I could have saved hours of research if I had realised that there was already a clue in my copious notes...

I was looking for the birth of my Swinburne ancestor for ages. When going through my notes again, I came across the census entry that said that his son was staying with his aunt. Why on earth hadn't I looked into that? It didn't take long to track her back and find her marriage licence which gave her father's name and that she was a Swinburne, and I then found her baptism. I had a surprise to find that she, and all her siblings (including the one I was looking for!), were baptised as Catholics, whereas there is no record of my ancestor having any involvement with the Catholic church after that. The Catholic baptism records were wonderfully detailed, with the date of birth, mother's maiden name and details of the godparents.

So I've now managed to get back a further two generations so far as a result of this find, and interestingly found that my ancestor had two rich relatives as well.

Sometimes it pays to think (and look) laterally!