BTD: I did a lot of research on a site called familysearch.org. You can access images of a lot of records there. Sometimes you can't get to the images because it's something available through one of the paid sites, BUT it lists some of the info off them at least. I haven't paid for a membership either, but I did a lot of stuff on that site because it's free. It's very effective.
But what also helped was posting on a surname forum at
http://genforum.genealogy.com/ - just type the surname into the forum finder and it'll pull up any forums relating to the name. I had originally found that when searching my grandfather's name, because my uncle had posted something there years and years ago, searching for my dad's siblings, that gave me a lead to go off of. I found a few things, and recently posted a thread of my own looking specifically for his brother (the sister passed away a long time ago), and some random person provided me with info including an article written in some prep school alumni magazine that led us to the man himself, still alive at 90!