The Inheritance Case That Took Years to Solve | Heir Hunters S10 Ep11 #ColdCase #ancestry

Added: 2026-04-29

[00:00:03]Today, the air hunters take on a case that keeps on growing.

[00:00:07]>> There were 15 brothers and sisters from a little case we weren't quite sure into a very long one.

[00:00:12]>> Another team uncover a sporting celebrity in their research.

[00:00:16]>> He now listed being a professional footballer for a whole city >> and are left searching for a long-lost family.

[00:00:24]>> I see where we're going with this.

[00:00:26]>> Grandmother was separated from me. She didn't want to talk about it. It's a day, >> wow, >> full of family secrets and surprises.

[00:00:34]>> I was aware of eight cousins and it looks like I've got something like 70 cousins.

[00:00:55]Across the UK, every year thousands of people die without making a will and with no known relatives. In these cases, the deceased name goes on the government's Bonavantier list, which means vacant goods. Estates can remain unclaimed, sometimes for years.

[00:01:14]>> It's a treasury estate that's just kind of slipped through the net. In London, Dave Sley, case manager at air hunting firm Fraser and Fraser, is working one such case that's been on the government's list unresolved for 4 years.

[00:01:29]>> From our point of view, because this looks like an estate that's slipped through the net, the chances are though you can never tell that there are no other companies researching the matter.

[00:01:39]We've got the luxury of being able to take our time a little bit on on this one, >> which is just as well as senior researcher Roger Marsh >> and that only because it's a different name as Harry and Henry just to prove it is Henry >> is struggling to work out the correct name for the deceased. We've got this job um of a lady called Barl Joan or possibly Joanna and her surname is either Leonard spelled L E O N A R D or Leonard L E N A R D or Leonard Haliw.

[00:02:14]>> The team have ordered Barl's death certificate to glean as much information as possible. This shows she passed away in a care home in Chelmsford, Essex.

[00:02:27]The only other detail they know about Barl is that she visited the local market regularly.

[00:02:33]>> Two barrels that we used to serve that we haven't seen for years. One of them I know has died and the other one I'm not sure she we just haven't seen her for years. Uh, one was from Newcastle and one was from here in Jumpsford.

[00:02:53]With locals unable to shed any light on Barl, the team need to work out her birth name before the case can progress, but they can't find a birth record matching her date of birth.

[00:03:05]>> If we can't uh identify the birth record of the deceased, we have to start looking at variants. Um, and sometimes you have to come up with some quite unusual combinations of names uh to try and find that record. Uh, but without that record, it is a problem.

[00:03:20]>> All live. I should have said that to you.

[00:03:22]>> Yeah.

[00:03:23]>> Working various combinations of Barl's name. The first thing the team do is determine whether she was born a Leonard or married into the family.

[00:03:31]>> Looking at the births for that quarter, there were three or four names. Double checking them to Leonard. There was a Salter married to a Leonard. So what we had then was Barl Jones Salter as the birth and she married Leonard.

[00:03:46]>> The team now know she was born Barl Jones Salter and can order her birth certificate.

[00:03:52]It >> was good work by Roger to play around with the deceased marriages and then that led us back to her birth. And of course you can't start your research until you know who the person is.

[00:04:05]Records reveal that Barl had married twice, but her second husband had died and she had no children from either marriage.

[00:04:13]The next inline to inherit her estate would be her parents if they were still alive. Then any brothers and sisters she may have. And as the team now know her maiden name of Sulttera, they quickly find records for her father and mother.

[00:04:27]>> I spoke to her. She phoned in >> and her mom >> was Wred Mary J. Hudson.

[00:04:35]who was born in Stafford, which is >> Manchester area, which is where Barl was born.

[00:04:41]>> Barl's father's name was Charles Salter and both her parents had died. So, the team needed to find out if they had any other children.

[00:04:49]>> She was the only child. So, then we had to go back to cousins and the side I was working on was the mom's side.

[00:04:56]>> To do this, the team referred to the census, which lists the occupants of every household at the time. put a 4-day order on those serves.

[00:05:06]>> Barl's mother grew up in the Eduwardian era, having been born just before the turn of the 20th century.

