The person that has taken me the longest to find...has to be Sarah Ann Smith nee Bachell Bachell-5. For nearly 30 years I have been hunting her, routinely checking every new database that came out each year, in the hope of discovering where she went. For nearly 30 years, I believed she had abandoned her husband and young children, possibly run off with another man, changed her surname and maybe emigrated to the US (where her brother and sister went) but with the surname Smith (assuming it was even still Smith) it was like looking for a needle in a haystack.
Sarah's husband George Smith Smith-124852 was recorded as "married" in 1871 but had another woman, a widow named Emma Benness living with him as a "housekeeper". By 1881 he had moved from Kent to Wolverhampton, and Emma was now his "wife" though I could never find a marriage. When Emma died in 1895, she was recorded as Emma Smith, wife of George Smith.
It was only by chance as I was researching the newspapers that I found a newspaper article relating to George Smith for not paying for the upkeep of his wife who had been committed to the Surrey Lunatic Asylum in 1868, George being taken to court in 1868 and 1869. It was from these (I assume previously unreleased) newspapers that I then managed to trace Sarah Ann from Surrey County Lunatic Asylum, to one Kent County Asylum, then to the last one in Chartham, Kent, where she died in 1899 - 5 years after her husband. He had obviously moved away from Kent to Wolverhampton to avoid paying for her maintenance.
I finally obtained her death certificate, and a copy of her post mortem last year, and plan to research the hospital records to try to find out more about why she was committed and her life in the asylums.
I felt so guilty about blaming her for abandoning her husband and family - the poor woman, once committed probably had no chance of ever being released and probably had to endure an awful life.