Long Lost Siblings Find Each Other | The Mysteries of Forrest & Paget | Heir Hunters | Ancestry®

0:03 Today the Heir Hunters reunite long-lost [music] siblings.

0:07 They said, "We found a great niece." And I thought,

0:10 "I can't believe this." While uncovering a tragic secret.

0:15 All my life [music] I wanted to know about my mother.

0:18 But I was 14 when he told me she was dead.

0:21 And a race [music] to find one man's heirs

0:23 is stalled when Heir Hunters discover a nomadic family.

0:27 We hate working on a boatman estates purely

0:30 and simply because they were just so transient.

0:33 It's a highly competitive [music] business.

0:36 When you've got so many people to find,

0:38 you don't know if the competition is ahead of you, behind you.

0:42 With millions of pounds waiting to be claimed,

0:45 could the Heir Hunters be knocking at your door?

0:55 In Scotland, something amazing is about to happen.

0:59 Were you No, none of this.

1:01 Having traveled 9,000 miles from his home in Australia,

1:05 Ian Cunningham is about to meet his half sister [music] for the very first time.

1:09 I wish it had happened 30 years ago.

1:12 When we were a little bit more young and sprightly.

1:15 Until 4 months ago, Ian had no idea his half sister existed.

1:21 I've never met Christine.

1:22 Bit of a shock to the system.

1:23 This remarkable meeting of long-lost relatives is [music]

1:26 thanks to the work of the Heir Hunters.

1:28 From time to time, we end up telling family members,

1:32 perhaps sibling siblings or more distant relatives,

1:35 about family members [music] that they weren't aware of.

1:38 It's quite nice to be able to bring people [music] back together.

1:42 There's a few sad tales out there.

1:44 I've been one of the lucky ones.

1:50 Forrest, do you have the file?

1:54 The journey to today's reunion began in 2015 [music] when the estate

1:58 of James Forrest was advertised by the Queen

2:01 and Lord Treasurer's Remembrancer in Scotland.

2:03 [music] It is essentially the Scottish version of the Treasury Solicitor

2:10 and they deal with unclaimed estates and intestate estates in Scotland.

2:16 Although the team didn't know the value of the case,

2:18 they decided it was one they should work on.

2:21 We looked into this case regardless because of the adverse assessment this was

2:25 going to be a competitive case whether or not value was known.

2:33 James Forrest died in 2014 in the town of Wishaw, 15 miles southeast of Glasgow.

2:40 This is the courtyard where James used to like

2:43 to come out and sit in the good weather.

2:46 Like all the plants.

2:48 James spent [music] the final months of his life at the Beechwood Care Home.

2:52 No photographs of James [music] appear to survive, but his carer,

2:55 Thomas Connell, remembers him as a friendly if quiet man.

3:01 He liked his horse racing and he'd pictures

3:04 of famous race horses all over his walls.

3:07 He told me a while back he was a heavy gambler,

3:09 but he was down to the pound units to pound stakes.

3:13 He did work in the Ravenscraig [music] Steel Works,

3:15 blast furnace I believe it was, yeah.

3:17 In blast furnace.

3:19 The Ravenscraig Steel Works operated from 1962

3:22 until 1992 when it was finally closed down.

3:27 [music] During its peak, James would have been part of a team

3:29 handling just under 1 million tons of steel per year.

3:34 The closing of [music] Ravenscraig Steel Mill signaled

3:36 the end of large-scale steel making in Scotland.

3:40 I miss his character and I miss his conversations.

3:44 I just miss James for being James, that's that.

3:46 Although James had close [music] friends, there were no signs of any relatives.

3:51 As it is a different way from that, this is no easy of no children.

3:56 He didn't have a wife.

4:01 Back at the office, the search for heirs was underway.

4:04 This is the beneficiary I'm hoping to get hold of.

4:07 Because the case had been released in Scotland,

4:09 Amy would be working with colleagues across the border.

4:13 We have an office based in Edinburgh that we can pass work to in any

4:17 Scottish research that comes up and they

4:19 liaise with us here at the London office.

4:22 The team quickly confirmed that James was a bachelor and had no children.

4:26 The next stage was to see if he had any siblings,

4:29 which meant they needed precious information about his parents.

4:33 The research we do in Scotland is made slightly easier

4:37 by the information available to us on the certificates there.

4:40 So, a Scottish birth certificate will give you,

4:43 as well as the parents' names and the mother's maiden name,

4:46 it'll also have the full date of the parents' marriage,

4:49 making it easier to narrow down an area and a family that you're looking at.

4:54 This allowed the team to quickly establish

4:56 that James's parents were James Forrest and Annie Bell,

5:00 and it soon transpired that James had been their only son.

5:04 Once we've established that there are no [music] immediate kin,

5:07 we then need to expand as quickly as possible into how

5:11 many [music] maternal and paternal aunts and uncles there might be.

5:15 The team needed to establish who James's grandparents

5:18 [music] were in order to trace potential aunts,

5:21 uncles, and cousins, and their research took them back to the late 19th century.