[00:05:15]So, the 1911 census was the one the team turned to. This included much more information than previous censuses and also gave the air hunters a good indication about Barl's mother's family life at that time.

[00:05:29]Robert Hudson, the uh the deceased maternal grandfather, initially started his working life as an engine cleaner, worked his way up to become an engine driver at the turn of the century.

[00:05:44]>> As the family lived in Stafford, it's likely Robert Hudson worked for the Midland Railway Company.

[00:05:51]I think Robert's career is fairly typical for an engine driver of the period. They all started as cleaners.

[00:05:57]they progressed to fireman and then to engineer. It could take a very long time and the express engine drivers um often didn't make it to that position until they were in their 50s. So, they didn't do it for very long.

[00:06:09]I think we all know that every boy wanted to be an engine driver. They were almost the rock stars of their day.

[00:06:18]The cleaner polished his engine to perfection because the engines were spotless in those days. Work for Barl's grandfather was tough and repetitive.

[00:06:27]>> What we're seeing here has hardly changed since the early days of steamwork railways in the early 19th century. It's the same job. Um, it's just putting coal on a fire, heating water to produce steam, to produce horsepower, and it's never really changed. Imagine doing that for 8 hours a day, every day, six days a week.

[00:06:51]Back in the 19th century, the kind of trains that Robert may have been driving on branch lines would probably have consisted of wooden bodied four-wheel coaches with plain wooden seats, probably nowhere near as comfortable as this one.

[00:07:08]>> As well as his profession, the census also reveals that Robert and Selena had a very large family.

[00:07:16]>> There were 15 brothers and sisters. So suddenly it was a from a little case we weren't quite sure into a very long one.

[00:07:22]This is just the maternal side because we're still waiting for the marriage of the parents to come back so we could work out the father's side. See how old he was and work out which uh is a correct birth for him.

[00:07:37]>> Now armed with all the names of Barl's 14 aunts and uncles on her mother's side, the team needs to try and see if they can find some of their children.

[00:07:45]Dave hits the phone straight away.

[00:07:49]Good morning. I'm David Sle. Hello there. Um, >> I'm been in contact, I'm sure, as you know, with other members of your family in connection with um, an estate we believe that you may be entitled to share in.

[00:08:05]>> Speaking directly to living family members often fills in any gaps the team may have with tracing other living relatives, but it's not always the case.

[00:08:16]I think the trouble is as well that it's such a large family.

[00:08:19]>> They're losing touch >> that you've got this huge gap between the ages of first cousins.

[00:08:24]>> Yeah.

[00:08:25]>> That a lot of them didn't know each of their cousins.

[00:08:27]>> So, >> so asking them about aunts and uncles and other cousins, I I I don't think they know too much to be honest.

[00:08:38]>> Because there's so many what we would call topline aunts and uncles. Let's just have a quick look through this top line. Then >> each stem that we contact doesn't particularly know about the other stems.

[00:08:50]So we have to research each individual stem.

[00:08:54]>> Although the team are finding potential heirs, the lack of family information means they have to work each aunt and uncle separately. They need to find someone who knows more.

[00:09:05]>> Gladice no issue. I'm going to talk to a cousin once removed who's not entitled because her mother's still alive who's quite elderly. So, want to talk to the daughter first. Always nice to talk to the children rather than obviously upset elderly people unnecessarily.

[00:09:22]>> When we're looking at cases with large family really you're looking at uh trying to work up every stem as efficiently as possible. Um so, occasionally, you know, you get that feeling of dread because there's that one sticky stem that you can't trace the ears to.

[00:09:36]It's not unusual for us, especially on a common surname to and it's happened on this estate to phone people you think are entitled parties and just the research is just coincidental really. So it happens a lot if we can phone people and contact them early enough and they've got good family history then we can eliminate them from our inquiries.

[00:09:57]But it does happen.

[00:09:59]>> But researcher Shannon has found something about the Hudson family that is making the search a little easier.

[00:10:06]So far we've come to the conclusion they are certainly an area family. They get married in the same churches. Um we've managed to narrow it down to two churches in the whole Staffordshire area. So it's kind of helping us along the way. We can work out basically the whole family are getting married within these two churches which is helpful for us. But with 14 families on just the mother's side to trace and contact, there could be a lot of heirs who are entitled to a slice of Frell's inheritance.

