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In The Media |
 Genealogists and International Probate Researchers |
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The Brighton Argus
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Fraser & Fraser was invited by BBC1 to comment on the National Archives' decision to close the Family Records Centre in North London. The National Archives (TNA) argued that a fall in visitor numbers has lead to the decision to close the centre, however Partner Neil Fraser argues that there is no adequate substitute being made available to the public |
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Fraser & Fraser was also interviewed live on the BBC London Drivetime with Eddie & Kath radio show in connection with this issue. |
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5 September 2007 Family
records centre to uproot |
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The Express
and Star
27 July 2007
1871 city gift proves fruitful
When Mary Stokes gifted a prime piece of land in the Black
Country to the church in 1871, she never expected her generosity
would lead to a cash windfall for her descendants.
The Guardian
30 June 2007
The Heir Hunter: Is he looking
for you?
It's the stuff of dreams. One day, out of the blue, you inherit
a fortune. Lucy Atkins on the "detectives" who bring
the good news, and the poignant family stories behind the
fat cheques.
Daily Mail
20 June 2007
Money Mail: Are you due a Family
Fortune?
Could you be in line to inherit a fortune from a long-lost
or unknown relative? Specialist firms make their living attempting
to reunite people with millions of pounds of unclaimed cash
before the Treasury can claim the money. And Justin Harper
spent a fascinating day with one such firm. Click
here to read more.
BBC1 Documentary: Heir Hunters
4 - 22 June 2007
The BBC chose Fraser & Fraser as its main focus in a 15-part documentary about Probate Research which was screened on BBC1 every weekday from Monday 4th June 2007for three weeks. The series followed the firm to show how time consuming research positively impacts people’s lives. Click here for more information
House
of Lords: School Sites Act
Fraser & Fraser won a precedent case in the House of Lords.
We received a lot of media coverage, including a five minute
piece on the Channel 4 evening news. Click
here for more information.
Tree of Life Publishing
Fraser & Fraser of London constructed the first family tree for the book “The Gravener Family of Dover”, published in Australia in 2003. We are quoted and acknowledged in the book.
Solicitors
Journal
22 September 2006
Fraser & Fraser contributed to a genealogy article and
was quoted in it.
“Genealogy is the ‘science’ of using databases,
archives, electronic records and censuses to track down relative
of the recently deceased who are entitled o a share of an
estate. In theory, the job can be carried our by a probate
solicitor, and often is if the will is straightforward; however,
with so many cases becoming time consuming and complex it
is outsourced to genealogists…..”
Trust & Estate Practitioner
July 2006
“Probate researchers require a number of skills. As
well as investigative powers, they need diplomacy, tact ad
patience. Being told a long-lost relative or friend has died
and left them an inheritance will obviously come as a great
shock.
Each case can be difference and present its own challenges. Indeed in some cases, some people do not want to receive the inheritance. Probate researches, however, say their work is generally satisfying. Philippe Fraser of Fraser and Fraser cites one case in which they found a homeless Big Issue seller who received a quarter of a £1.2m estate. He had been living in a cardboard box in Soho but subsequently bought a castle in Wales.”
The Trust & Estate Practitioner then ran an article quoting a case study of a case which led us to China.
Solicitors Journal
21 April 2006
Fraser & Fraser were extensively consulted for a Genealogy
article which appeared in the Solicitors Journal on 21st April
2006.
“The Gender Recognition Act means that a person can now simultaneously changer both their gender and their name, which can make them incredibly difficult to trace,” Fraser & Fraser says
Whilst the incidents of gender change, and the problems it they cause genealogists, may be few and far between, there were over 3,600 civil partnerships in the first month of the CPA coming into force. Whilst Fraser admits there are “currently no statistics” to intimate how complex it will make the tracing process, the indications are that it will give rise to, as Fraser calls it, 'a whole new ball game”.
“Traditionally, when couples have got married, it has been a safe bet that the woman will take the man's name,” he says. “However, with civil partnerships there are now four possible outcomes. Firstly, a man could keep his own name; secondly, take his partners name; or the other possibility is that the couple could opt for a 'double-barrelled' surname -and that could involve either surname first.”
Fraser also refers to “more people living overseas”, “an increasingly mobile workforce” and “ the baby boomer generation retiring and moving abroad” as reasons why the process of tracing beneficiaries is as complex as it has ever been.
