The search for beneficiaries...

Henry Pearson died in Stansted at the age of 53 with no will and no known relatives. We undertook research to trace the missing beneficiaries. It was clear from the start that the case was not going to be straightforward; Mr Pearson’s death certificate did not contain a place of birth. Furthermore, despite having the date, we could not find the relevant entry in the birth indexes. Clearly something was wrong; the deceased must have been born somewhere.

Further investigations brought up some curious details. We heard the deceased had been in hospital at the same time as his step-father, yet the hospital could find no record of another patient by the name of Pearson (which is surprising, because we had provided them with the correct information).

We contacted a neighbour who had known the deceased very well and had spent considerable time trying to locate his family in time for the funeral but without success. She did not know what else to do and was pleased that someone else was now looking into it as she had cared deeply for her neighbour.

We carried on from where she had left off, and spoke to as many people who knew the deceased as possible. At the same time the Treasury solicitor advised that they had also been unable to locate a birth record for Henry Pearson. Eventually we found Pearson’s ex-girlfriend. She said that he was illegitimate and his first name was Harold not Henry. His mother was called Rose and Pearson was the surname of her second husband.

With this information, we soon found the marriage records for Harold’s mother. Harold was indeed born illegitimately and had taken his father’s surname. His mother then married his father, divorced him and subsequently remarried – Harold then assumed his step-father’s surname. Here, however, is where our research took an unusual turn. Usually we would expect to start compiling an extended family tree – but it became apparent that although Harold’s natural father had passed way, his mother was still alive. This would take us into sensitive territory. As tactfully as possible we established contact with her and organised for one of our senior researchers to visit.

Unfortunately Mrs Pearson was in very poor health, having previously had two heart-attacks. She was also caring for her second husband who was in hospital with septicaemia. First, we established that she was indeed Harold’s mother; she was able to provide more than enough information to remove any doubt, including knowing that he preferred the name Henry. For years she had been unable to keep up-to-date her son’s details, and she left it to him to contact her. Unusually he had not come home for Christmas and it had been 18 months since she had last spoken to him.

She took the news of her son’s death better than could have been expected and was pleased with our involvement. Despite being the only heir, she was not capable of acting as the administrator – and duly appointed one of our partners a limited power of attorney. She was, however, extremely saddened to hear that unbeknownst to her, her son had died in hospital while her husband was at the same hospital.

Once the administration of the estate was completed, Mrs Pearson received a distribution of £19,111.21.

Written by Philippe Fraser from Fraser & Fraser Genealogists and International Probate Researchers