MISSING HEIRS: WOMAN WITH CAPE TIES LEFT A FORTUNE

If your last name is Brown, Steed, Copeland, Pett, McGuire, Skelton or Lambert -- and you got a letter from San Francisco recently -- it could be worth $1 million.

But only if you can prove you are a relative of Glenda Ella Bergman.

Bergman, who was born Glenda Stead in Cape Girardeau in 1906, died in December in San Francisco with no will, no known relatives and an estate worth about $1 million, said John D.R. Clark, deputy public administrator and deputy public guardian for the city and county of San Francisco.

"It's not that unusual for people to die without a will. What's unusual in this case is the lack of relatives in an estate this size," Clark said.

The probate court in San Francisco gave the administrator's office the task of trying to find relatives, even if they are two- or three-times-removed cousins, Clark said.

Once his office got the case, Clark said employees searched Bergman's large Victorian home for a will. Finding none, they began a search for information about next of kin.

"Usually you'll find an address book or correspondence. But all she had was some old obituaries of her grandmother, uncle and aunt," Clark said.

From those obituaries and other investigations, Clark's office has so far determined the following, which appeared in the 130 letters sent to selected Cape Girardeau residents last week:

Bergman was born Glenda Ella Steed on Dec. 6, 1906, in Cape Girardeau. She married Adolph Bergman Jr. in 1947. Glenda also went by the name Glenda Patton, so she may have been previously married. Glenda was of African-American extraction and apparently never had children.

Glenda's parents were Prudence Emma Brown and Mr. Steed (first name unknown). Prudence Brown was the daughter of Ella Jackson and William Henry Brown. Prudence Brown had a brother and sister who lived into adulthood: Claude Brown, who died in Minneapolis in 1961; and Cynthia Brown Lambert, who died in Cape Girardeau in 1969. Prudence's parents had eight other children: Ward, Paul, Norman, Elijah, Theodore, Leonora, Leopold and Vincent. It is not know if these siblings died as children or simply disappeared, but there is no mention of them in the obituaries of Claude Brown and Cynthia Lambert. It is also known that Glenda's grandmother, Ella Jackson Brown, also married a Mr. McGuire and a Mr. Skelton at some point in life and may have left descendants from these unions as well.

Cynthia Lambert apparently had two children: Theodore Pett, who lived in Cape Girardeau as well as Minneapolis; and Virginia Copeland, who lives or lived in St. Louis. Claude Brown had no children.

Clark said his office has received no responses from the letters that were mailed last week. He said the letters were sent to everyone who shared a surname with those who are known to be on Glenda Bergman's family tree. The names and addresses were found in the Cape Girardeau phone book on an Internet site, he said.

"I'm sure the majority of these people had no idea why they were getting such a letter," Clark said. But he said his job is to search out all possibilities.

Anyone who does claim to be one of Bergman's relatives will have to offer proof, he said.

"It's really just genealogy 101," Clark said. The person will need to show a birth certificate plus birth certificates of their parents and, or others in the line of descendants related to Bergman, he said.

"With the records that are kept today, it isn't that hard to prove a relationship if it's genuine," he said.

If no relatives are found, Clark said Bergman's estate, in accordance with California law, will go to distant relatives of her husband, Adolph, who died in 1981.

Anyone with information on the relatives of Bergman can call Clark at (415) 554-5055 or fax information to (415) 554-5026.