IrishCentral recently featured our work at the Finders International Irish office.

Senior researcher Maeve Mullins was interviewed for the piece, which described what the firm does to find the rightful beneficiaries to an estate. As there are many people in the US who can claim Irish descendancy, Finders International often locates the heirs to an estate in that country.

We also help people find out more about their family tree, as we have many years of expertise in sifting through public records such as census data, parish and baptismal records, old newspapers and more.

Passenger records

Once we have checked the Irish data, we will often search through American naturalisation rand passenger records to locate descendants in the US.

Maeve often finds that American descendants are very keen to find out about their family histories. Most estates are usually divided between about 20 people, so windfalls will be modest amounts. But the money is usually the secondary concern, with most Irish-Americans desperate to find out about grandparents, great parents and relatives that are even further back if this is possible.

We can provide a family tree, which will give verified names and dates. This often encourages families to go on their own family history journey, researching the places and times where the relatives once lived.

The information, Maeve says, is often of especial interest to people whose parents died young who probably did not hear their family history from their parents.

The researcher is always keen to explain to those we get in touch with that this is not a scam. Revelation of parts of a family history is usually enough to persuade people that we are a legitimate, probate genealogy company and that we’re often the bearer of good news!