Dear Terry,
Thanks for your posting. I should point out that all the dates and documents were researched by Gary Murphy in the mid 1990's. Unfortunately, I have lost contact with him. All the family anecdotes, interpretation of data, and descriptions of locales are my work (as is the stuff about the N1c1 chromosome - which is, ocf course - a genetic marker that you and any male offspring share as well).
Gary was always puzzled about not being able to find documentation about some of Willie and Maggie's children. I think that we both thought Euphemia was the oldest, but your points do refute that. Gary couldn't find entries for Willie and Maggie in the 1891 census and imagined that they might be travelling. Hannah died within a year of her marriage from 'acute psithis' whatever that is. If they had a child it must have been fast, or out of wedlock.
I live in Slovenia, and find it hard to get access - even online - to census data, but I'd be interested to know if there are details of Willie and Maggie's household for 1891.
Henry or 'Harry' Crowther was born in 1902 and worked as a baker in his younger years and then as a labourer in a sawmill after the second world war. He lived at 9, Brander Mount on the Gipton estate in Leeds from 1937. There were 4 children - 3 girls and my dad - also a Henry/ Harry (born 1927). Henry senior joined up in 1939. After an incident where he punched an officer or NCO who'd been bullying a young friend of his, he (and the young man) were put in a penal battalion. Ironically, the company they were removed from was subsequently annihilated in a crossfire.
And it ended badly as well. On the beaches at Dunkirk, the remnants of the penal battalion were bombed or shelled and the young guy's head was blown off, next to my Grandad. Thereafter he had a great hatred of authority.
For the rest of the war he served in the Pioneer Corps at Scapa Flow in the Shetlands. On demobilization he brought a little terrier dog called Tina back with him. I have a vague memory of the dog's presence - and asking where she'd gone after she died - but can't visualize her.
My dad joined up as a professional soldier in early 1945, but the war ended before he'd completed basic training. Therefter he served in Palestine for three years. On demob, he worked in a sawmill, but eventually became a semi-skilled worker as a springsmith. he was married in 1951, and thereafter lived in south Leeds (Hunslet, Middleton) and then Burley-in-Wharfedale.
I can't recall him talking about an Uncle Frank, but the name is familiar. (He died in January 2009, so I can't ask him, now.) It's odd that our families connect indirectly through Gipton estate and Palestine!
Best wishes,
Paul