5:29 So, we know that we can look through the 1881,

5:32 1891, the 1901, and the 1911 Scottish census returns.

5:37 Now, from those, we have details about the maternal

5:40 and the paternal family trees to get us going.

5:42 And on the maternal side, [music] it looked like they were were

5:45 to have their work cut out as James's mother,

5:48 Annie Bell, was one of 10 children born to George Bell and Jeanie Hamilton.

5:53 We knew that by 1911, we had two infant deaths,

5:57 also in two further children that passed away without

6:00 having married or having had any children of their own.

6:03 So, out of the 10 total children,

6:06 we then had five additional stems to investigate.

6:10 But, the team did have one thing on their side.

6:13 A Scottish death certificate would usually give

6:16 you the name of the deceased parents, which would help you to narrow down

6:23 right away onto a particular Bell family tree,

6:25 for instance, because you could search using particular keywords.

6:30 And that wasn't the only feature of the case that was unique to Scotland.

6:35 On the paternal side, the team had learned that James's grandfather was also

6:39 called James Forrest and had married an Isabella Girdwood.

6:43 With the way children and descendants are named within a Scottish family,

6:47 you will find a repeat of certain names.

6:49 So, the names of James and Isabella will be repeated time and again,

6:54 and also, as the generations follow through,

6:57 you will notice that you pick up the surname of Forrest and Girdwood again,

7:02 um particularly within the women of the family.

7:07 These traditions can sometimes help the air hunters make a vital breakthrough.

7:12 A prime example in the Forrest family tree is if

7:15 we look at the stem of paternal aunt Christina Forrest,

7:19 she married a John Moffatt,

7:22 but her firstborn daughter is Isabella Girdwood Moffatt.

7:26 So, she's been given the name of the paternal grandmother.

7:30 The team had now established that James's father had six siblings,

7:34 one of whom had died as an infant,

7:36 and they were also able to rule out one of his sisters who died a spinster.

7:41 So, the four remaining stems to look into were Christina,

7:47 John, Isabella, and Jane, who was also known as Jeanie.

7:53 One of James and Isabella's daughter was Christina,

7:56 who [music] married a John McKay Moffatt.

7:58 They'd had one daughter, and in keeping with tradition,

8:01 she had been named Christina Forrest Moffatt.

8:04 Research into the stem of Christina Forrest Moffatt identified particularly

8:10 on a marriage for her to a gentleman [music] named William Young.

8:15 From this, the team were able to search for possible births.

8:19 We were able to tell that she'd had at least one child,

8:23 a daughter named [music] Christine.

8:25 And so, the next obvious step would be to try and trace Christine and um [music]

8:31 try and speak to her.

8:34 A detailed search of records revealed

8:36 that Christine was alive and living near Glasgow.

8:44 The team believed she was an heir

8:45 to James's estate and got straight on the phone.

8:47 [music] Oh, yes, that's me at school.

8:52 Oh, dear.

8:53 [laughter] A long time ago.

8:57 For Christine, life was about to be turned upside down.

9:00 I think I said, "Are you sure you've got the wrong

9:02 the right person here?" I [laughter] I couldn't believe it.

9:05 I was more interested in the family.

9:08 Christine was brought up by her father, and life wasn't always easy.

9:13 I can't explain it.

9:15 He was a horrible man.

9:17 He really [music] was.

9:18 Horrible individual.

9:19 He didn't know how to be nice.

9:21 Christine never met her mother and grew up knowing nothing about her.

9:26 All my life, I wanted to know about my mother.

9:29 But, I was 14 when he told me she was dead.

9:32 But, the Heir Hunters had discovered that it wasn't true.

9:37 From time to time, we'll come across um situations

9:40 where somebody within the family has lied about a scenario.

9:45 So, for instance, they've lied about um a divorce

9:48 by saying that the parent has passed away.

9:52 [music] In fact, Christina Forrest Moffet had lived for another 26 years,

9:55 and it was down to Amy and the team to break this delicate news.

10:00 We've dealt with quite a number of shocking revelations here,

10:02 and we had to be quite careful about

10:04 any potential upset that we might be causing.

10:07 Nonetheless, [music] it was a huge shock for Christine.

10:10 She died in 1973.

10:12 So, she was alive for quite a long time, [music]

10:15 and I could have got to know her, but of course I didn't.

10:18 You know.

10:20 And it seems Christine's father [music] went

10:22 to great lengths to keep the truth from her.

10:24 When I did go down to to my grandmother's, she didn't tell me she was alive,

10:30 but my father didn't want me going anywhere near because he probably

10:35 realized I would find out that my mother wasn't dead at that time.

10:41 But as the Heir Hunters continued their research,

10:43 [music] Christine was about to receive more shocking news.

10:47 Christina's eldest child, Christine, thought that she was an only child.

10:51 Her father had told her that her mother died when she was very young.

