A name like Williams

My family history research today is concentrated on the surname "Williams" - one of the most popular surnames in the united kingdom and particulary in Wales where this branch of the family originate. My delight at the first names of Edward and Inkerman was short lived when I discovered two men of exactly the same name born in exactly the same registration district in exactly the same year. Fortunately for me, though not for him, one of them died prematurely I eventually discovered and it is now the family of the survivor of the two Edwards that I am investigating. Family legend has one child moving to the US and marrying "Fannie" - but it may have been another great uncle. Perhaps it was the one who was the taxidermist asked to go to the Antarctic with Scott but who declined? Then there may be some connection to the cousin who somehow became a colonel in the American army during the civil war and latterly became the American consul in Wales? Endless family stories but little fact upon which to establish a link. Some lateral thinking and the use of google maps to establish proximity have extended the family one generation and now there is the wonderful added element of what could be an unusual first name to investigate if only it was more legible on the 1911 census record.