Services to Lawyers

Hugh Peskett's research services for lawyers are in two main categories, genealogy and the older documents of title to land. Relating to the Lyon Court in Edinburgh, the only functioning Court of Chivalry in Europe, is dealt with separately under the heading of "Scottish Research". A number of leading cases relating to Commons Registration have been decided on his evidence. Indentures of Lease and Release, Fines, Recoveries, documents in English, Latin, French (including Channel Islands), are all within his scope. He has appeared before the Committee of Privileges of the House of Lords in peerage claims - the only circumstance when a witness appears before the Law Lords.

Services to Lawyers

	Hugh Peskett's research services for lawyers are in two main categories, genealogy and the older documents of title to land. Relating to the Lyon Court in Edinburgh, the only functioning Court of Chivalry in Europe, is dealt with separately under the heading of "Scottish Research". A number of leading cases relating to Commons Registration have been decided on his evidence. Indentures of Lease and Release, Fines, Recoveries, documents in English, Latin, French (including Channel Islands), are all within his scope. He has appeared before the Committee of Privileges of the House of Lords in peerage claims - the only circumstance when a witness appears before the Law Lords.

	Some Examples:
		The life tenants of a trust were five octogenarian siblings, all unmarried, with no near kindred. The trustees instructed research by Hugh Peskett, who successfully identified the next beneficiaries. A district council and six parish councils retained Hugh Peskett to repel the bogus claims of a newly-acquired "Lordship of a Manor" to rights and easements over a large tract of land in several parishes. Counsel's opening words in the Chancery Court were "My Lord, we are dealing with a property where the last transaction for value was in 1696 …" This was a case where, on the face of it, the issue was grazing rights for 50 sheep, but the real issue (underlying in more senses than one) was extraction of the mineral deposits under the land. Hugh Peskett traced the 17th century documents of title, and interpreted them in terms a modern conveyancer and the Court could understand. The heirs to a seven-figure intestacy under Scots Law, as Hugh Peskett was able to prove and convince the Queen's Remembrancer, were the descendants of an 1842 marriage of a North Shields docker family. He found some heirs on the riot-torn Meadowell Estate (his comment "if I had to live there, I'd probably have rioted too!") and he traced others in their work-seeking diaspora. He tells of one of the missing heirs who left North Shields for London seeking work as a plumber, whose car broke down at Leicester. He broke his journey to find work and earn money to repair his car, but while that happened he met and married a Leicester girl, and stayed there. He never reached London, but Hugh Peskett found him. Problems about rights and liabilities in an Anglican parish solved by tracing a 1670s trust deed. Many problems about boundaries and easements resolved by recourse to older deeds and other records. Title to Lordships of Manors often needs research in medieval documents, which are no problem.