10:56 Um whereas in fact, she had quite a number of brothers and sisters.

10:59 For Christine, it was the start of an astonishing

11:02 journey that would change her life forever.

11:05 I think it was I think it was quite wonderful to find all these people

11:12 [laughter] all these relatives.

11:18 I have always thought that people don't make a will

11:22 primarily because it's an admission you're going to die.

11:28 In London, Heir Hunting firm Fraser& Fraser have taken

11:32 on the high value case of Frank [music] Padget,

11:35 a case that has proved a major test.

11:37 It's a cauldron, you know, you're working under pressure, you got lots of steam,

11:41 you don't know how many is a big jigsaw puzzle,

11:43 you're slowly putting all the pieces together.

11:46 And it's it's cruel, you know, it go goes crazy.

11:51 Frank [music] Padget died in April

11:53 2016 in the town of Coalville, Leicestershire.

11:58 For many years, [music] he worked as a gardener

12:00 and colleagues remember him as a quiet man.

12:03 He kept himself pretty much to himself,

12:06 always fairly a smart dresser even though we

12:08 were working in sort of a manual situation.

12:11 He was he was quite dapper in his ways, Frank was.

12:13 Really professional in his job, wants to make do the best job he could.

12:18 You know, he loved working outside and uh always had a laugh with Frank,

12:23 really good guy to work with.

12:26 His little habit was he'd whistle three bars of a tune and continue it

12:30 all day he could do or sing a couple of lines of a verse.

12:34 Uh he he he was a he was a bit of a a comic in that way.

12:38 I'm not sure that there was any special lady at all.

12:42 He was a uh a bachelor through and through to that degree.

12:50 Frank didn't leave a will,

12:52 so his estate was picked up by case manager Dave Slee.

12:57 Valued at 75,000 pounds,

12:59 Dave and the team made finding the heirs their top priority.

13:03 The Padget estate, [music] we knew fairly early doors that Mr.

13:08 Padget owned his own property.

13:10 So, of course, that that means you can research the matter

13:14 in the knowledge that there's going to be some value to the estate.

13:20 With such a high value estate,

13:22 the team knew that the case of Frank

13:23 [music] Padget would attract other heir hunting firms.

13:27 The fact that there's likely to be competition from a number of companies,

13:31 I had to pull in virtually everyone in the company to research the matter.

13:36 One of their first steps was to establish some basic facts about Frank.

13:40 I started telephoning neighbors and friends to try

13:43 to build up a picture about Mr.

13:44 Padget.

13:46 Dave's phone calls helped him to establish

13:48 that Frank had never married nor had any children.

13:51 So, the next step was to search the birth

13:53 indexes to find out who his parents were.

13:57 Padget is the surname and in that 1 2 3 there's

14:01 about a dozen Padgets being born in that quarter and it shows

14:05 in this column the mother's maiden name of the child that's born

14:08 and it's also Padget which is because Padget's a fairly unusual name.

14:12 It's a fair indicator that that's an illegitimate birth.

14:17 Dave soon confirmed that Frank's mother was Betty Padget.

14:20 She had been just 22 when Frank was born

14:23 and there was no father listed on his birth certificate.

14:28 The problem on identifying an illegitimate birth

14:32 is we we lose some of our references.

14:34 All of a sudden you're now taking out one side of the family.

14:38 There is no father.

14:40 You can never prove who the father was there's there's no record on the birth.

14:44 So, you're now limited to working just one family, the mother's family.

14:48 It basically reduces the chances of finding a beneficiary by 50%.

14:53 So, it's it's that much harder to do and there's less family to find.

14:58 But another conversation with one

14:59 of Frank's friends would complicate matters further.

15:03 I got to speak to a person who was very friendly with Mr.

15:06 Padget who was adamant that Mr.

15:09 Padget had been adopted.

15:11 Having a legal adoption, we now have to look into the adopted family.

15:15 It's no longer from the the biological mother and it's it's

15:19 very very important that we discover this as early as possible.

15:23 But Dave was about to make another dramatic discovery.

15:27 Mr.

15:27 Paget died as Mr.

15:28 as Frank Paget.

15:30 He was born as Frank Paget.

15:32 So, this must suggest that of course he was

15:34 adopted by someone he was related to by blood anyway.

15:41 And Dave had a theory as to why that might be.

15:45 Many years ago you'd often find that if a if a young girl had a child out

15:51 of marriage that the child would often be

15:54 taken in by her parents as their own child.

15:59 There was only one way to find out if Dave's theory was right.

16:03 You need the adoption certificate to start with because of course you

16:07 need to know who are the parties that have adopted that child.

16:11 When the certificate came in they confirmed [music] that Frank had indeed

16:14 been adopted by the Paget family but not quite as Dave had suspected.

16:20 What's unusual in the Paget estate is

16:22 that his mother allowed her uncle to adopt her child.

16:31 Now, this completely throws the whole equation on its head

16:36 because all of a sudden from a legal standpoint Frank's mother,

16:41 Betty, now becomes his first cousin.