[00:10:36]>> There's still a lot that we have to do.

[00:10:38]Filling in gaps and people with families like this, you lose touch. So, not everyone knows everyone. So, it makes our job a bit harder.

[00:10:47]>> Your mother was born in '05. Lily was born 07.

[00:10:52]The more information we can gather from individuals, the better it is from a research point of view. The less research needs to be carried out, the more a family can tell us. But at the same time, we still have to make sure that what they're saying is correct, so they're not missing out brother or sister they don't like or something, you know, we have to find everybody.

[00:11:13]>> And no one expected what the research was going to uncover.

[00:11:17]>> They've got an Australian granddad and a grandmother from Devon.

[00:11:33]In the business of probate research, finding living heirs is the goal. But sometimes they uncover family stories lost for generations.

[00:11:42]>> He was born at the workhouse and left there.

[00:11:46]One case that revealed plenty is from the village of Roberttown in West Yorkshire.

[00:11:52]Dorine's story lived there until she was 86. She died on the 20th of February 2012 with no known family.

[00:12:02]Although she was a quiet lady, neighbor Gene Hol remembers Dorene as a cheerful spirit.

[00:12:08]>> She was a lovely lady was Darene, very warm and a lovely sweet smile. and she was to go for a hair setting. Dorian loved the garden and our friend Jill tended it for her and really it was lovely back and front. She liked it to look nice. She had two brothers and one sister. Um she never spoke about them apart from one brother that was in during the war in one of the services.

[00:12:35]>> Come have a look at >> neighbor Christine Allen knew Dorine for 42 years.

[00:12:41]>> She loved animals. She always say cars with her dogs on birthdays or everything. Yeah, she was a lovely lady.

[00:12:48]You could tell her anything and she listened. You know, it won't go any further. I miss her. Yeah, I do. I miss her. Just miss her stood in the window and not waving or anything.

[00:12:59]>> Dorine's house remained empty for some time after she died. So, a concerned neighbor contacted London air hunting firm Finders.

[00:13:12]Suzanne Rowley was one of the researchers on the case.

[00:13:15]>> Neighbors, they tend to refer a case to us um instead of it going to the Bonavantier list.

[00:13:21]>> Hi, Ryan.

[00:13:23]>> It's the Durian story case. They want the money to go to the family and the right people rather than the government.

[00:13:29]All right then. Thank you. Cheers. One of the benefits of a neighbor referral case is that we can get some more detailed background information uh that we may otherwise not receive.

[00:13:41]>> If I can find her with a family, >> then you know she's wrong.

[00:13:46]>> Case manager Amy Moyes began the process of trying to find out if Dorene had any family.

[00:13:52]>> So the neighbor that referred this case to us was able to tell us quite a bit about Dorine and which gave us a a head start really. For instance, she knew that Dorian had lived at the the property for quite some time. As far as she was concerned, she'd never married and she'd never heard of her having had any children either.

[00:14:11]>> So on the post, you think it says Dixon, not Rickson.

[00:14:15]>> The information that we receive from from these referrals, they're always classed as anecdotal rather than concrete evidence. So although it's very useful and probably correct, we would always verify that by checking with the the records themselves.

[00:14:28]Well, it's actually in relation to a cousin of yours who's who sadly passed away.

[00:14:35]>> Dorine's death certificate gave the team her date of birth, which meant they could immediately order her birth certificate.

[00:14:43]>> So, my first step looking at her birth and death would be to look to see if she ever married or had any children.

[00:14:53]Although the air hunters could see Dorine's name had never changed, which suggested she'd never married, they searched for any evidence of marriage or births with Dorine's name on. Both came up negative. The net would have to be widened.

[00:15:09]The next steps were then going to be to work out whether or not Dorine had the siblings that the neighbor had referred to. In order to do that, the the first step was to locate the names of um Dorine's mother and father.

[00:15:24]>> Dorine's birth certificate was again the key. This gave her mother's name as Esther McQuillin and her father Herbert Story.

[00:15:33]>> We can do a birth index search that threw up the possible siblings that the neighbor had referred to. Um, we had a sister Maryanne and two brothers, an Edward and a Thomas McQuillin story.

