A bit of intrigue to pique my interest

 Had an intriguing surprise the other day.....sister messaged to ask if any of us siblings had had a letter from a firm of 'heir hunters' - she'd had one that day.  She had no idea if they were genuine, or whether it was some sort of scam.  Turned out my elder bro had also had the same letter, although younger bro and I hadn't.  After a bit of googling, it seems the company are genuine heir researchers.  We've all now spoken to them (apparently they didn't have mine or younger bro's current addresses), they've said that a relative of our maternal grandmother had died intestate last year, with no immediate family.  They knew all sorts of family details, and my elder brother and nephew researched this firm thoroughly, so we're satisfied that they are genuine.

The surprise is that I wasn't aware that my grandmother actually had any relatives - they were certainly never spoken about.....my maternal grandfather, on the other hand, had several siblings, nieces and nephews, some of whom I'd met.  I've no idea why Nan's relatives were never mentioned.....perhaps she'd fallen out with them.  Or perhaps they were black sheep.....or maybe Nan was the black sheep!!  Elder bro had done some research on our family tree a few years ago, he found lots of info about our maternal grandfather's family, but hardly anything about our grandmother's.  All a bit of a mystery.  I did a bit of googling myself and found the name of the relative who died (the heir hunter firm don't tell you the name until they've verified your identity) - it was easy enough to find out, there's a website listing the names of everyone who's died intestate.  The surname, place and date of death all match up so it's almost certainly the right one......however, we have no idea who the person actually was, or what relation they were to my Nan.  They were born 25 years after my Nan, so it's unlikely to be a sibling, although not unheard of for there to be such a large gap between siblings.

Mum never mentioned her mother's family, only her dad's, so we're guessing Mum never met them - we can't of course now ask her!  And the only family member still alive who might possibly have any information is very old and suffering with advanced Parkinson's disease, so unable to be of any help.

None of us are holding out any hopes of suddenly coming into a bagful of money, we're not about to book a cruise on the strength of it (a cruise has never appealed to me anyway).  We're just going to forget about it and wait and see if anything comes of it....apparently the process can take around 12 months to settle in any case.

It's been a little bit of something out of the ordinary that has sparked a bit of interest for me, at a time when nothing else has.  Thank you all again for your really kind comments.