All Articles

Judge orders refund of unfair charges

Posted in For Relatives, For Solicitors

Anglia Research has campaigned long and hard against double charging – a practice favoured by many heir hunters who claw back their research costs from the proceeds of an estate, while simultaneously taking a percentage fee from their clients. Up until now there has been no relevant legal case to clarify matters. However, our recent claim against an heir hunter provides some guidance, with a judge ruling that certificate costs were “not a reasonable expense of the estate” but instead “an expense of the finding company”. Philip Turvey reports.

An interview with our Caribbean probate research team

Posted in Case Histories, For Family Historians, For Relatives

Dr Lisa Hill, based in the UK, and Kadean Vendryes, based in Jamaica, work together to find beneficiaries when members of the Caribbean diaspora die intestate in the UK. In this interview they discuss the challenge of West Indian genealogy and describe some of the Caribbean probate research cases that they’ve tackled together.

Following the letter of the law

Posted in Case Histories, For Relatives, For Solicitors

One of our promises to our clients is that we will always act ethically and lawfully. Among other things, this means that we never charge for birth, marriage and death certificates. It also means that, as a matter of policy, we check and double check our research results to make sure that estates pass to the correct beneficiaries. At Anglia Research, arriving at a legally sound outcome takes precedence over our own financial interests. In this article, Philip Turvey discusses a case that illustrates this principle.

Passchendaele: stories from the battlefield

Posted in For Relatives

As the centenary of Passchendaele, the Third Battle of Ypres, was commemorated at Tyne Cot cemetery in Flanders on 31 July, staff at Anglia Research looked back at their own family histories and remembered ancestors who died in the battle.

The face of the father he never knew

Posted in For Family Historians, For Relatives

Thanks to the work of Anglia Research’s Sam Watkin, a great grandfather living in Australia finally has a photograph of the father he never knew. In this article, Sam explains how she came to trace the family of 85-year-old Bert Palin.