"Heir Hunters"

[hazelnuts01]

Have you seen the programme "Heir Hunters"?    Fantastic piece of detective work - but how do they do it?
In one programme you see an" Heir Hunter" rushing round and piecing together quite recent information.  (ie within the past 100 yrs)  which would take me months if I knew where to look. Where have I been going wrong?    Are documents available between 1900 and 2000 to anybody?
If anyone else has seen this programme - would they please enlighten me?
puzzled
Hazelnuts01

[Windsor87]

I tgink they are entitled to more information from the government. Even though it is in the government's best interest thatthey fail.

Also, they do alot of research based on searches at the registrar office and by searching obituaries which anyone can do.

The difference between us and them is that they need to do it at a fairly fast pace. It pays them to do so, whereas it costs us.

[hazelnuts01]

Thanks - that was interesting.   Have joined a family search group for beginners today and have had my eyes  opened regarding all the diferent sources available - up to now I have only been able to search on computer with scotlandspeople and the local library (and rootschat of course). 
Thanks again
Hazelnuts01

[Mean_genie]

Firms like the ones in Heir Hunters don't have any privileged access, they just have the resources to devote a lot of staff time and money to getting the information in a hurry. When they succeed in tracking down and signing up the heirs, they can make a great deal of money, so the initial outlay is worth it. The big firms employ very experienced researchers who really know their way round the records.

Mean_genie

[kooky]

Is there going to be another series?
Kooky

[familyman1]

this is an interesting programme,but when i wrote to them i got no reply,B****S

[FraserandFraser]

You are correct we don't have access to any records that are not also available to the public.
We do however have several large computerised databases of these public records that are exclusive to us.
As a probate company also are resisted with the GRO and thus don't have the restrictions about modern certs.
We purchase a lot of certs (over £100k's worth per year) and have a fare number of staff, who's only job is to research some have been doing this for over 30 years.
The series is being rerun on UKTV people are the moment (Apr 2008). We have also had the BBC in the office since Oct 2007 filming a new set of 20 programs. to be shown? but probably over the summer/ autumn of 2008.

In the course of the first running of the program Jun 2007 we received 5000 emails over 1000 phone calls and lots of letters these were all meant to be handled by the BBC but instead got redirected to us. We didn't get paid for the series, and as you can understand dealing with these cost us a lot of money. I thought all the emails were answered (even the ones that said they must be entitles because they had the same surname of a widow) if some got missed I can only say sorry and ask you to resend the mail.

Neil Fraser
Partner of Fraser & Fraser

[trish251]

Thank you for the response. I was recently searching for the beneficiaries of a distant relative - it took quite some time, as initially I couldn't find/access the death certificate & when I started I didn't know exactly when she died. I got there eventually - finding the company that handled the probate resolved the issue very quickly, I should have sent you an email    -  next time!

Trish

Edit: I haven't seen the show, I don't think it is on in Australia - another minor research problem, living thousands of miles distant.

[toni*]

I did watch the first series and thought it was very good / interesting , roll on the next one!