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Just an example of how frustrating family history research can be.
My great-grandmother was a Milner. I was confident I had traced all her (4) siblings because her daughter Ethel gave me a list of them over 20 years ago and I'd tracked them through all the censuses, birth records etc.
On the 1911 census her parents show themselves as having had 5 children - all still living. So far, so good.
Last week, by sheer fluke, I was contacted by Ethel's daughter-in-law. She has a photograph of a man and on the back it says "mum's brother Tom". (Mum being my g'grandmother). She also has a book dedicated to great-aunt Ethel by "Uncle Tom". Except there wasn't a Tom on the list Ethel gave me.
I've searched high and low for a Tom to no avail. My first thought was that he must have been born and died between censuses but the fact that he was alive when Ethel was born rules that out, also that he was old enough to have bought her a book.
Great-aunt Ethel was the last surving member of her generation when I 'interviewed' her. And she died a few years later.
This one is likely to become one of those things that nag away at you for ever.

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Maureen
If you can't fight, wear a big 'at

Hi Maureen,
where were they from?

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Gloria

I'd be dangerous with a brain.

The Milner children (as told to me by my great-aunt Ethel) were:
Fred b 1866
Albert Edward b1868
Lilias Sarah* b1875
Zenas b 1878
Florence Martha b1881

(*my 2xg'grandmother and mother of G'aunt Ethel b1909)
All were registered in the Ardwick district of Manchester. I can find the parents - Zenas & Susannah - on every census and there are never any other children.

The bizarre thing is that I still have the manuscript notes I made when I went to talk to Ethel about her family history. I wrote down everything she told me and I'm sure Tom was never mentioned. She was as sharp as a tack and told me all sorts of family stories so I can't for the life in me think why she wouldn't have mentioned him unless maybe he wasn't really Lilias's brother but maybe Lilas's or her sister's child. But that doesn't answer the question of where he was living.
It's just weird.

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Maureen
If you can't fight, wear a big 'at

By the way I've tracked all the children through all the censuses in case 'Tom' ended up with one of them. The only one I lose is Albert Edward who went to live in South Africa some time after the 1891 census - probably after 1895.

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Maureen
If you can't fight, wear a big 'at