Tracking a long lost relative... Dead or Alive?

[Pitre]

Scenario: A friend has lost track of their mother who left the family home about 50 years ago or more and remarried. One of said friend's siblings has now died intestate.

Friend and a remaining sibling would probably inherit, provided the mother is deceased (which she probably is as she'd be well over 90 now and was a smoker back in the sixties). However, this woman definitely lied about her age at her second wedding as she would've given birth to my friend at age 11 if she didn't.

So the problem is that all my friend has is a full maiden name (and two married names) but no accurate age.

My mate has done some basic searches of the births/marriages/deaths register but only come up with marriage details.

Is there a way of establishing whether this woman is dead or alive? Has anyone experience of this sort of search and if so, is there somewhere I can suggest my mate looks, presumably online?? Or do we simply have to pay some 'heir hunters'?

[JohnCarlisleApeiron]

Morning,

It is possible to do some free searching, for my UK family tree I used: https://www.familysearch.org

Things that will make life easier;

- Knowing her birth place
- Having a rough idea of birth year
- Having an unusual name, or second name. If she is called Mary Smith you may have your work cut out.
- Knowing names of any husbands and Surnames
- Knowing places of any historic events, births, marriages, deaths
- Find your friend birth registration first, if you get lucky there may be similar documents and related documents listed.

I hope that helps,

JC

[MYOB]

Given she’s disappeared from their lives 50 years ago, do they really need to determine if she’s alive or not for the purpose of inheritance?

Personally I wouldn’t bother.

[Pitre]

MYOB said:

Given she’s disappeared from their lives 50 years ago, do they really need to determine if she’s alive or not for the purpose of inheritance?

Personally I wouldn’t bother.

Sadly not a case of 'bothering', there is a legal heirarchy of who inherits.... So some kind of provable certainty needs to be given in order for my mate to inherit rather than their mother. If she's still alive, she'll inherit. If she's dead then my mate and their sibling inherits, simple as that.

[jeremyc]

The .gov website allows you to search for a will or the grant of probate (if she is/was in England or Wales).

That might be one way to determine if she has died (assuming she left a will).

[anonymoususer]

jeremyc said:

The .gov website allows you to search for a will or the grant of probate (if she is/was in England or Wales).

That might be one way to determine if she has died (assuming she left a will).

Hi Jeremy I have to say those links are brilliant I have in the matter of less than a minute found the death date of someone that my wife has been looking for on and off for months. All I popped in was a name
Its simply brilliantly easy to pop in a year and then just press change to following year
Thank you VERY much

[john2443]

Have you tried the 1939 register? I know from checking my family that it has people missing but you might find her and get a more reliable age.

[urlhttps://www.findmypast.co.uk/1939register[/url]

[Pitre]

jeremyc said:

The .gov website allows you to search for a will or the grant of probate (if she is/was in England or Wales).

That might be one way to determine if she has died (assuming she left a will).

Thanks for your suggestion, but we don't even know if she's died, never mind date of death (or birth!)

[jeremyc]

Pitre said:

jeremyc said:

The .gov website allows you to search for a will or the grant of probate (if she is/was in England or Wales).

That might be one way to determine if she has died (assuming she left a will).

Thanks for your suggestion, but we don't even know if she's died, never mind date of death (or birth!)

All you need to do is use her name and then try a number of likely years of death. It won't take long to span quite a range of dates and names (as the poster above has discovered).

[anonymoususer]

jeremyc said:

ll you need to do is use her name and then try a number of likely years of death. It won't take long to span quite a range of dates and names (as the poster above has discovered).

I couldn't believe how easy it was.