Isn't it annoying when the paper trail dries up?
I have my paternal great grandfather Walter Richard Judd in the 1891 census as a twenty-year-old railway porter living in Soho London. I have him in 1892 when he gets married in August and (cough) again in October of that year when my grandfather was born. And that's it until 1915 when my grandfather (also Walter) gets married and his father W R Judd is shown on the marriage certificate as deceased. I have trawled the 1901 and 1911 census and could not find anything regarding his date of death and carried out general searches to no avail. I checked every quarter of every year of the death register from October 1892 until July 1915 and there is no record of his death (that was boring, I can tel you).
It is exactly the same with my great grandmother Emily (nee French), 1881 census... check. 1891 census (now a domestic servant working under the roof of another family)... check. 1892 wedding... check (her ex-boss is at the wedding). 1892 there for the birth of her son... check! But from that point on nothing, doesn't appear in the 1901 or 1911 census, nothing shows up on the general search or anything on the death register.
How can two people just disappear? Could they have got divorced, she remarries and takes another name? Were records kept of divorces?
What is intriguing is that my grandfather appears in the 1901 census as being an eight-year-old boarder in a house in Dover with a couple in their thirties (and this suggests that his mother is not around). The husband and head of household's occupation is given as a bell diver. On my grandfather's wedding certificate it shows his father as being deceased and occupation as, taa-daaa, a bell diver. Was he killed at work and his workmate took on the job of caring for him? Again, is there any way of finding out what happened to my great grandfather when I can't find his date of death?
Geneaology is fascinating but, oh so, frustrating at times!! For every question answered there's a further dozen questions revealed.