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Jan-Poo's point, I think, is that missing evidence is only a clue if that evidence ought to exist but is clearly being avoided.
The parentage of the siblings is not being "avoided." It's just assumed. The default assumption in a familial relationship is that everyone is related by blood. That's why finding out someone is adopted is so surprising; it's not what the unstated evidence would have us think.
Meanwhile, what really happened in 1986, specifically the endgame event, is being very suspiciously avoided, particularly by characters in 1998. What happened ought to not just be common knowledge, but trivial knowledge; anyone would have at least known the suspected causes. Yet that information is clearly being kept from us. Therefore, speculation on what that information must mean and why it's being hidden is warranted.
So no, the absence of evidence isn't necessarily proof nothing is going on in a mystery story, but at the same time, it's only if that absence is supposed to be the thing we notice.
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