In the case of Stuart Christopher Harrison, some 31 heirs were identified. With such a large family tree, Finders call in travelling researchers to meet with heirs face to face and deliver the unexpected news.
Stuart Christopher Harrison
In the case of Stuart Christopher Harrison, some 31 heirs were identified.
Stuart died in August 2016, and we were asked to look into the case by Wolverhampton Council as it seemed that he had no will or heirs.
On Stuart’s maternal side, we found James and Hannah Coyles, his grandparents. They’d had nine children. Our senior case manager Ryan Gregory started with one of Stuart’s aunts, Martha. He found five marriage records with the Martha Coyles name – did any of them relate to the same woman. A conversation with an heir revealed that Martha had indeed been married five times.
The Finders team then looked at the paternal side – Harrison, a relatively common name. They found a paternal uncle, John, who had lived in County Durham. The 1939 register also listed his children – Stuart’s cousins.
We discovered Deborah Harrison, who found the connection to Stuart surprising. She said the Harrisons were a close-knit family, and yet she hadn’t known about this cousin or his death. Another cousin, Valerie, hadn’t known anything about her father’s side of the family tree, so we were able to explain the connection to her.
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