Thanks for your information J.J.
I had found the marriage record for Robert Sr.'s son and had come to the same conclusion as you about him belonging to that family. Agnes was listed as a widow in the 1911 Canadian census for Yarmouth County so that explains Robert Sr.'s disappearance. Agnes and her son Frederick are both buried in Our Lady of Calvary cemetery in Yarmouth but Robert Sr. must have been buried somewhere else or lost at sea? Most of the rest of my Miller clan are also buried in Our Lady of Calvary cemetery which helps to support my feeling that this Robert Sr. was the same Robert who was living with Elizabeth Evans & his brothers according to the Canadian census in 1871. Also, my Miller clan appear to have been the only Catholic Miller clan in Yarmouth County, Nova Scotia - I matched all the census returns against the BMD records I could find on the NS Archives site. As a result, I'm inclined to discount the records for James A. although I can say that the one you found who married Cora was my grandfather's brother so he descended from William. I also went through all the early directories for Nova Scotia where I reviewed every single name in Yarmouth County (not just the M's) but could find nothing that even remotely matched that difficult name. That will remain a mystery until I can look at the church registers themselves which are not in the public domain. Charles did indeed marry Emma who also seems to have gone by her middle name Mary by times. Likewise my great grandmother Jane Miller whose first name was actually Deborah.
The Marling suggestion is not really tying into this family as Eliza was Baptist while Elizabeth Evans remained Catholic throughout all the census returns, even despite her second husband having changed several times. This Miller clan was Catholic all the way through the generations that I've been able to find. She was also listed as French in at least one of the census returns so I'm half expecting an Acadian connection there although the first names of her parents don't appear to be particularly French.
Unfortunately, most of the death records & the very few birth & marriage records I've been able to find for any members of my Miller clan contain wildly contradictory information in them. This Miller clan is supposed to be Nova Scotian, Scottish & Prussian in origin depending on which census you believe. My great grandfather and his twin brother are supposed to have been born in Hyannis Port or nearby in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Nova Scotia on different days of different months somwhere in the middle of different years, depending on which census return & death records you believe. Several of them went by their middle names sometimes and first names at other times. The only consistent information I've come across is the fact that they were Catholic and that was carried right through to my grandfather who I got to know fairly well so I'm condifent in its accuracy. The contradiction I've encountered doesn't surprise me at all though - my grandfather liked to weave a good tale at any opportunity so I suspect some facts that were handed down from ear to ear through the generations may have been 'embellished' over time.
