MULLINGAR HEIR MYSTERY: Someone in Mullingar could be entitled to a €700,000 windfall

Is there someone living in Mullingar at present who can trace his or her relations in the town back at least a century, and who had a relative, perhaps a granny, a mother, or aunt named Eliza, Lizzie or Elizabeth Ryan, before she married? If you have Ryan family links or know of anyone with Ryan links, please read on – because you could be worth almost €700,000! But only if you can prove you are the missing family link… Finders International, an English company that traces missing heirs to unclaimed inheritances and features on the BBC series Heir Hunters, is seeking the Westmeath relatives of a London woman who it says may be entitled to her estate, worth an estimated €692,000. They are searching for the relatives of the late Kathleen Hilda Ryan, who died in Greenwich, London in 2013 at the age of 81. Kathleen died intestate, meaning she passed away without heirs or children, or without making a valid will. She had inherited the estate from her late sister, Joan, who was her only sibling after their brother, John, died as a child. While the family on Kathleen’s mother’s side were from London’s East End, her father, John Ryan, was born in Mullingar in 1887, to a father who had served in the British Army in Ireland and India.

Her Irish grandparents had three children: Mary, who died the year she was born, William, who died a bachelor in 1950, and Eliza, better known as Lizzie. The heir hunters (or probate genealogists) company Finders have been unable to find a marriage or death certificate for Lizzie, which would offer clues to further family members. If there are any descendants out there, they are entitled to a share of Kathleen’s fortune. For more information on Ireland’s 550 unclaimed estates visit unclaimedestates.ie