[00:15:47]>> And neighbor Christine remembers they all lived together. All the four of them were lovely people. They all looked after one another. Tommy, the oldest, was he did all the gardening, but they were all together. Never went anywhere.

[00:15:59]Never went shopping or anywhere like that. They're just like the home.

[00:16:06]We needed to work out what had happened to them, whether they might still be alive um having all been born in the 1920s or if deceased, whether they'd had marriages and children of their own who um if the children were alive, they would then be potential heirs.

[00:16:22]>> And of course, when one died and the other day was very, very upsetting for them all. It really was. Um then when Molly died and just left Dorine, um she went downhill a bit. She really did.

[00:16:38]Searches confirmed that all of Dorine's siblings had died. None of them had ever married or had children, but something on her parents' marriage certificate.

[00:16:49]>> I see where we're going with this one.

[00:16:51]>> suggested there may be another avenue worth exploring. It indicated that Herbert had been married previously and so we needed to then look into that to make sure there weren't any children from that marriage which would be half brothers or sisters to Dorine and potential heirs to the estate.

[00:17:08]>> It's very important to get all all the documents and certificates in place for the family that we're researching um in order to prove all the entitlements correctly.

[00:17:17]>> The team found out that Dorine's father Herbert had previously married a Mary Ellen Lee. A search was done of the birth indexes with those parental names >> and discovered they'd had one child together who unfortunately passed away when he was about one year old or so.

[00:17:34]Um, and so that terminated that line of inquiry as well.

[00:17:38]>> So the air hunters now knew for certain that Dorine had no living siblings and no nieces or nephews.

[00:17:45]>> So it's going to be difficult.

[00:17:47]>> This meant the team would have to go back one generation.

[00:17:50]>> Do you know what the daughter's name was? to look for aunts and uncles in the hope they might have descendants who were still alive.

[00:17:58]>> Is he in connection with um a cousin of your mother's?

[00:18:01]>> From the 1901 census records, the team found Esther McQuillin's parents.

[00:18:06]>> We've got a head of the family is Dorian's grandfather, James McQuillin.

[00:18:11]He is a coal miner. He is working at the Balden Collery. With him are his children. We've got Esther, Dorine's mom. We've also got some other daughters and then the sons Thomas is young but um John and Jonathan are also both working the local mine as well along with their father.

[00:18:32]At the time of the 1901 census like many other families who worked in the collaries James and his sons were risking their lives daily deep underground.

[00:18:43]We are now looking across towards the bowling col in them days in in 1800s early 1900s the main danger for them was falls of stone which would come from the roof in falls of coal where they were working in u them falls would come maybe trap them by the head but a lot of the deaths wasn't it killed instantly they were actually what you call suffocated because they couldn't breathe with the the weight of the stuff on them and that that happened a lot >> young John McQuillan One of Dorine's uncles was only 15 at the time and worked as a driver of pit ponies. Of all the jobs underground, this was one of the worst.

[00:19:23]>> In that time, a pony driver, it was a dangerous job. A lad at that age shouldn't have shouldn't have been. He's in charge of a pony who's in a scene maybe 2'6, 3t high. He's got no headroom. He's working in and he's riding actually riding in between the tub and the pony on what we call limmers. That's the the part which connects the pony to the to the tub.

[00:19:44]He's only got to look up at the wrong time and he gets his head squashed, which happens a lot of a lot of times to pony drivers. So, it was a very dangerous job and it depended on what type of pony you had.

[00:19:56]>> And it's no surprise that when young John McQuillin wasn't down the mines, he was doing what many young boys loved best.

[00:20:03]>> When I was 15, we used to play football.

[00:20:05]You couldn't wait to come out after work. You you played until you couldn't see. It was dark. you you could hardly see the ball, you know, and can you imagine, especially in the early 1900s when families were large, you can imagine the amount of kids in this back lane playing football. And that's what like every street was like, back lanes especially on in Colery villages.

[00:20:28]>> And it seems every spare moment John put in on the Collery football ground over the years paid off as the family record on the 1911 census shows.

[00:20:38]Interestingly, by 1911, although the majority of the family was still based around the the coal mining profession, John McQuillin had um changed professions and he now listed being a professional footballer for um for whole city. He also had Dorine's mom, Esther, living with him as well. In addition to to those relatives, he was also taking in borders. Um, and he had two other members of the whole city team boarding with him as well.

