If the email does not mention the name of the relative, you KNOW it's a spam. If the email mentions a name that is not familiar to you, you know it's a spam. A solicitor or lawyer from another country would not likely be contacting you through email in the first place. And if they didn, they'd first ask something like "Did you know 'John Smith, of Lubbock, Texas" and are you related to him?

Keep track of who you give your email address to - like banks, credit card accounts - I know, for example, that my own bank does NOT have my email address, so I always delete "bank notice" type emails without even opening them. VISA doesn't have my email address. Neither do any of my credit card accounts. So I know those are spam, plain and simple.