The initial reaction might be to dismiss this notion, citing the Internet and its variety of search functions as the gateway to a simple life for genealogists. Fraser rejects this saying he “can't overemphasise the importance of not wholly relying on electronic records”.
“There is a very dangerous perception that electronic records are perfect, when in fact gaps in archives and transcription errors are all too common,” he says. “For example, there was huge excitement in 2002, when the 1901 census became available on-line, but the problem was thee were a huge number of transcription errors. This was because it had been put on-line by prisoners and they didn't particularly care about how accurately it was done. Eventually, it had to be completely re-done and was shipped out to Sri Lanka to be completed by an Indian firm.”
On top of this, Fraser says that whilst the benchmark aimed for with entering electronic records on the Web is 99.5 per cent accuracy, the 0.5 per cent inaccuracy can represent a huge number of faulty data entries. “If you consider that the UK has a population of 60m people, that 0.5 per cent is massive,” he says. “For example, there are half a million deaths a year in the UK, which could mean that over 60 years that 0.5 per cent adds up to 165,000 inaccuracies.”
This is not to say that the Internet has not improved things significantly for genealogists, it has, but Fraser says it should be “one small part” of a big jigsaw. “It is a great starting point, but it doesn't lead to an end point on its own,” he say. “We carry out extensive interviews with family members and do all sorts of cross-referencing before reaching a conclusion.”
However, Frasers' has taken the use of technology one step further and embraced it to stay ahead of the field. “We have recently started using DNA testing to prove familial relationships,” says Fraser. “There are often situations where paper records aren't available and in the cases of half-brothers or half-sisters, fathers aren't named on birth certificates. Now we can confirm these matters using DNA. We use a variety of methods, but often when this evidence is combined with anecdotal evidence and any records we can find, the case can be very strong.”
New Law Journal
Friday 24th March 2006
Philippe Fraser was invited to write a piece to explain how
probate research has changed with the development of new technology.
The article was too long to reproduce here.
Law Society Probate Section Yearbook
2006 Edition (Genealogy
Chapter)
Philippe Fraser, of Fraser and Fraser, says that the amount
of work coming from solicitors is increasing. “One
of the reasons for this is that there are more and more nuclear
families. People are more likely these days to move
overseas as individuals, whereas in the past whole families
used to emigrate. Solicitors generally need to be aware
that just because the family doesn’t know what has happened
to one of their relatives, it doesn’t mean that no-one
knows. We get many calls a day from people wanting to
know what is possible. We need at least the name of
the deceased, and as long as it isn’t something like
‘Smith’ you can get a long way.”
… Fraser says the company does not like to give up. He emphasises the importance of turning to professionals for help. “It is very easy to miss somebody and not know about it,” he says. “The professional will do much more cross checking and rechecking. We employ more than 40 staff in London and have a network of eight European offices. We also undertake research in countries like Japan.”
Law Society Probate Section Yearbook
2006 Edition (Recruitment
Chapter)
One young rising star in the profession is Charles Fraser,
of probate research firm Fraser and Fraser, who at 33 is the
youngest solicitor to be elected President of the City of
Westminster and Holborn Law Society. He is also a member
of the Council of the Law Society of England and Wales, the
Law Society’s Scrutiny Committee, Wills and Equity Committee
and Probate Section as well as a member of the Society of
Trust and Estate Practitioners. He worked in the tax
department of a London law firm specialising in wills and
probate before joining his family firm. “I think
it’s a great shame this area of law has been taken off
the compulsory study section,” he says. “After
all, it covers one of the two certainties in life: death and
taxes. Every solicitor is going to come across the death
of somebody they know at some point. I think it’s
an essential part of a solicitor’s education.”
Fraser is hopeful that the Training Committee of the Law Society might be persuaded to consider the introduction of this area as a core subject. It is under consultation and there will be a report back.
“Private client work used to be part of the business that subsidised a lot of firms. But there was not the same money in it as other areas of law. Many firms closed down their private client departments, through some re-opened and then shut again. It fluctuates depending on the current feeling. There is a mixture of big firms wanting to specialise in City aspects of the work, and more and more firms dealing with high net worth individuals and all that it entails.”
Fraser is concerned at the number of solicitors who do not appear to want to take on newly qualified solicitors and train them. “They need to learn from a person with experience, and those who are retiring need to be able to hand over a successful and thriving department. If work is delegated properly there is no reason why they should not be able to teach and support young solicitors. There is a general trend for small departments to get overrun with work as it becomes more difficult to recruit staff, but it’s not impossible.”