[00:21:11]>> John McQuillin had escaped working in the mines and fulfilled every young boy's dream of the time.

[00:21:18]>> This is Balden Villa Football Club where John played where he played his football. And this is where the scouts would have came watched him watched him probably a couple of times just to make sure which scouts did in them days to a lot of the mining villages. And this is where John became a professional footballer.

[00:21:37]>> At the time John McQuillin was playing, the clubs were just beginning to start um scouting systems, particularly in places like the mines in the northeast which were well known for producing lots of professional footballers. John initially played for a very short period for for Gerottown and he was he was spotted there by Everton and Everton were were one of the best teams of the day. the the year that he was spotted, Everton won the FA Cup.

[00:22:03]They finished in the top five almost every year. So, this was one of the big clubs.

[00:22:08]>> Although John did a month trial at Everton, he wasn't taken on. Instead, he signed up for Hull City and stayed with them for 8 years.

[00:22:17]>> I think John was certainly a good player to become a professional player for so long. Um, John must have been a very good footballer in the early 1900s. It was a very comfortable way to make a living.

[00:22:31]Certainly from someone who had come from a mining background.

[00:22:35]I think it would have been incredibly uh exciting for John to to walk out the players tunnel for the first time. The roar of of the crowd know youngsters who who watched him would have looked up to him. I think it's very possible that John could have been regarded as a local hero.

[00:22:50]>> It was certainly a change from the mining life the rest of the family had lived.

[00:22:55]Football at Balden would have definitely saved John McQuillin from going back down the mines.

[00:23:04]>> With the outbreak of World War I in 1914, John McQuillin's professional football career came to an end.

[00:23:13]John had managed to escape working in the mine, and he found a reserve occupation, which would mean he avoided going to war. Sadly, that wasn't the case for many of his friends.

[00:23:24]A lot of the photos the families have the last photos of their sons or even fathers was the football photo took before they went to war and never come back. And on this pitch is ashes from a lot of ex- football players are spread on this pitch even today.

[00:23:50]Back at the office, the air hunters were starting to piece together possible descendants of Dorine's mother's 10 siblings.

[00:23:58]>> It looked as though there'd be potentially an extremely large number of heirs.

[00:24:02]>> And with Dorine's father's side not even started, there's still a long way to go to find any of them.

[00:24:09]>> This family seems to be getting even larger than we originally thought.

[00:24:18]Air hunters track down thousands of rightful beneficiaries every year, but not all cases are cracked. There are thousands of estates on the Treasury's unclaimed list that have eluded the air hunters and remain unsolved.

[00:24:32]And every week, more names are published.

[00:24:35]If you want to know if you could be in line to inherit an unclaimed estate, go to www.gov.uk UK and search for Bonavacantia and click on unclaimed estates lists. Do you recognize a name on the list? Could it be a longlost family member? If so, you could be in line for a windfall.

[00:25:00]To claim an estate of someone who's died in test date, um you need to trace your relationship in a direct line from the deceased person's grandparent. They need to supply us with certificates of birth, death, and marriage and identity documents as well.

[00:25:17]>> As well as the deceased person's name, there will be other bits of information on the list that can help you work out a family connection.

[00:25:25]For example, the year of their birth.

[00:25:29]Often the town they were born in and the place of death is published.

[00:25:35]Sometimes details of their spouse and the place of their marriage are given.

[00:25:41]All of this can give you clues to a long-lost relative and a potential claim of inheritance.

[00:25:51]When considering a claim for an estate, it's very important that a person puts forward a very good case and it's all based on the evidence. What we need are the birth, death, marriage certificates, perhaps something on adoption. Then we consider the evidence very carefully.

[00:26:06]If an estate is left unclaimed for 12 years, all the money left behind will eventually go into government funds.

[00:26:24]In London, air hunting firm Fraser and Fraser are investigating the case of Barl Leonard. She lived most of her life in Chelmsford, Essex, and passed away in a care home there, aged 85.

[00:26:37]>> The eldest child started to marry and have children >> when their when their brother and sister's being born, isn't it? So, you you have cousins 20 or 30 years apart in age. Any beneficiaries they find, >> there was that many >> will share any estate Barl left.

