Nick29
How did you discover that your half-brothers estate had been paid out ?
Although your relationship was clear from your father's death certificate which the HH should have picked up, there must be many situations where half-siblings don't get picked up.
i.e the father/mother goes onto to have more children, especially out of wedlock.
Am I right that it is only mothers maiden name shown in the birth index ? So unless the father married again you wouldn't know that he fathered more children.
Taking your questions in order......
We discovered that the payout after my sister and I had been discussing my family tree discoveries, and my sister had just finished watching 'Heir Hunters', and my sister remarked that she wondered if our half-brother was still alive. My sister had always knocked on our half-brother's door when she lived in the area, but she had moved about 70 miles away, and could no longer do it. Since I had access to the BMD records, I looked it up, and found that he had died in hospital in the year 2000. We sent for his death certificate, where it was shown that the registrant had been the local social services. Our next step as the probate office, where we found out the name of the solicitors that had handled the probate work.
Our father and mother were married at the same register office as the one where our births were registered. Although both of our parents had been married before, they remained married to each other until their deaths in 1983 and 1996. The sad part is that my half-brother visited my mother (his step-mother) until just before her death in 1996, and my mother had always urged him to make a will, because she knew it would simplify things when he died. Unfortunately our half-brother took this advice to mean "I think you ought to make a will, and leave the money to my children", which she did not mean at all, and so he never made a will, because he was so obstinate. I will not deny the fact that we were never close to our half-brother, especially in his later years, but unfortunately his lifestyle made that practically impossible anyway.