16:46 On the 21st of July 1931,

16:49 1 month old Frank was formally adopted by Betty's uncle,

16:52 [music] Ernest Paget, and his wife Kate Williams,

16:56 and the search for heirs now looked very different.

17:01 Even though [music] unusually he was adopted by by a blood relative it changes

17:06 the parameters of who is actually going to now be entitled.

17:10 This means that the team would still need to look for heirs in the Paget family,

17:14 but there was now a a new branch to research.

17:17 Now, his adopted mother, Kate Williams,

17:20 though not related by blood in any way to the deceased,

17:24 because he's now adopted into the family,

17:27 her family, the Williams, will also become entitled parties.

17:33 The common surname Williams would be much harder to research than Paget.

17:37 It was more bad news for the team.

17:40 Kate Williams, the adopted mother of the deceased,

17:44 her father, Francis Wood Williams, an unusual combination.

17:47 He was actually a Waterman.

17:49 Dave knew from experience that researching

17:52 the families of Waterman could be a nightmare.

17:55 We hate working out a boatman estates purely

17:58 and simply because they were just so transient.

18:01 And they were really difficult estates to work.

18:03 Obviously, they were like the lorry drivers of their era.

18:08 Francis Wood Williams and his family were part of a vital 19th

18:12 century network that allowed materials

18:14 and freight to be transported around Britain.

18:17 Canals were built between 1760 and 1830.

18:20 They were the backbone of the uh the nation.

18:23 [music] And the canals like the Grand Union

18:24 Canal in the Northampton area were the artery

18:27 for moving all the freights north and south

18:29 and across east and west across the country.

18:31 But life for Waterman wasn't easy.

18:34 We tend to think of a a boatman

18:36 possibly as having a wonderful outdoor existence.

18:38 But a report by the Registrar General uh noted that actually

18:41 they had half the life expectancy of a an agricultural worker.

18:46 Everything had to be done within a a space no more than about 6 ft square.

18:51 And their families were expected to work hard, too.

18:54 Everyone was expected to play their part.

18:56 Whilst children these days might be playing outside and having a good time,

19:00 the children of that period would be expected to to pull their weight.

19:03 And of course, uh they didn't have regular schools to go to.

19:05 So, a lot of them would have been illiterate.

19:07 Um but they would know their probably know their numbers

19:10 and they would know all the practical skills required to to run

19:13 and look after a canal boat and all the issues

19:15 that went with delivering freight from one place to another.

19:20 [music] But the very nature of being watermen meant moving around.

19:24 Because they were transporting goods from one place to another

19:26 and they were on the boats right away throughout the day.

19:29 They would actually live from day to day on the boats.

19:32 They may be registered in one local parish when they were born,

19:34 but then they would be off and tracking down I think would be a real challenge.

19:38 And the family's nomadic lifestyle was a major concern for Dave.

19:43 You're dictated to what area you're researching

19:47 by the areas that the deceased was born in or where the parents married or where

19:51 the brothers and sisters were born and married.

19:56 But with the family traveling up and down the waterways,

19:58 would Dave be able to trace relatives and crack the case?

20:08 Every year in Britain,

20:09 thousands of people get a surprise knock on the door from the Heir Hunters.

20:13 I was surprised.

20:16 [laughter] Very surprised.

20:18 [music] A visit from the Heir Hunters can bring life-changing news.

20:20 So many questions unanswered.

20:22 Even though we found out so much.

20:26 But there are still thousands of unsolved cases where heirs need to be found.

20:31 Today we've got the details of two estates on the Treasury's

20:34 bona vacantia [music] list that have yet to be claimed.

20:38 The first case is that of Alfred Kelsall who died

20:41 a bachelor on the 10th of [music] March 1992 in Uttoxeter,

20:46 Staffordshire aged 84.

20:49 Kelsall is commonly spelled with one L, not two.

20:53 Do you recognize this unusual spelling?

20:56 Do you know someone related to Alfred Kelsall?

20:59 Could you be one of the heirs they are looking for?

21:01 [music] The next case is that of Kathleen Minnie Weight.

21:05 Kathleen was born on New Year's Day, 1905 in [music] Nottingham.

21:09 She passed away on the 16th of June, 1992, aged [music] 87.

21:14 Wait is an unusual name with fewer than 600 occurrences throughout the UK.

21:20 [music]

21:20 Do you know anything that could help solve the case of Kathleen Minnie Wait?

21:24 Perhaps you could be the next of kin.

21:26 If so, you could have thousands of pounds coming your way.

21:35 Hello.

21:36 In London, the team at Fraser and Fraser were racing

21:40 to find heirs to the £75,000 estate [music] of Frank Padgett.

21:44 But the discovery of nomadic ancestors had halted their search.

21:49 The family all live on the narrowboat.

21:51 Mum has one child in Stafford [music] and then the narrowboat 9 months

21:55 later is in completely different part

21:58 of the country where she has another child.

