An old war medal and its rightful owner

Here's a nice story. A researcher at a company that specializes in finding missing heirs under wills happened to hear on the radio that an old war medal had been found. She was able to track down the name of the person to whom it had been awarded, and get the medal back to his surviving family.

When a beneficiary of an estate cannot be located, his or her share of the estate is often paid into the Office of the Public Trustee where it will remain until the beneficiary is either found or declared dead. In my experience, though, most executors don't put a lot of effort into searching for a missing beneficiary. This is partly because they don't have a lot of information to go on, partly because they simply don't have the time, and partly because the other beneficiaries will get upset if a great deal of money is spent on the search.

It seems to me that hiring a company to search for a beneficiary is a better idea than simply paying it to the Public Trustee for safekeeping.

Click here to see the article and an accompanying video.