Hundreds of unwitting family descendants could be owed thousands of pounds in unclaimed bereavement estates in Kent, new research has revealed.

A study of government records has discovered 229 estates from deceased people in the county still waiting for eligible recipients - the fifth highest in the country.

And they could vary in value from a few hundred pounds to many thousands.

Any unclaimed estate, usually as a result of the deceased not leaving a will and no immediate relatives, sits with the legal department of the government’s Bona Vacantia Division (BVD) for 30 years, after which any value is transferred to the Treasury.

Thanet-based ‘heir hunting’ firm Blanchards has been helping to discover heirs to estates since 2011 and its managing director Adam Blanchard says most people they find are oblivious to the inheritance they are due.

Blanchards, which recently featured in the Channel 4 series, Key to a Fortune, accesses published weekly lists of unclaimed estates from the BVD to investigate, of which the majority are eventually solved and legally-entitled heirs found.

Mr Blanchard suspects most of the 229 unclaimed estates will be historic and have probably been previously investigated and found to be “unsolvable”.

The table below allows you to search all the unclaimed estates in Kent.

“That doesn’t mean there are no heirs, it just means that despite reasonable efforts, no one has been found,” says Mr Blanchard.

“So yes, technically, there still could be eligible recipients and there might be some significant sums among them.”

As well as having the fifth most unclaimed estates in the UK, Kent is also a prime location of archaeological treasures - ranking sixth in the country for the number of finds.

The county recorded 634 items between 2012 and 2022, according to research by Casino.org.

Kent’s rich history dating back through medieval times to the Normans, Anglo Saxons and Romans has left a treasure trove of artefacts, many, no doubt, still to be discovered.

Treasure is legally defined by a coroner as items found buried or secreted which are at least 300-years-old and have a precious metal content (gold or silver) of at least 10%.

Among the significant previously recorded finds in the county are The Bredgar hoard of Roman coins, the Canterbury-St Martin's hoard of 6th-7th century coins, the Ripple Hoard of Bronze Age axe heads, unearthed in 1994, and the Appledore Hoard of Anglo-Saxon silver coins found in 2007.

In 2008, a 1,500 year-old gold pendant was unearthed in a field of stubble in Worth near Deal and more recently, in 2019, a gold signet ring, bearing the family crest of Anne Boleyn, was found by a metal detectorist near the 16th century Shurland Hall at Eastchurch.

The now fully-restored manor was previously owned by Anne Boleyn's cousin Sir Thomas Cheney and it is thought to be where Henry VIII took his second wife on honeymoon.

After it was declared a ‘treasure trove’ by a coroner, the ring was bought for £40,000 by the Historic Royal Palaces and put on display in the Great Hall of Hampton Court, where Anne lived.

In 2016, priceless medieval jewellery dating back 1,500 years was uncovered along with the remains of a mysterious woman in a field in Stowting near Ashford which is believed to have formed the burial assemblage of a high-status medieval Kentish woman.

And a gold and gem ring, dating back to the 1200s, was found in 2020 by a metal detectorist on farmland south of Ashford.

Chairman of the Ashford-based Invicta Seekers Metal Detecting Club Mark Anderson believes the county still has many more treasures yet to be discovered.

“We are still turning up interesting finds like rings and coins on farmland we’ve been detecting on for decades,” he said.

“There’s no doubt there’s still a lot in the ground and potentially something quite special, which makes it exciting.”

The not-for-profit club has 100 members and raises money for several Kent charities.

But Mr Anderson says new developments and excavations happening across the county could unearth more finds.

“The only problem then is that things can get damaged or simply covered up even deeper,” he said.

Mr Anderson says unearthing finds also sheds more light on the county’s long history as the gateway to Europe.

“Unfortunately, the stuff mostly getting dumped in the ground now is plastic and rubbish like that,” he added.