22:01 Of course, that child has to be registered where it was born.

22:07 Frank Padgett [music] died in Coalville, Leicestershire,

22:09 where he worked as a gardener for the local council.

22:12 Frank would be pruning these in [music] the spring

22:15 and then later on in the in the autumn.

22:18 He loved his garden, his gardening.

22:20 He loved his plants.

22:21 If you his garden at home was just the same, [music] absolutely immaculate.

22:26 And he kept everything pristine just like he he did himself.

22:31 But plants [music] weren't Frank's only passion.

22:34 He was a an avid uh season ticket holder

22:37 at Leicester City at Filbert Street as it was then.

22:40 Um right through I think beyond his retirement he was still there it was

22:43 still a a Leicester supporter and a regular attendee at home games at least.

22:48 And in his earlier years he probably used to travel quite a bit away as well.

22:54 The noise would have been developing as he

22:56 arrived towards the the bowl of the stadium.

23:00 He'd have emerged into the light here,

23:02 and uh the whole crowd and the whole pitch would have unfolded before him.

23:09 Frank may not [music] have married or had any children,

23:12 but on the terraces of his beloved club, he had another kind of family.

23:17 I'm sure that coming here every week,

23:18 Frank [music] would have had the sense of a sense of camaraderie,

23:22 a sense of belonging.

23:23 You're in a crowd of 32,000.

23:25 And certainly, when you do enter the ground and you

23:28 feel the buzz and you get the atmosphere and you

23:30 hear the noise and you see the color and you

23:33 talk to people around you and you anticipate the game.

23:38 You know, it it is [music] a it is a wonderful feeling.

23:40 As a lifelong supporter, Frank saw his club through thick and thin.

23:45 [music] When he first started coming down here in 1970,

23:47 they'd just been FA Cup finalists.

23:49 During the 1970s, they had a really entertaining

23:51 side with four England internationals playing for them.

23:55 During the 1980s, he would have seen players like Gary Lineker and Alan Smith,

24:00 who both went on to score a lot of goals,

24:01 not only for Leicester City, but for England.

24:03 And then in the 1990s, he would have seen Leicester City get

24:08 to Wembley on seven occasions in nine years.

24:11 And then in the first decade of the 20th century,

24:15 it all started going a bit wrong, really.

24:18 They got into financial trouble, they went into administration,

24:21 the club didn't have any money.

24:23 They sort of went down on a downward decline.

24:26 But in April [music] 2016, when Frank passed away,

24:30 Leicester City Football Club were well on their way

24:33 to one of the biggest sporting upsets of all time.

24:36 Leicester City went on this incredible run of winning

24:39 seven and drawing one of their last nine games,

24:42 which took them from seven points to the bottom to 14th in the table.

24:45 This run was then continued into the following season,

24:48 much to everybody's surprise.

24:50 Frank would have been aware of all of this.

24:52 They were top of the table for a significant part of the season.

24:55 And very sadly, he died in April, which was just, you know,

25:00 weeks weeks away from Leicester winning the only Premier

25:04 League title they've ever won in their whole 132-year history.

25:13 For the Air Hunters, the search for Frank's heirs was proving a real challenge.

25:17 Josh, are you there?

25:18 It's me.

25:19 They'd established that Frank had been adopted by his great uncle,

25:22 Ernest Paget, and his wife, Kate Williams.

25:25 And the team needed to trace their families to find heirs.

25:29 So, the first thing I did was I kind of broke the teams up.

25:32 One team [music] worked the Paget family.

25:35 And one team now worked the adopted mother's family, the Williams family.

25:41 With competition from rival firms, it was tough [music] staying ahead,

25:45 even with all hands on deck.

25:47 When you've got so many people to find,

25:50 you don't know if the competition is ahead of you, behind you.

25:54 Um, it's not easy.

25:56 The Williams side was looking especially difficult,

25:59 as Dave had discovered Kate's father worked as a waterman

26:02 [music] and was likely to have moved around.

26:04 So, you could have brothers and sisters, and I've had it in the past,

26:07 eight or nine children, literally all born in different parts of the country.

26:11 But if you put them all on together as a map,

26:13 it's it's the map of the waterways.

26:16 But a check of the 1911 census offered a glimmer of hope.

26:20 The father from an early age become a lock keeper and therefore,

26:23 obviously, was in one place and remained there.

26:26 So, all the children would have been born probably from from that one address.

26:34 We know that Francis Wood Williams became a lock keeper in 1906.

26:38 And by that time, he was in his late 50s.

26:40 So, he may have opted for a more gentle lifestyle.

26:43 Although it was [music] still a very physical job.

26:47 Francis Wood Williams would have done a number of things throughout the day.

26:50 He could have been running water,

26:52 moving water from a higher level to a lower level

26:54 if that lower level was was getting a bit shallow.

26:56 He would put the windlass on here and then turn it round.

27:01 He would then come over here, put his hands on here,

27:05 and then push open the lock gate,

27:07 open those gates, and away they go off to market.

