our work will be unpaid for.

So a lot is resting on Andrew's visit.

It's quite run-down, the house, in general terms.

It's clearly a gentleman who's been living on his own here for some time.

So, now our job is to go through every cupboard

and try to find some deeds to the house,

or even some indication that he would have owned it, such as insurance.

From years of experience, Andrew knows just what he's looking for.

Deeds tend to be in a brown envelope of about A4 size,

so that's what we're looking for. If I find those,

I suspect any other important documents will also be with them.

But despite his diligence,

the missing documents are stubbornly refusing to reveal themselves.

Until...

In the bottom of this wardrobe, I've found a false floor.

I lifted it up and I found some boxes.

Could this secret stash of information be just what

Andrew is looking for?

This is the title documentation, dated 26 September, 1933.

These are the documents that prove the house is owned by Mr Hughes.

This is good news.

I found here some very important documents,

and I would expect all important documents to therefore be together.

And I haven't found any will.

Andrew also picks up a few pieces of family memorabilia.

All the family normally ask for photos. That's what they want.

By having some photos,

we can at least share them between the family and they get

to have some insight about where their inheritance is coming from.

So, for Andrew, it's been a successful visit to Peter's house.

We've been lucky enough that the house hasn't had too much

content in it, so we've been able to go through it fairly quickly

and also have good confidence to know we've been through everything.

We found a couple of bank accounts, some shares.

Most importantly, we found the deeds to the house,

to show that this was the family home and it does belong to Mr Hughes

himself or his late mother or late father.

And it's a huge relief to all the team who put hours of research

into solving this case that potentially could

have been for little or no return.

The work of finding the 30-plus beneficiaries, some in the West

Country, some in Wales, some in the North East, is actually all

going to come together, and they will inherit something

and this house is worth a fair amount of money,

although it will be divided by an awful lot.