Though he was not the only one of his contemporaries to choose this area of law, he was in the minority. … “It’s not a particularly joyous occasion and people don’t like doing wills. They get nervous about it and it’s surprising how many people have to redo it because their hand is shaking so much they’ve messed up their signature. But when they’ve done it, it’s like a huge cloud lifting off them.
Elderly Client Adviser
November/December 2005
“Charles Fraser, head of legal at probate-research firm
Fraser & Fraser, has become the youngest president of
the City of Westminster and Holborn Law Society at the age
of 33. Fraser is already a member of the Council of the Law
Society of England & Wales, the Law Society Scrutiny Committee,
the Law Society Wills & Equity Committee, the Law Society’s
Probate Section, as well as the society of Trust and estate
Practitioners (STEP). He worked in the tax department of a
London law firm, specialising in wills and probate before
joining Fraser & Fraser in 2001.”
The Solicitors
Journal
18 November 2005
Migration and Mongolia
The internet has not made things easier for genealogists. Andrew Towler reports on today’s obstacles and some very bizarre cases
The slightly obscure subject of genealogy has really hit the headlines in the past few weeks.
The task of finding beneficiaries – so important to solicitors working in wills and probate – gave rise to a landmark House of Lords case and …. The Lords case, reported in solicitors journal (News, 04.11.05, p1292), involved a dispute between the Canterbury Diocesan Board of Finance and leading probate researchers Fraser & Fraser over who owned a school near Maidstone. Five law lords came down on the side of Fraser’s, who had traced 18 descendants of the original owners of the building and will now distribute the proceeds of sale to them…
Data protection obstacle
"People think that because of the advent of electronic records, the task of finding people has become very simple," says Philippe Fraser, a case manager at Fraser & Fraser. "In fact it has got harder recently due to new legislation, data protection laws and families becoming more splintered."
"People are also far more hesitant to open up and give you information about themselves," he continues. "Due to all the coverage identity theft is getting, you really have to build up someone’s trust before they let you know details about them and their family."
Fraser says that the introduction of new laws has also had a knock-on effect on the genealogy industry, and the introduction of the Civil Partnership Act on the 5 December will give rise to a new challenge for the profession.
He explains: "The current convention is that a woman will usually take a man’s name upon getting married, which makes families easier to trace. However, when same sex unions become law, we don’t know if one partner will decide to take on the other’s name, and if they do, which partner will decide to do so."
Fraser predicts that this will lead to "a lot of extra work" in the future and has lobbied the government to include an additional field on the civil partnership registration form so the parties have to state which surname they will be taking. So far, however, this has "fallen on deaf ears".
Also in December the General Office of Records will stop using the terms ‘spinster’ and ‘bachelor’, reverting to only referring to people as ‘single’. Fraser points out that this change – made for politically correct reasons – will make it harder for genealogists to tell if a person has ever been married.
Migration and new names
Fraser also highlights how the nature of the work changes and reflects changes in society. When Fraser & Fraser was founded in 1923, he says that, as a rule, whole families would move together – such as Irish relocating to the US or Jewish families moving to avoid persecution.
"Now, however, individuals move on their own, whether it be for retirements purposes or to take up a job contract somewhere," he says. "You have to be alert to the fact people move around alot more today."
This global migration has led to some fascinating international cases for genealogists. For example, Fraser tells of how up until 1997 the communist government in Mongolia had banned surnames for the preceding 70 years. When this law changed, nationals had until June this year to choose a surname – and genealogists gave a sigh of relief that at last families in the country would become more distinguishable and traceable. However, when the new surnames were announced it emerged that half the population had chosen the same surname – Borjigin – the clan name of Genghis Khan.
Privacy laws abroad
Japan also gives rise to problems when tracing heirs, as its data protection laws are some of the strictest ion the world. For example, Fraser says there are no telephone directories in Japan as it is considered a breach of privacy laws.
Trust & Estate
Practitioner
July 2005
The Trust & Estate Practitioner ran a three page technical
feature on Genealogists in its July 2005 issue. Not only was
Philippe Fraser quoted in the article, the publication also
asked us to provide them with some of our case studies, to
which they devoted an entire page.