27:09 It wouldn't have been of a life of leisure for him because pushing

27:13 something weighing anything up to 2 tons it it's really quite hard work.

27:21 But crucially for the team, lock keepers tended to stay in one place.

27:27 So, it looks very much like Mr.

27:29 Williams has progressed from years of working as on the narrowboat

27:33 and on the waterways to probably as he's got older

27:36 and now he's he's become a lock keeper uh in transit

27:39 in these little cottage and opening and closing the locks all day.

27:43 Consequently, the fact that the family had settled in one

27:45 place now meant the team could forge ahead with the research.

27:49 Um the mother's family, the Williams family,

27:52 the deceased mother, Kate Williams, had six brothers and sisters.

27:58 But they were far from home and dry.

28:01 Williams is a common name and there were more heirs on that side to trace.

28:07 They managed to establish that one of the siblings was Lily

28:10 and her daughter Joan had four [music] children who were still alive.

28:14 Dave was hoping this was the pivotal breakthrough.

28:18 It is a jigsaw puzzle where you get the first piece and then that family member

28:22 will lead you onto the next one and your research will then lead you on to So,

28:26 you're just building up the you know, this whole picture of the family tree.

28:30 Everything now rested on speaking to Joan's children and Dave

28:34 managed to get a number for one of them.

28:36 I've phoned thousands [music] of people in the course of the years I've been

28:41 in the business and I still get

28:42 butterflies every time I I phone [music] someone.

28:45 You're phoning people out of the blue, they don't know who you are,

28:47 and it's often that first 10-15 seconds that you've got to convince

28:51 people that you're genuine and that this is a genuine matter.

28:54 All right, I'll speak to you later.

28:55 Bye-bye now.

28:59 On the other end of the line,

29:00 Mervyn Hall was about to receive news of an unexpected [music] inheritance.

29:05 The only person on that side of the family

29:07 tree that I knew of was my grandmother.

29:10 I didn't know she'd got a sister.

29:11 I didn't know anything about her parents.

29:14 And I certainly didn't know that her sister had adopted Frank Padget.

29:17 So, that was all new to me, and it caused me to contact other members

29:22 of the family that I hadn't spoken to for years.

29:24 We all started pulling information at that point,

29:27 um but realized it was quite a mystery.

29:29 None of us knew about Frank Padget at all.

29:31 It was the first we'd heard about him.

29:33 But Mervyn, an amateur genealogist,

29:36 knew plenty about his own branch of the family.

29:39 Yeah, this is me here, and this is my mother, Joan, Joan Bowen as was.

29:45 Her parents, James Bowen and Lillian Williams.

29:49 Lillian Williams, my late grandmother, died young in 1938.

29:53 She was only 45, and that that was quite a traumatic event for my mother.

29:58 I only have two photographs of her, and this one shows her holding her baby son,

30:03 Clive, um who's still alive.

30:05 He's my uncle.

30:07 Um it was her sister, Kate Williams, that adopted Frank Padget.

30:12 Mervyn's research was invaluable to David and his team as it helped

30:16 them confirm that the research they'd done into the Williams family was correct.

30:20 [music] So, here we have the Williams family.

30:24 Um over 30 beneficiaries entitled.

30:28 On the paternal family, [music] the Padget family,

30:31 there are, I believe, 11 heirs.

30:33 So, over 40 beneficiaries entitled to varying shares in the [music] estate.

30:38 In total, the team had found 41 heirs,

30:41 and finding Mervyn meant that they'd beaten rival firms to the chase.

30:46 And only a few miles from where Frank Padgett lived and worked,

30:49 his distant relative Mervyn has [music] discovered

30:52 a whole new side of his family.

30:55 Well, to me, Frank Frank Padgett is still a bit of a mystery.

30:58 Um I think the the very sad thing is that he he lived out his final years,

31:03 and he died without knowing that he had some relatives,

31:06 albeit distant ones, not very far away from him.

31:16 [music] In London, [music] a team of heir hunters were

31:22 trying to find heirs to the estate of James Forrest, who died in July 2014.

31:28 But the search was developing into a major task.

31:31 This one [music] um is a family with lots of children involved,

31:35 lots of maternal aunts and uncles.

31:37 And so, you can imagine that they span across maybe 20 or 30

31:40 years um between the birth of the eldest to the birth of the youngest.

31:44 So, as you're coming down through the generations,

31:46 you can of of course expect them to have

31:49 children [music] of their own and children of their own.

31:51 So, you can imagine that the the family tree is very quickly expand,

31:55 and you can be dealing with potentially tens or even hundreds of beneficiaries.

31:59 But research into one branch of the family

32:02 had also revealed a heartbreaking secret [music]

32:05 that meant heir Christine had never known her mother.

32:09 My dad told me my mother had died when I was 14, which was a lie.

32:13 And of course, I would never have forgiven him for that.

32:16 I think that was a horrible thing to do.