[00:26:59]>> I've got a tree in.

[00:27:01]>> The team have made great inroads in finding descendants of Barl's mother's 14 siblings, and Dave Sley is calling many of the relatives.

[00:27:09]>> I'm trying to make contact with what would be a maternal first cousin once removed. While Dave is still calling the air on the mother's side, the certificates they need to tackle Barl's father's side of the family have now arrived.

[00:27:26]>> We've managed to locate the paternal side of the family by um going through the um marriage certificate. We managed to get the dad's name and his occupation. The grandfather of the deceased Barl Leonard was actually a William Sorter who was a prison warden in 1921. We've actually matched it up with a family living in Stafford in the 1911 census, which does actually have a father on the census with them. So, we know we have the correct family.

[00:27:57]>> And Dave's phone bashing has helped cut down some of their research time on the mother's side of the family.

[00:28:04]>> It's a good example really of an heir being able to provide me with an address of their brother, which just means that we don't have to to undertake the research in America to find them. So it cuts down a lot of work. They sometimes give you a little snippet of information which you just need that little bit of information that helps the research.

[00:28:24]>> And the investigation is coming together on the father's side too.

[00:28:29]>> Shannon's now been able to put together a family tree relating to the deceased paternal family.

[00:28:38]>> Fortunately, from our point of view, it doesn't look as large as the maternal family. Uh, we have one stem with what looks like first cousins alive. And I'm about to go and ask UT to uh go off to Chelmsford to uh see the airs.

[00:28:56]>> U is one of the team's senior traveling researchers who can carry out investigations on the ground and hopefully visit any potential heirs.

[00:29:06]But before he can go anywhere, he has to get to grips with the family tree.

[00:29:10]There's two first cousins and a cousin and a cousin once removed. Okie dokie.

[00:29:14]All right, man. So, it's both about >> while you plans his investigation.

[00:29:19]>> She's married to Mr. Fuller.

[00:29:20]>> Shannon is finding the father's side may be smaller, but is just as challenging.

[00:29:26]>> The granddad of the deceased was born in Sydney, Australia. So, we've got an Australian granddad and a grandmother from Devon who end up in Stafford and go to London on the way. It's kind of already slowed down before it's really begun.

[00:29:46]>> Back on Barl's mother's side, the team have managed to speak to some of the descendants of her many siblings.

[00:29:53]The research has revealed some fascinating history. One of the interesting facts is one of the deceased aunt Adah Hudson appears that she married a chap called Arthur Cook who in the 1920s was a professional footballer with West Brom jail in the Baggies in the year the only time they ever won the league. So uh so the family obviously understandably very proud of their grandfather.

[00:30:19]>> Yeah, I saw that. Yeah, that's him there. That's him there. Is it >> There he is. Arthur took >> research is now reaping results and one of the heirs they found is Barl's first cousin once removed. John Cook is the grandson of the West Bromage Albian footballer Arthur Cook.

[00:30:43]>> This is uh my grandfather's league medal of division one championship with a presentation watch and chain that he was given at the presentation by West Bromage Elbium. You can still read all the inscription, but it is nice and uh shiny.

[00:31:00]The only thing I ever learned about my grandfather was that he was a professional footballer. It's been a very big talking point over the years.

[00:31:08]Not only did he win the uh League Division One Championship, he also had a runners up medal in the FA Cup. When my grandfather played in the FA Cup final, which was at Crystal Palace, the evening before the FA Cup match, he was on the night shift at Seaman's. So, he had to work the night shift prior to playing for in the FA Cup final. Be interested to see if Rooney would be able to perform as well.

[00:31:38]>> John knew all about his grandfather, but he hadn't quite realized how large his extended family was. From the information I've had, there are quite a number of heirs involved. I was surprised to find it's approaching 70.

[00:31:53]So, shows how large the the family is uh or or was >> in the office. The team are making contact with many of John's cousins.

[00:32:04]>> Would you like to be seen? Would you like me to come and see you?

[00:32:06]>> On Barl's father's side, a cousin who grew up with her has given you some idea of the type of person she was.

[00:32:14]>> Perfect. Thank you. Take care now.

