What we cannot close
Not the same page as the open questions. These are the places where the work has been done properly and the record may simply not exist — where more effort is not obviously the answer.
An archive that lists only its questions implies they are all answerable. Some are not. A parish register with a gap in it, a marriage in a country nobody has narrowed, a farm held on a lease that left no title — these do not yield to persistence.
Each row says what was actually done, so that nobody repeats it, and then says plainly what would have to exist for the gap to be closable at all.
*** Where Pablo Armando was baptised ***
What has been done
The Rosario cathedral index read letter by letter for 1881-1883; the whole L and Ll sections read end to end for 1879-1901; and the register ITSELF read act by act for February and March 1882 - 261 baptisms, every margin.
Why it may never close
Until 1888 the cathedral was the city's only parish, so there is nowhere else in Rosario he could be. Either he was baptised outside the city, not as an infant, or the register itself has a gap. If the act was never written, no amount of reading will find it.
Maria Lerena's maiden name
What has been done
The enrolment card writes her with her husband's surname. Rosario marriages read clean for 1867-1885 at full resolution. No Juan Carlos Lerena in any indexed record in Argentina or Uruguay.
Why it may never close
If they married in Italy or Spain before emigrating, the record is in a parish nobody has identified, in a country nobody has narrowed. The death notice may name her; if it does not, this may be the end.
Whether he was a Consul General
What has been done
The 1940 passport shows him as the BEARER; the consular signature is A. B. Bayne. Argentina had no legation in South Africa until 1950.
Why it may never close
An honorary consulship leaves a trace in the host state's gazette and almost nowhere else. If the exequatur was never gazetted, the tradition cannot be tested at all.
The eight years between Northam and the Cape
What has been done
Narrowed to two candidate ships. Passenger indexes searched under Taylor, Lerena, Lerina and Larena.
Why it may never close
If he came with the remounts rather than as a passenger, he is in military and shipping paperwork that was never indexed by name - and much of it was destroyed.
The ostrich farm
What has been done
The deeds registers show him holding no land at all.
Why it may never close
A leased farm leaves no deeds trace. Absence of a title is not absence of a farm, and there may be nothing to find either way.