32:19 Because I never I never got to know her, you know?

32:23 I should have been able to get to know my mother.

32:27 But the revelations didn't [music] stop there.

32:30 The team discovered that in 1953,

32:33 Christina had a second marriage to a man called Edward Donnelly in Birmingham.

32:38 [music] Any children they'd had would be Christine's

32:40 half siblings and heirs to James Forrester's estate.

32:43 [music] We were able to make contact

32:49 with the eldest child from that marriage, uh Maureen.

32:53 And she was able to confirm that her mother

32:58 had three children with her father Edward Donnelly.

33:02 It was a big development for the team and Maureen was

33:05 the next person in the family to be getting life-changing news.

33:09 We received a letter through the post saying that a relative had died.

33:14 I didn't know who his name was, although the name Forrester did ring a bell cuz

33:18 it was my mom's name before she was married.

33:22 But the biggest surprise for Maureen was

33:25 the news she now had a half sister, Christine.

33:28 They said, "We found a great niece." So I said,

33:31 "What Who would the great niece be?" And she said,

33:35 "Your mom's daughter." So I looked and I thought,

33:39 "I can't believe this." Having settled

33:41 in Birmingham and started her new [music] family,

33:44 Christina had never spoken of her previous marriage

33:47 or the fact she'd had to leave behind another daughter.

33:50 I loved me mom, she was a good mom.

33:52 I just knew that what whatever reason she had for doing it,

33:56 she she'd done it for the right reason.

33:59 [music] Going through life, she was always a quiet woman.

34:01 You always think she was worried about something and somebody knocking

34:04 the door or as if she was always looking for an answer.

34:08 And that's that's what I remember about me mom.

34:12 Now though, Maureen had found out she had a half sibling and in 2016,

34:17 [music] the sisters met for the first time.

34:20 So we had a lovely day with them all.

34:22 That was that that was the beginning of it for us.

34:25 And she she explained everything and told us her life story

34:28 and we told her how we'd been brought up as kids.

34:36 But there was to be one more dramatic revelation for the family.

34:39 Once we've established what the position is, we'll let the family know.

34:44 Amy and the team discovered that before marrying Maureen's father,

34:47 Christina had settled down with a man

34:49 called Robert Cunningham and had two more children.

34:55 But sadly for Christina, it all went wrong.

34:58 Christina and Robert's relationship broke down and their youngest child was

35:03 put up for adoption when he was roughly 3 years old.

35:06 At that time, society took a very dim view of single mothers [music]

35:11 and it's unlikely that Christina had any choice over what happened next.

35:15 These were two brothers who um were separated

35:18 [music] from the family when their parents split up.

35:21 One of them was adopted out of the family, which which isn't uncommon,

35:24 um but the other boy was actually shipped overseas on a work

35:29 scheme to Australia um where he was put to work on farmland.

35:33 [music]

35:33 Um by today's standards, I think that would be unacceptable and unimaginable.

35:39 After World War II, over 3,000 UK children were sent

35:43 to Australia as part of an agreement between the two governments.

35:46 The children [music] were aged between 3 and 14.

35:50 The Commonwealth Child Migration Scheme was a scheme set up originally

35:54 in in this country to sort of send over children that Britain just didn't want.

36:00 And up to 1967, there was over 150,000 children

36:06 that that were sent over to to different countries.

36:09 And it was thought by charitable organizations that sending them

36:12 to places within the Commonwealth would give them a fresh start.

36:16 The children, when they got there,

36:18 they found themselves in institutions and they also found themselves as servants

36:23 for farmers and working on things like roads and and buildings.

36:27 One of the children sent out

36:29 to Australia was Christina's eldest son, Ian Cunningham.

36:33 He was just 5 years old when he arrived

36:35 [music] and was taken to a place called Fairbridge Farm.

36:38 They taught you to milk cows.

36:41 Round up sheep and all this business and that was 40 hours for for 10 shillings.

36:48 But they said we were learning something

36:50 but I think they were earning something.

36:56 Ian was [music] desperate to find out whether he

36:58 had a family and if so, where they were.

37:02 I just thought well, I'm here to survive and and uh I noticed uh as I got five,

37:09 six, seven other other kids in my college

37:12 were getting in touch with their mother.

37:15 And their mothers had come and visit them and uh I thought well,

37:18 what's happened to me?

37:20 When he reached 16, [music] Ian was able

37:22 to leave Fairbridge and he joined the Navy.

37:25 But the questions over who his mother was remained until finally,

37:29 in 2004, he was given the chance to get some [music] answers.

37:33 Around 2000, uh the this lady called Margaret Humphreys came on the scene.

37:40 And then she approached the British government while I was

37:42 putting that they started putting funds into the Child Migrants Centre.

37:46 Things certainly snowballed from there.

37:48 A scheme called the Australian Migrant Trust was set up

37:51 [music] to try and reunite people like Ian with their families.

37:55 Researchers from the scheme [music] had managed to trace Ian's half-sister,

37:58 Maureen, and they began writing to each other.