[00:32:15]Bye-bye. Bye. She said she became quite strange in her later years and they lost contact. So, she hasn't seen her for about 10 years. Uh, and she thinks she remembers her being becoming, you know, quite reclusive.

[00:32:32]>> Across the office, Dave thinks he's finally got to grips with the huge family on Barl's mother's side. try to make contact with the last few remaining maternal beneficiaries on Leonard.

[00:32:47]>> Shannon has completed Barl's father's side of the family and Dave is preparing the final tree that they hope will confirm all their research.

[00:32:56]>> The computer system we use congratulates me on on a hundred names being added to the family tree.

[00:33:03]goes without saying that means that inevitably it's a huge family that we're researching and there's a lot of beneficiaries.

[00:33:10]So if you're doing your own family tree you'd welcome seeing that. From my point of view I hate it.

[00:33:16]>> When you crack a case that's particularly large and there's there's an awful lot of heirs. Um there's a definite sense of satisfaction at the end. Barl Leonard's estate slightly unusual in as much as this is an estate where uh the deceased died over four years ago and uh really it slipped through the net but I'm pleased to say it's an estate that won't be going to the crown. I was aware of eight cousins and it looks like I've got something like 70 cousins and they most probably weren't aware of me either.

[00:33:54]London air hunting firm Finders are looking into the case of Dorine Story, who lived most of her life in this house in Robert Town, West Yorkshire.

[00:34:04]She was a private person, very private, so she didn't like neighboring as such as they call it in Yorkshire. She wouldn't ever come for a cup of tea.

[00:34:14]>> I'm going off to the last one. All right, then. Well, good luck with that and I'll speak to you in a bit. The air hunters have been looking for possible heirs on Dorine's mother, Esther's side of the family, the McQuillins.

[00:34:25]So Esther was one of seven children. One of them passed away in 1916 as a bachelor. Another passed away, married, but never had any children. And then obviously there was the infant's death.

[00:34:38]So there were three lines to look at. It looks as though they were all coal miners in the Darham area.

[00:34:45]Dorine's mother had three brothers and sisters who could have had children. If the team can find them, they could be heirs.

[00:34:54]>> If we do a same day service, we'll send some.

[00:34:58]>> They really need to speak to someone who can help shed some light on the family tree.

[00:35:03]>> Unfortunately, with Dorian's family, all the first cousins had died as well. So, we really had no one of any great age that we could speak to. So the so the research went on and on um and became very extensive.

[00:35:16]>> The first family they had any luck with was that of Esther's brother John McQuillin who'd escaped the mines and become a professional footballer.

[00:35:25]>> The line of John McQuillin was a little easier as we'd already found him on the census with his sister Esther, the deceased mother. So we already had a bit of a head start with this stem. Um we knew he he had two children. Um we did a search for any further and it just looked like it was the two of them. So we could we could carry on our research into that line.

[00:35:44]>> And the first heir they were able to locate was John McQuillin's aranged grandson, David Milm.

[00:35:50]>> I know very little about my grandfather other than he was supposed to have been a footballer. He's supposed to played for I think it was whole city at that time and he was apparently earning something like £8 a week which was a lot of money in those days. But that's all I know. Nothing else was ever mentioned.

[00:36:08]grandmother was separated from me. She didn't want to talk about it. Ah, my grandfather.

[00:36:16]This is fascinating looking at him.

[00:36:19]Yes. I've never never seen a picture of him before.

[00:36:28]>> And David is grateful his grandfather changed professions.

[00:36:32]>> Football must have saved him from the mines. And uh I suspect it may have helped save him from fighting in the war as well. Probably saved the line of the family and uh why I'm here today and not having worked down a mine or anything like that.

[00:36:55]In the end, seven heirs were found on Dorine's mother's side of the family, but the team still had to look into the side of her father, Herbert Story.

[00:37:05]He had been a cloth ringer and a green grosser and a copy of his birth certificate told us that he had been the son of an Edward story and a Rosina Rose.

[00:37:17]Herbert's story was born in 1893. So the team looked at the 1911 census to get an idea of the size of his family.

[00:37:27]>> There were seven children on the census, seven living. To double check that, we went back to the 1901 census and the 1891 census. Um, and in fact, we found there were actually 10. So, this family seems to be getting even larger than we originally thought.

