What’s in a Name?

Objective: Trace two missing ‘male’ heirs

Year: 2007

Overview: Two lawyers wanted us to track down  two respective heirs who, they said, were both male. One individual was called ‘Dyson Tyler’ and the other, ‘Kelly Thomas.’

Challenges:

• Gender can be misleading!
• Initial research leads absolutely nowhere
• The only thing we find are complete dead ends!

After exhausting every possible avenue we finally discovered the reason why the search for our two heirs was proving fruitless. Both men were in fact women! The lawyers in each case had incorrectly assumed by the individual's names that both of them were men. Of course, ‘Dyson’ and ‘Kelly’ can also be names for women as was the case here so it was little wonder we weren’t getting anywhere.

Results: Our missing female heirs are found. Although a little embarrassed, the two lawyers were happy to be able to close the case and pay out the inheritance money owed.
The moral of this story is that when it comes to the question, ‘What’s in a name?’ the answer really is ‘Everything!’