James Marlow
By KEVIN DONALDSON
CROSSVILLE-An interest in genealogy and detective work was the driving force behind local attorney James Marlow starting a business that helps trace missing heirs to estates.
“The realization that I could make some money at this while working from home offices” also played a part in Marlow’s decision, he said. “I always had an interest in genealogy and learning about my ancestors and relatives.”
When he became aware of the “need for genealogists to work estate cases, I started the business part-time,” Marlow said. “It now is over 90% of my practice.”
Marlow Forensic Genealogy (www.jamesamarlow.com) is an international probate and genealogical search firm involving “genealogy, detective work, and law in an interesting combination,” he said. “The search for and locating heirs is clearly the most fun and exciting part of the job. The legal paperwork and process with estate asset liquidation, settlement, and distribution is the necessary business side of the practice that is less glamorous.”
Marlow said when heirs are found (and usually contacted by mail), they are quite leery. “Most people have never seen or heard of such an offer and there is a fair amount of healthy skepticism when we initially contact someone,” he said. “Depending on the case and how we became involved, we generally will make an offer for an hourly rate, set fee, or contingent fee to be paid by the heir. Most of my cases are referred by estate conservators, probate attorneys, or other heir search companies.”
Fees involved include those for investigative work (genealogists and detectives), attorneys, tax advisors, and many times, translators, Marlow said. Indicative of the international aspect of his business, Marlow’s website is in both English and German.
Some Interesting Cases
Marlow says he has seen his share of interesting cases through the years. “Most cases we work are cases where there is no will, no surviving spouse, no surviving children or grandchildren, no surviving parent, and no surviving siblings,” he said. “We are generally searching for nieces and nephews or more commonly, first cousins, the descendants of grandparents.
“In a Crossville case a few years ago, we found the only daughter of a retiree who died leaving a modest home and estate,” Marlow said. “The daughter had been estranged from her father and her father’s family for almost 30 years due to a bitter divorce of the decedent and the heir’s mother. The daughter was last believed to have been in South America–she had a Peruvian mother–but we found her in New Jersey.
“Another case we recently resolved is a German estate in which heirs to one-half of the estate are two American ladies, one in California and one in Louisiana, who are the only surviving descendants of the decedent’s maternal grandfather,” Marlow said. “Their relationship to the decedent was that of a half-blooded first cousin twice removed–that is, the German decedent’s maternal grandfather was the great, great grandfather of the two heirs through the first of three wives of the grandfather, which wife was not the grandmother of the decedent. This line of heirs was traced through a family that had emigrated from Germany to Argentina in late 1800’s and eventually to the United States.”
Marlow offered some advice on how to tell if an offer from an heir search company is legitimate.
“A bona fide offer from an heir search company will generally come in the mail, practically never by e-mail,” he said. “Most email solicitations are fraudulent, particularly if they mention a long-lost relative with a very high estate value, or if they mention the matter has not been disclosed to authorities. Also, a bona fide offer will generally have a web site, advertisements, or promotional materials that allow review of the company or firm.”
About James Marlow
Marlow was born in Crossville in 1955, the youngest of four children. After graduating from Cumberland County High School in 1973, he attended the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, and received a B.A. degree with a double major (Spanish and Economics) in 1976. He received his Doctor of Jurisprudence degree from the UT College of Law three years later.
Marlow served as a military attorney in the U.S. Air Force in the Judge Advocate General Corps from 1980-84, being stationed in Mississippi, Korea and Germany. After his honorable discharge from the Air Force, Marlow worked for an American law firm in Frankfurt, Germany, before taking a civilian attorney position with the Seventeenth Air Force at Sembach Air Base in Germany. For the next decade, he was the Chief of International Law for the Air Force in Central Europe.
After the Seventeenth Air Force was inactivated in 1996, Marlow established his firm in Crossville. He retired as a colonel from the Air Force Reserve in February, 2010 after 30 years of military service. He has been married since 1987. He and wife, Sabine, a German native, have two children–Lucas and Eric. Sabine is trained as a French-German translator and helps her husband in his work.
