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I have spent over a decade looking into all lines of my family but spent a lot of the time on one line in particular. I think we (my uncle & me) have finally cracked it, but thought it may be a bit of fun (and hopefully show someone else can work it out too, which will prove it's correct) to see if anybody else can get the same outcome from what info we had. A bit of a game, if you like.

It concerns my great grandfather's family. The Kirby line.

This is the info we had:
William Kirby (1912-1968, Leeds
His parents were William Rain Kirby (1887-1948) & May Clark (1889-1953). Both of Leeds.
We knew William Rain had a brother, Samuel, who lived 'down south'.
William Rain & May's marriage showed William's father as John Aaron Raine Kirby, labourer.

That's all we knew.

Nearly every tree on Ancestry has the wrong in, and mine is Dojackson149 so if you are trying to work this out then you might want to stay clear of Ancestry trees.

Hope you don't get as confused as we did.

Hannah Parkinson had five kids to a Parkinson  (possibly her uncle) between 1832-1841, all with the surname Parkinson.

Hannah marries a Kirby in 1841 and has two kids, both surname Kirby. The husband died in 1846.

She had five more kids with Raine between 1848-1856, four with the surname Raine, one with the surname Kirby (due to them not being married and the father being in prison).

Three of the Parkinson kids died before adulthood and died as a Kirby. The other two married as Kirbys with the father's name as the Kirby, not Parkinson. That can be explained as they were very young when their mum married the Kirby.

The two Kirby kids marry with their real names.

One of the Raine kids dies before adulthood as a Rayne  (which is a variation). The other three kids all marry in the 1870s as Kirbys. One listed their dad as Aaron Raine Kirby, one simply as Aaron Kirby (Aaron was the name of the Raine). There was no falling out with the dad as he's on living with one of the kids in the q881 census and a few of his kids give their children Aaron as a middle name.

Hannah dies as a Kirby in 1866, not Raine, which is what she was on the censuses.

Even more odd is that one of the Parkinson women, who changed her name to Kirby before marriage, has kids to a Bulmer. A few of her kids then change their name to Kirby during their adulthood and call their family kirby (or Bulmer-Kirby).

Is there any explanation for why they'd do this?

They were all poor, illiterate labourers so there seems to be no monetary gain from it.