More than a year after its first season, the documentary series “Search for heirs” is back this Monday, March 28, from 9:10 p.m. on France 3.
Composed of six long episodes of about fifty minutes, this program written and directed by Antoine Baldassari takes us to the heart of unprecedented and breathtaking inheritance cases alongside professional inheritance genealogists who, at the request of notaries, are looking for the heirs unknown or untraceable of a deceased whose estate must be settled.
And obviously, which does not spoil the interest and curiosity of viewers, the legacies are very often… substantial.
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Two episodes will be broadcast this evening, the next two and the last two will be on Monday April 4 and Monday April 11 respectively.
In the first opus, it will be a single estate managed by Damien, exceptional in several respects, by the artistic, real estate and financial heritage (several million euros and incredible works), but also by the personality of the deceased, Nelly Kaplan, died of Covid in November 2020 at the age of 89. However, no heir has emerged at the death of the writer, filmmaker and documentary filmmaker.
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The Sherlock Holmes of Legacy
To carry out their research, genealogists go back into the past of families and sometimes discover well-kept secrets. The small group of inheritance experts search the registers and track the testimonies, traveling through France, Europe and the world in search of the slightest clue that will allow them to reconstruct the genealogy of the families and thus find the missing heir.
The second episode will also take us outside France, to Iraq, in search of the heirs of Lais, born in 1953 in Baghdad and died in Avignon in 2016, the only member of his family to have left the country. Pascal will go there to find out more.
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“When you open a file, you never know where you’re going to go, and how you’re going to get there,” confides one of his colleagues, genealogist Guillaume Roehrig.
Audrey will follow the file of Pierre, a deceased single and childless, taken in when he was little in a foster family.
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Not always happy endings
We will also discover the story of Colette, late widow and childless. She lived until the end of her life surrounded by her in-laws, breaking with hers. However, not having drawn up a will, only the members of his blood family will be able to inherit the 600,000 euros of the estate. His in-laws will unfortunately have no rights.
Then, from April 4, the third episode transports us to Lyon, alongside genealogist Paul Lauriau, to resolve the estate case of Marie-Louise, who died at 71, widowed, childless and without known family. His parents were sailors in post-World War II France and had 11 abused and rescued children. They all lost sight of each other…
And in episode 4, a will found in the kitchen of two brothers discovered dead at their home, several weeks after their death, may well turn their estate upside down.
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