38:03 As I grew up, I always felt there was something missing in my life.

38:07 I went to bed at night and like many of the child migrants,

38:09 stared into the darkness asking the same questions.

38:12 Who am I?

38:14 [music] Where was I born?

38:15 Did I have an answer anybody?

38:18 These were the nights when the tears rolled

38:19 down my cheeks but no one ever saw them.

38:22 After all, I was a Fairbridge boy.

38:26 And Fairbridge boys don't cry.

38:31 12 years ago, Ian and Maureen met in the UK

38:33 for the first time and started to repair the hurt from being separated.

38:38 Maureen was the first one to get in touch with me in 2004.

38:43 So, 3 or 4 weeks later, I arranged to to fly.

38:47 And when he came, he was just an absolute nervous wreck, obviously.

38:50 He never knew anything about us, and we were, [music]

38:52 you know, expecting him to come,

38:54 but there were sort of three of us and one of him,

38:56 and it was just lovely to see him.

39:00 I found a family after being on my own for 40 years.

39:03 So.

39:04 Really supporting, so I'm very grateful for that.

39:12 But like Maureen, Ian was about to find out he had another half sibling.

39:17 Ian had heard from our research and from Maureen about the the elder sister,

39:22 Christine, that they'd previously been unaware of.

39:25 Um and he asked us to put him in touch with her.

39:28 Yeah, I didn't know that she existed as a person.

39:31 I said 56 years.

39:37 Now though, Ian has traveled to Scotland [music]

39:39 with Maureen to meet Christine for the first time.

39:43 Her husband, Gordon, is driving them to the house,

39:45 [music] and Ian is worrying about what to say.

39:48 CAN YOU SUGGEST SOMETHING?

39:50 [laughter] NO, WELL, UH NO, JUST GO WITH THE FLOW.

39:55 Just go with the flow.

39:56 Naturally, if you don't meet someone after 30, 40 years, uh I know.

40:00 Maureen, you're going to be nervous.

40:02 We know.

40:05 Looking forward to seeing them.

40:07 Yeah.

40:08 Um and hoping we get on.

40:11 [laughter] After 57 years of heartbreaking separation,

40:16 these siblings are about to meet for the first time.

40:21 Hello.

40:21 Hi there.

40:23 Hi Chris.

40:24 And you there?

40:25 Ian, yeah.

40:26 nice to meet you.

40:27 You have to love this.

40:28 You look lovely.

40:29 Oh, thank you very much.

40:34 It is after uh How many years?

40:38 Yeah.

40:40 [laughter] Good to see you.

40:43 Yeah, me too.

40:44 Good to see you.

40:45 You look lovely.

40:46 Well, we all survived, so.

40:48 Yeah, we have.

40:49 That's the main thing.

40:50 You look remarkably well.

40:53 [laughter] That's a lot of pleasure.

40:57 Oh, thank you.

40:58 There we go.

40:59 Is this both for me?

41:00 Of course, of course.

41:01 Oh.

41:02 Thank you so much.

41:03 That's so lovely.

41:04 I'm so lucky.

41:05 You know that?

41:06 Because I've met I've met up with all of you.

41:10 Ian and Christine [music] can now begin

41:12 the long process of catching up with each other.

41:15 And with the only photograph of their mother that [music] exists,

41:18 they're looking for a family resemblance.

41:21 Yeah, well, you see sort of had that thick crop hair like Chrissy.

41:24 Yeah.

41:25 And mine is more thin.

41:27 You know, it's it's pretty pretty blurred as it is.

41:30 Cuz it it come out of a locket, of course.

41:32 But the chance to be united with long-lost

41:34 [music] family is the greatest gift of all.

41:38 Meeting all of you has helped enormously.

41:42 It's a wonderful thing for me.

41:44 Oh, for sure.

41:45 So, for sure.

41:45 Well, that's that's why I flew over, Chris.

41:49 [music]

41:48 I'm glad you did, because I'm glad you all did, because it's been wonderful.

42:02 Several weeks work, the team had managed

42:04 to wrap up the search for James Forrest's heirs.

42:08 All in all, once our research was complete,

42:09 [music] the estate of James Forrest um has 35 beneficiaries.

42:15 But this is a case [music] that has been about more than just tracing heirs.

42:20 It's quite nice to be able to bring people back together.

42:24 It's one of the more pleasing sides of the job.

42:27 It's It's a It's a softer side and we're To me,

42:31 it feels like we're giving something giving something back.

42:34 And for Christine, Ian, and Maureen,

42:37 it's the start of a new chapter in their lives.

42:40 And if it hadn't been for the fact that this poor chap died,

42:42 we would never have known we'd never have known we had a sister.

42:46 Well, I hope we both live to 100.

42:50 So I can see us a mock.

42:53 [laughter] It's just lovely to have a family.

42:56 I mean, it's I can't I don't I can't believe this.

43:05 [music] [music]