Each bar tracks the same sequence of research steps, worked in the order the law itself
sets. The first step is the name, and it is the foundation. The published line an
estate arrives on often carries a partial or variant name, and the records that matter may
stand under a name the deceased never used day to day — so a case proceeds only once
the deceased’s identity is firmly anchored in the public record. Nothing built on the
wrong person survives, which is why this step is never treated as a formality.
From there the estate is checked for a will, then walked down the statutory order of
section 46 of the Administration of Estates Act 1925: spouse, then children, then
parents, then siblings — and on down through the remoter classes of kin until an
entitled relative is found, or every class is shown to stand empty.
“Completed” means searched and recorded — both ways. A relative
found is named and evidenced from cited public records. A class with nobody in it is
recorded as searched and not found, stated against the records searched and the date
of the search — a documented negative that can be checked, not an assumption. A line
shown to end is as much the product as an heir found.
Reading a bar: a filled segment is a completed step, and the small marker sits where
recorded progress ends. Where a will has been located the file runs its own milestone track
instead — reading the will and resolving what it still leaves open — counted
the same way.
The list shows the count and the marker, nothing more — not what any step found, and
not why one remains open. That detail, with the evidence behind every step, is the file
itself.