Searching for Heirs

of a

Woman

Who Died in Ontario in 2019

An Estate Case

The facts as presented:

A woman had died in Ontario in 2019, with no known surviving relatives. It was known that the woman had emigrated from Germany as a young girl with her mother in 1946. A male individual had initially presented as a somewhat distant relation, which he later recanted.

The challenge:

Could I discover if there were in fact any living relations of the deceased woman?

The results:

The search took us from Rostov, in Russia, where the woman's father had been born, through a small town in Ukraine, where the woman's mother had been born, in to Germany. The woman's parents were professionals - medical people, who were swept up by German forces in the early 1944s and were transported to north-central Germany. The father died in 1945, and the mother and daughter were moved from one displaced persons' camp to another until finally being relocated to Toronto, Canada, in 1946. The deceased woman's mother remarried there, and acquired several step-children - one of whom was claiming rights to the deceased woman's Estate. It was determined that if the male individual who had initally presented as a relation of the deceased woman's, he could only have been related through the woman's great great grandmother. Circumstances in western Russia and Ukraine since late February, 2022, precluded the opportunity to undertake 'on-the-ground' research in either place. The case was presented to the Court for adjudication.

- - - - Project #220803    (Completed 27 September 2022)