BBC Radio Cambridge
11th July 2005
Simon Fraser was interviewed by BBC Radio Cambridge on the
11 July 2005 on the “Mid-Morning Show” by Andie
Harper. One of our clients had contacted the Consumer Affairs
Programme of Radio Cambridge after having received a letter
from us; the client in question was not sure if we were legitimate
and was concerned he might be the victim of a scam. The radio
station investigated the situation and was quickly reassured.
They broadcast their reassuring reply, which was greeted with
so much interest by its audience that the BBC station decided
to have a follow up programme on their Mid-Morning show on
11 th July. Simon Fraser was asked about the process of tracing
relatives and explained that we never ask beneficiaries to
pay us money up front. When we trace beneficiaries on a contingency
basis, we receive our fee as a commission at the same time
as the beneficiaries. The BBC radio programme concluded by
saying that we are so geared up to avoiding scams, that sometimes
we think legitimate matters are scams too.
Trust & Estate Practitioner
On page 6 of the May 2005
issue of Trust & Estate Practitioner, there was a news
story about Fraser & Fraser opening its latest office
in Krakow. The article went on to describe the services we
offer.
New Law Journal
25th March 2005
The New Law Journal contained a Wills & Probate supplement
in its issue of 25th March 2005. Fraser & Fraser were
extensively consulted and quoted in the article.
We gave opinions on certain research sources, gave advice for solicitors looking for missing beneficiaries, highlighted our use of our custom databases, as well as emphasising the advantages of having many overseas offices.
The article also covered the fact that some countries do not hold civil records, and again we were quoted on this topic, as well as the implications on research of changes in data protection legislation across the world.
The article drew to an end after explaining the advantages of obtaining missing beneficiary indemnity insurance, whilst warning its readers that “Mr Fraser points out that [insurance] policies are never issued as an alternative to professional research, and a full report is required by the insurance company.”
We were glad to be of help to the
New Law Journal and its readers.
(unfortunately the article is too long to quote here)
Law
Society
Probate Section Yearbook
launched: 6th December 2004 at
the Law Society
When the Law Society Probate Section were preparing their
first Yearbook, they decided to have a chapter on Genealogy.
We were the firm they consulted and quoted in the article.
.... "Philippe Fraser of Fraser & Fraser says that: ‘Irrespective of first hand information, we would always conduct the research in the order of first entitlement. This would mean checking for a spouse, and then children (and any of their descendants) and then parents, before moving on to grandparents. Spouses sometimes part without being divorced, children are sometimes disowned without being adopted out of a family – both categories would have to be accounted for!’"......
Fraser & Fraser point out that practitioners will receive a different level of service if they are paying a professional: “Where the hobbyists differ from their professional counterparts is that the latter have decades of experience and know they have to work to a higher level of accuracy. If a hobbyist misses a person from a family tree, nobody might ever know. A professional offering a legal service cannot afford to have any such accidental omissions for all the obvious reasons. Furthermore, few solicitors would tolerate the time-frame that hobbyists work to. These points have helped solicitors realise that they themselves are not the ones best placed to undertake research either – and demand for the use of experienced professional probate researchers has grown accordingly.”.....
"This chapter was complied with the assistance of Philippe Fraser of Fraser & Fraser. We are grateful to him for his input."
BBC
Radio 4
26th November 2002
Linda Pressly produced and presented a series of BBC radio 4 programmes called “Public Records”. In one programme she talked about Probate Research and naturally it was us she turned to when she wanted an experienced specialist to talk about the topic.
(click here to listen to it with RealPlayer - we are 7 minutes 26 seconds after the start of this audio file)
Simon Fraser: “Anytime you do research and get the breakthrough it is a great adrenaline rush”
Linda Pressly: “Simon Fraser has built his career and business on Probate Research, much of the bread and butter digging is done at the Family Records Centre”
Simon Fraser: “Especially if it becomes difficult and you discover it for one reason or another.. It gives you a great thrill, even now after I’ve been in the business forty years.”
Linda Pressly: “Probate Researchers track down the beneficiaries of people who have died mostly intestate. It’s the kind of job where on any one day you could find yourself consulting Crockford’s Clergy list, a leather bound edition of the trade directory for 19th century Staffordshire or Burke's Peerage. But the starting points are usually the registers for births, marriages and deaths and the census. Once a beneficiary is identified, a researcher or a letter is dispatched to their home to tell them they may be entitled to a share in the deceased’s estate, and their reaction?”
