Ms Maeve Mullin:

Absolutely. The bulk of the work we do is for solicitors in respect of probate. I am referring to when a solicitor needs to distribute the estate of someone who has passed away. A person might be named in a will that the solicitor cannot find or get in touch with, or the deceased person might not have made a will at all. A solicitor often has a client who knows about one side of the deceased's family but knows nothing about the other. If a person dies intestate, the whole picture is needed. Most of the work we do relates to this. However, the process in each case is very much the same: you start with a person's name and, hopefully, an address, and ideally you will have the date of birth. Every case or inquiry we receive is different. We review each one initially and ask whether there is more information to add to the picture at the beginning. Then we figure out what records we can pick up that will start building the picture.