Tracing Family from over 150 years ago
Amazing case completed this week
We have recently taken on a new client. Our client is a utility company needing to complete works on sections of land.
Of course, before they can start making holes in the land, they need to make sure they have the permission of the owners. In Steps people location!
This was an enjoyable operation. Our client, the utility company, only had a trust document dated in 1886 (over 130 years ago).
We needed to find all the people mentioned in the trust and then locate family connections to current.
Our team got to work.
With each case, we needed to gain the identifiers for that specific person that, in some way could be verified.
So off we go looking over census data during the late 1800s and early 1900s. We looked over, valuation rolls, tenancy and landlord records, probates, and birth certificates and GRO entries.
This was one of our more in-depth seeps that really did need the team to roll up their sleeves and wade knee-deep in historical documents from over 150 years ago.
We used our in-house calligraphy expert to decipher some of these documents which are littered with inaccuracies and spelling mistakes.
Some of these unearthed some incredibly sad stories. Once told of how he was serviceman in WW1, he came home and married. And after 11 or so years of marriage his wife died, and he fell into dementia. With his family far away, he took on a housekeeper to care for him.
As the years went by his sisters heard less and less from him and finally, after months of no replies from letters one sister set out to his home.
She found him in a deeply sorry and unsettled state, living in the cellar, covered in carpets, eating what he found with no clothes.
This war veteran was a shell of a man, who had been robbed of every penny by his housekeeper, she took most items from his home and left him, in his diminished state on his own.
His sister had no choice but to enrol him in a local care home and he passed soon after.
One story out of the many
It was a remarkably interesting case that utilised all our team in their specialized rolls. A real insight into the real history of everyday people.
Trace A person today. Call one of our team on 0208 390 1703