Genealogy

Genealogy is defined as the study of family origins and history, the word genealogy comes from two Greek words—one meaning “race” or “family” and the other “theory” or “science.”

In recent years the subject of genealogical research has become popular practice in many families. The tools available to the amateur researcher in this field are many and enable almost everyone to conduct research regarding unknown members of the family and to learn the fate of members of the family from previous generations.

However, there is one field of genealogical research that requires great professionality and demands knowledge and immense experience; this refers to genealogical research which aims to restore lost assets and to identify those who today are entitled to be recognized as the owners.

All over the world today there are vast quantities of assets where the owners are unknown or, according to legal definition — assets where the owners who are qualified to manage them remain unidentified as owners in practice.

The definition “lost” assets stems from the fact that the authorities do not know who the owners entitled to the assets are, in addition to the fact that those who are entitled to the assets are completely ignorant of their existence.

In fact this investigative field of genealogical research is concerned with the legal aspects, the investigator concentrating on collecting research material that meets the legal criteria of the laws of evidence as they apply in all the relevant countries for the purpose of obtaining legal recognition regarding the identity of the original owner, the merit of his title rights as well as the identities of heirs as they hold today.

The factor motivating this research are heirs who possess some information regarding the asset owned by an antecedent but who have no details concerning said asset, and there are cases where the initiative is triggered by the necessity to locate a lost asset in order to trace who holds rights to ownership today.

The disconnection between the property and its owners was mainly the result of war, change of regime, emigration as well as occurrence of death without children.

In Chapter 22 in the Book of Deuteronomy of the Bible, the commandment for restoring lost property consists of two parts: the commandment to act: “You shall return the lost" and the commandment that forbids “you Shall Not Ignore ”. The second part is more common, and the commentators characterize it as behavior by an individual who “pretends not to see”.

The fact that there are lost assets is the result of various authorities and entities in several countries that find it convenient to act as if they cannot see.