Simon Fraser: “From being absolutely incredulous. People say ‘it can’t possibly be me. There’s nobody in my family whose ever left any money whatsoever’ to absolute delight.”
Linda Pressly: ”You won’t find a sanitised version of British History in the Public Records, it’s there in all its raw and sometimes bloody entirety. The professional researchers those who sit at the same desks day-in day-out are acutely aware of the power of the documents and the effects they can have on ordinary lives. And Simon Fraser’s clients may even be lucky enough to feel the impact of the records even more keenly.”
Simon Fraser: “We found several members of one family. There was one member of the family who the other members of the family hadn’t heard from in years….. he was somewhere in London selling the big issue. This is a magazine for the down and outs to sell on the streets. We contacted the Big Issue and sure enough they had heard of this person. He contacted us and sure enough we were able to establish that he was who we thought he was and at the end of the day he inherited about a quarter of a million pounds.”
Linda Pressly: ”lovely”
The Observer
6 January 2002
Experts find fault with new 1901
census
Leading genealogists have expressed grave doubts about the
reliability of the Public record Office's new 1901 census
website, which collapsed last week after millions of users
tried to log on.
"... There are going to be problems with those transcriptions," said Simon Fraser of the leading family search company Fraser and Fraser, which investigates family histories to establish beneficiaries of wills. "Mistakes can completely ruin a search. People in this business have all had experience of this kind of handwriting, and we know how difficult it can be. We will almost always want to see only original documents..."
Click here for the full article.
The
Times, Weekend MONEY
Saturday
May 3 1997
"Fraser & Fraser is one of the world's biggest firms of genealogists, with offices in Rome, London and Warsaw. Nathan Fraser, a partner with the firm, said that most work came from solicitors trying to find the heirs to estates where no will had been left.
However, the firm is also involved in tracing the rightful owners of other assets. Mr Fraser said: 'When the Ministry of Defence sold off the married couples' quarters, the property first had to be offered back to the people who sold the houses to the Ministry of Defence in the first place.
He claimed that the vast majority of beneficiaries of his tracing work received no more than a few thousand pounds. However, the firm had been instrumental in tracing the rightful owners of shares worth more than £1 million in the Press Association, the news agency."
Evening
Standard
25 November 1988
"Helen Channing, who with her husband runs a Hampshire smallholding, last year got a letter out of the blue, stating, 'We believe we have found a sum of unclaimed money to which you may be entitled.' It was from Fraser and Fraser of London, WC1, who described their work as 'finding missing heirs'. They had got Helen's name from her aunt.
They invited Helen to sign an agreement authorising them to act on her behalf and giving them a commission…. Until she did, they said they could not disclose anything more.
Understandably, Helen hesitated … 'but the firm seemed bona fide - they even urged me to consult a lawyer.' .....
After an interval, Frasers informed Helen the estate in question was that of a Mrs Wood who had died in 1981 in a nursing home leaving about £18,000.
Helen had never even heard of Mrs Wood. Research established that both Helen and Mrs Wood were descended from a couple who had married in 1863 in Lambeth and moved to Yorkshire.
Helen
was 'a lawful cousin once removed of the whole blood to the
said deceased'. Fraser & Fraser took up her claim ...
and eventually Helen was informed that her share after deducting
Fraser' commission and VAT was approximately £1,500.
She was one of many beneficiaries getting this sum or more
- four received £2,000 and 16 others received between
£50 and £500 - the proportions being decided by
the degree of kinship."
The
Guardian
June 15 1985
"The advice Citizens Advice Bureaux workers gave was to write back and offer these genealogists a percentage share of any eventual money you may receive, instead of a flat fee. That will sort out the phonies...well established companies work on this basis."
Daily
Mail Weekend Magazine
23-28 September 1976
"Legacies
worth millions are lying around unclaimed. But heir tracers
are helping to bring the money back from the dead."
Every year about £500,000 is added to the estimated £5,000,000 held by the Treasury and, as 'dormant fund in Chancery', by the Supreme court.
Most of the money is left by people who have died intestate - that is, without making a will - or whose heirs have gone missing.
This is where the professional fortune hunters come into the picture. It's pretty hard work, too. Simon Fraser, a partner in a top London firm of genealogists says, 'The first step is to draw up a family tree of the deceased. It can be a big ... and expensive job, tracing back through several generations.'
Remember, too, that the genealogical agent is taking a gamble. He has to invest his own time and money and may not find any beneficiaries."