Probate Genealogy Services / Heir Tracing
Soraya Private investigators offer specialized probate genealogy services across Africa. As experienced private investigators and forensic genealogists, we serve as dedicated heir hunters, assisting individuals, legal professionals, and estate administrators in locating missing heirs and beneficiaries.
What is Probate Genealogy?
Probate genealogy, also known as forensic genealogy or heir hunting, involves tracing and identifying heirs and beneficiaries entitled to inherit assets from an estate. When a person passes away without a will or known heirs, or if heirs are difficult to locate, probate genealogy services are essential to ensure rightful distribution of assets.
Estate and Trust Services:
Utilizing our expertise, we trace and verify heirs or beneficiaries across Africa.
Notice Assistance:
We aid clients in meeting their fiduciary duties by locating current contact details or search findings for notifying heirs of estate or trust matters.
Property Investigation:
We trace and confirm heirs in property-related affairs, covering title actions, ownership, and various rights, including land, oil, gas, mineral rights, intellectual property, copyrights, unclaimed property, lost securities, and unresponsive payees.
What is The Process?
- Initial Assessment: The process begins with an no obligation assessment of the case.
- Proposal: We provide a no-cost, no-obligation fee quotation and an estimated timeframe to conduct the research based on the search type requested.
- Research and Documentation: Once the proposal is accepted, the case is assigned to a genealogical investigator. Through genealogical research to trace family lineages and identify potential heirs is then conducted. This involves gathering information from various sources, including birth and death records, marriage certificates, census data, property records, and other historical documents.
- Identification of Potential Heirs: Based on the research findings, potential heirs are identified. These individuals may include distant relatives, such as cousins, nieces, nephews, or even individuals with no direct familial relationship who may have a claim to the estate under intestacy laws.
- Verification and Validation: Once potential heirs are identified, their relationships to the deceased are verified through further documentation and evidence. This may involve contacting living relatives, obtaining DNA testsetc. We use various methods to locate missing heirs and/or beneficiaries, including online databases, public records searches, social media, and traditional investigative techniques such as surveillance and interviews.
- Contacting Heirs: Once missing heirs are located and their claims are validated, they are contacted by us, or we supply the information to our client. They are informed of their potential inheritance and provided with guidance on the necessary steps to claim their share of the estate.
- Final Report: We supply a comprehensive report of our findings, the work we conducted, as well as a detailed family tree based on the search type requested.