How do I find a beneficary?

trinidadone

A beneficiary in my relatives will needs to be found. I have an address, but no door number. I also have a full name. How can I get in touch with this person? 

theoretica

How many residences does the address you have cover?  John Smith, Manchester will be harder to find and probably need a different approach than John Smith, Little Bytham.

gwynlas

Is beneficiary on local voters list?

elsien

Local Facebook page. Any number of busy bodies on those who would know who you were talking about, and/or tag them in. 

Brie

Or the NextDoor site.  Or LinkedIn,

Brie

Or even google earth and see what you can see from the streetside view.  Maybe enough to get a number that you can send a query to.  

Cairnpapple

A librarian may be able to help, at least with advice on sources if not on the actual search (my sibling is a librarian and can find people terrifyingly well).

GDB2222

Just knock on a random door in that road. “Does Joe Bloggs live here?”  “No, he is at no. 19 across the road.”

Or, look on the electoral register, etc. 

Or, spend a couple of hundred pounds getting a private enquiry agent to do it.

I once hired a retired policewoman to do a similar job, and she asked a few questions to make sure what I was asking her was all legal.  She was very efficient, and I would happily engage her again if needed. 

Marcon

trinidadone said:

A beneficiary in my relatives will needs to be found. I have an address, but no door number. I also have a full name. How can I get in touch with this person? 

Write to them using their full name, and the address you have. Royal Mail is much criticised, but one of their strengths is delivering letters even when addresses are sadly lacking. If you have the street, town and postcode, that's a lot better than many of the things they have to deal with.

Don't give away any personal information in your letter other than, say, an email/mobile, and indicate you would like to talk to them about 'the late Mr/Ms......' [omit the first name - just give the surname], which should be enough to ensure they get in touch. 

user1977

How recent is the Will? The address might not be up to date, the beneficiary may be deceased, etc.

I take it you've already tried asking via friends/family? No clues about what the connection to the person is? (work/school/pastimes etc). Any clues in address books, emails, etc?

A tracing agent might be able to find them quickly and cheaply.

RAS

Go to the library and check the free Ancestry website. Put the street name in keywords and the full name and town. It may well give you the specific house number and post code if they lived there before 2010, possibly later, and an approximate date of birth. It may even give you a more recent address.

Check the 192.com website. Just put in the name, street and town with the post code, and you'll be able to tell if they still live there. Or if they have/had a company directorship

Note, some people opt out of the electoral roll. And obviously much easier if their surname is uncommon in the area.