What's scary to me is that after 10 attempts at the landline over a period of time, I would have (correctly but unhelpfully) concluded that he was away for Chri

What's scary to me is that after 10 attempts at the landline over a period of time, I would have (correctly but unhelpfully) concluded that he was away for Christmas and abandoned that approach. My Uncle was more persistent. In this case I think it was less knowledge of the particular case, and more the expertise in that specialised situation. Skillset rather than records.