Today’s episode see our MD, Daniel Curran work on the complicated case of Alan George Parnell who died in November 2012 in a nursing home in Rushton, aged 87, leaving an estate worth in the region of £100K.

Alan maintained regular contact with his first cousin Jeff, who contacted solicitors regarding Alan’s will soon after he died. The will was not valid and having discovered Alan came from a rather extensive family – the solicitors passed the case to Finders!

Alan died a bachelor and after some initial research and conversations with his friend for 16years, Michael, Daniel discovered Alan served in the Essex Regiment during WW2 and was badly injured in Normandy during the D-Day landings. He received a serious leg wound in battle. When the Germans found him, they patched him up and left him stranded until the English came and found him. Unfortunately his injuries were so severe he had his leg amputated at 19 yrs old!

After further investigations into both his paternal and maternal families, it was obvious Alan was part of a huge family and this case was going to take the team some time to complete!

Alan never married, had no children, and his brother Maurice died before him – so Daniel starts looking into Aunts and Uncles.

Daniel managed to trace one of Alan’s cousins, Frank, and discovered Frank had 3 daughters, one of which was Jill. Travelling researcher Stuart heads off to speak to Jill. (First cousin, once removed to the Deceased) to tell her about her beneficiary status and Stuart actually discovers Jill is an amateur genealogist herself!

Daniel also traces Lesley (first cousin once removed on paternal side). Lesley’s father is Alan’s first cousin. Daniel sends researcher John to visit Lesley – who lost touch with this side of the family many years ago after his father died when he was 19. Lesley was completely shocked to be a beneficiary to Alan’s estate.

After many hours of research Daniel had traced ALL entitled beneficiaries.  There were 41 heirs in total. 9 on the Maternal side and 32 on the Paternal side.

An interesting family tree that can be passed onto future generations!