At Finders International, we encounter many fascinating stories when we delve into people’s lives to find the rightful beneficiaries to an estate.
Series 12 of the popular daytime TV show, Heir Hunters, explored some of the cases we have worked on in recent years.
In the case of David Lawrence Walker, the Finders International team were up against the issue of common names right from the start.
David died in 2016. He had been a keen gardener, and he was on the Queen’s and Lord Treasurer’s Remembrancer (Q<R) the Scottish version of the Treasury solicitors, with no known next of kin.
War-time hero
Finders International’s Scottish office were tasked with finding his rightful heirs searching through the records at New Register House in Edinburgh. Delving into his family, they found his uncle, a war-time hero who saved the lives of hundreds at sea. They also interviewed his neighbour, who had known David for 17 years and said he took enormous pride in his garden.
The Finders team found six aunts and uncles on the 1911 census, including Archibald Walker, the war hero, who served on board the SS Stockport, which followed convoys and would go to the aid of
boats sunk by U-boats. Archibald died at sea.David’s maternal grandparents were called Macdonald and Walker, which makes for a lot of research. In some Scottish families, there is a tradition of naming offspring with their parent’s surname, making it tricky to find people.
The Finders team identified a cousin living in Glasgow, who had never known David, and they also found another nine heirs, who shared David’s £100,000 estate.
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