Jacqueline,
What an excellent post! You've shown what and how it can be done, and done it yourself. Perhaps best of all you've evaluated what and who you found.
I reckon that you'll succeed in motivating others to do likewise, congratulations!
I used the Internet as I'd seen nothing of my dad between 3 and 15 years of age, and he then died within a year and had been cremated before I knew - step mother was a nasty echo of her predecessor (my mom) and I had no photo of him until last year when I found some on the Internet, all taken just before he was wounded and thereafter at home on 2 weeks convalescence/embarcation leave. I'm glad he was wounded, otherwise I'd not have been born! My mom always said ''you're the spitting image of that ****''. I knew I really was when we met up just before I turned 16. At his cricket club they asked if I was his younger brother. He was 38 then. The photos I found show him at 23/4, and I've a couple of driving license etc photos of me at around those ages, and we were even more alike, and we wore the same badges of army rank. People here I've shown his photos to have all asked if they are of me. It's really worth having a go - it took me nearly 10 years of (very) intermittent searches to find anything, so as Jacqueline said, don't give up, keep going for it.
Best of Luck.
P.S. I'm just 65 so the photos are well on the road to 66/7 years old, but they look as if they were taken yesterday.