The death of a man in Barrow sparked a country-wide search for the family who did not even know he existed.

Dennis O'Connell, a retired shipyard worker, was born in 1935 and died in 2022, leaving behind a property on Pennine Gardens.

With no immediate family on record, this brought a team of heir hunters from Blanchards Inheritance into the equation.

One of the hunters said: "Initially we had a huge family tree spreading across both maternal and paternal lines.

"Although we knew Dennis had a brother who passed away, we did not believe him to have any children - however, the brother did indeed have kids, making the family tree completely void."

It was through contacting other potential beneficiaries that the probate researchers uncovered the existence of the unwitting niece and nephew of O'Connell.

"The beneficiaries’ parents split when they were young and therefore subsequently didn’t see much of their father, the deceased brother who died in 2009 in Middlesbrough," said the heir hunters.

"They did not know Dennis or much at all about their father's side of the family."

The property eventually sold for £25,000 with Mr O'Connell's estate further supplemented by the remainder of his pension.

Cases like this, uncovering previously unknown members of people's families, is just part of the day job for the team at Blanchards.

"We deal with properties like this on a daily basis and handle everything from tracing the heirs, to clearing the property to selling the property," said the spokesman.

"This premise caught the interest of Channel 4 who created Key To A Fortune."

The show, which aired for the first time in March this year, delves into the subject of properties left behind by the deceased with no close family to inherit them.

"It is then our job to locate the closest blood relative of the deceased and inform them of their new inheritance, changing their lives overnight," added the spokesman.

"Often these relatives have no idea about the property or any relationship with the deceased distant relative."

You can follow more of the heir hunters' work in the latest episode of Key To A Fortune on Sunday, April 21 at 5:30pm.