[00:37:45]And the investigations were revealing that five of Herbert's nine siblings went on to have children of their own.

[00:37:52]These nieces and nephews of Dorine's father, or their descendants, would be beneficiaries to Dorine's estate.

[00:38:00]We had paternal uncle Ernest story probably had the largest family of the entire paternal side. He had 1 2 3 4 5 6 seven children. Um of those seven five have living descendants. Um the other two passed away either in infancy or without having had any issue. There are quite a number of heirs on on this stem.

[00:38:28]They they were all traced and they're all a couple of generations down from from Dorine's own her generation itself.

[00:38:35]>> Their research found that four of Dorine's father's siblings died with no living descendants.

[00:38:41]>> We also had an uncle Alvin story born in 1899, but he was sadly um killed during World War I.

[00:38:52]The team needed to find contact numbers and addresses for all of the living children or grandchildren from Dorine's aunts and uncles.

[00:39:01]These would be cousins and cousins once removed of Dorine.

[00:39:06]With the paternal research, it it turns out that the vast majority of the heirs were all second generation. Aside from two, none of them were direct cousins of Dorines. It's not unusual, particularly when you have a large family. And in this instance, Dorene is coming from a father who was one of the the youngest of his brothers and sisters. So if you can imagine the ages of her her cousins right through the the family tree, there's probably a 20 30 year age gap.

[00:39:34]So the majority of her cousins have passed away and and the relatives we're looking at are much further down the line.

[00:39:40]>> With so many aunts and uncles on the father's side, there were a lot of families to trace. After our research was complete, um we discovered there were 29 beneficiaries on and these were on six of the lines as three of them died out and the last one was of course the deceased father Herbert.

[00:40:00]>> One of those heirs is Alan. His father Fred was Dorine's first cousin.

[00:40:06]>> My mom remembers Dorine. Uh she said she was a very quiet lady, never married.

[00:40:11]went on to explain exactly who Dorene was, where she fitted into the family and everything. Uh, and she she actually said that there were quite quite a bit of contact between our family and theirs right up to my father passing. My father passed when I was 18. So, that side of the family has has disappeared apart from the cousins I know of.

[00:40:34]>> The inheritance has given Alan more than just financial gain.

[00:40:38]>> What a very large family I have.

[00:40:41]Wow.

[00:40:43]So, there must have been 11 brothers and sisters on my grandma's side.

[00:40:48]I'm not surprised. I don't know half the family. It's like a shroud has been lifted. It's It's absolutely amazing.

[00:40:56]I never knew my grandma and granddad got married in 1905.

[00:41:01]How wonderful.

[00:41:03]>> But the detail of the death of his great uncle Alvin in World War I is particularly poignant for Alan.

[00:41:11]And here he is listed.

[00:41:13]Story Lance Corporal Alvin, second and fifth battalion, Sherwood Foresters died of wounds on the 21st of April 1918. Age 19, son of Edward and Rosina Story of Tener House, Watergate, Little Town in Liverich. I was so sad and only months from the end of the war.

[00:41:36]I've been in the military myself and I've seen some good men pass.

[00:41:42]Well, I'm I'm sure it must have been a great loss to the family. They must have felt a great bereavement and sadness.

[00:41:51]I think it's going to be absolutely wonderful and intriguing finding out about this. And I'm pretty sure my mom down the road at 91 is also going to be intrigued. But I think it will also spark some memories.

[00:42:05]>> In total, 36 of Dorine's living heirs were found.

[00:42:10]Just over $116,000 from the sale of Dorine's house and belongings were split between them. With the Dorian story case, I think one of the most satisfying aspects is to be able to complete a huge family tree in good time and to be able to tell the heirs a bit more about their family history and to leave them with this um quite enormous heirloom.

[00:42:32]I feel extremely honored to be getting some inheritance from Dorian's estate.

[00:42:36]Uh it wasn't expected. It's a great honor to receive it and uh I will treat it with the respect it deserves. So, I'm very grateful to Dorene because she's connected me with uh with my roots really as a family uh you know from the family tree and uh she also connected me with my grandfather whom I knew nothing about at all.

[00:43:09]Do you feel down?