For a year and a half, host Tarjei Strøm and his TV staff have been trawling Norwegian archives in search of Norwegian heirs - who don't know they've inherited.
You can see the results of the search at NRK TV from Thursday, November 5. However, you will have to wait a week before the program is broadcast on NRK1, as the coverage of the US election is delayed.
- Every year, between 10 and 20 Norwegians die without having written a will and with no known heirs. We've taken the small piles of cases where the district court has concluded that there are no heirs and decided to look again," says presenter Tarjei Strøm.
- And in fact, we have managed to find heirs. The inheritance amounts this season vary from a modest 60,000 to a staggering 6.6 million," says Strøm.
Together with genealogist Kai-Samuel Vigardt and the rest of the TV team, he has searched through meters of church books, crew lists, newspaper advertisements, census records - yes, the entire diversity of data found in Norwegian archives. It's been genealogical research with a slightly different starting point.
- "I'm impressed by how much there is to be found in the archives, even though I know there's a lot that's not yet in place there. And I'm very grateful for the helpfulness we're met with everywhere," says Strøm.
The meetings with those who eventually turn out to be heirs have been very special.
- We experience the same thing all the time: The money is fine. But the real inheritance is the stories the heirs get in the bargain. The family grows and the family history takes on new content. I believe that there is an unknown story in almost every family.
