Heir Hunter Contact

Tinpony

I have just been contacted by an Heir Hunter company who have informed me of the death of a previously unknown second cousin in Scotland, some 15 years ago. They would not/could not tell me the size of the estate, but apparently there are ten identified descendants of which four have been spoken to.  Very interesting!  I've checked the Bona Vacantia lists for both England and Scotland but his name does not appear on either.  Does anyone know why this might be? 

BooJewels

I think anyone can refer an estate to heir hunters if an estate needs dealing with and they think there are distant family that they don't have the resources to track down.  Might be the deceased's family solicitor, local council with an empty property they want sorting out, a neighbour or friend etc.

RAS

Do you know enough to trace them yourself? Have you asked any known cousins if they've been contacted, to work out which branch it might be? 

If you know who your great-grandparents were, you wouldn't necessarily have to do a lot of work, although it's a lot easier if you are dealing with less common surnames rather than Morrison or McDonald.

Searches of www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk indexes are free but it costs £1.50 per old certificate. It rather depends if the great grandparent was Scottish; as their death certificates are indexed using mother's maiden name for most years (except a batch between c 1934-1974). And all BMD certificates include the names of both parents. So much of the time, you can find the surnames of the parents, crack the marriage and then work a generation backwards.

Tracing survivors is harder than deceased people.

Ancestry can be accessed free from some libraries (your local history or local studies one?) It's much better on English records records than Scottish ones.

Once you've got a framework, take a 2 week Ancestry trial as long as you have time to devote to the hunt during that period?

getmore4less

Tinpony said:

I have just been contacted by an Heir Hunter company who have informed me of the death of a previously unknown second cousin in Scotland, some 15 years ago. They would not/could not tell me the size of the estate, but apparently there are ten identified descendants of which four have been spoken to.  Very interesting!  I've checked the Bona Vacantia lists for both England and Scotland but his name does not appear on either.  Does anyone know why this might be? 

Not all estates get put on the list, if there are known relatives, 

IT may have been on the list previously, once picked up they can get removed.

Last time I checked the list changed quite a bit over a few days.
No idea if you can get historic list

15years may be recent enough for google to find them if you have a DOD maybe an obituary

SeniorSam

Do be careful as there are reports of SCAMS in this area. As long as you do not give them any details of your own bank accounts, even if they say hey are sending you a fortune. Just ask them to forward it through your solicitors to be on the safe side.  It seems an awfully long time to have past for Heir Hunters to be involved, but it may possibly be genuine. Just e careful.

Kat78MFW

The release of the 1921 census may have enabled Heir Hunters to solve previously stalled cases. That could account for the long time period. But yes, always worth ensuring the company are genuine and not scammers.