Thank you Fiona for trying to find details about Mary Hannah Copeland.
As mentioned I have tried all the English death indexes in case she had returned to Derby, but nothing there either, for Copeland or Grant. Of course she must have changed her surname if she had another partner, which I suspect must have been the case.
I know all the children were at different addresses, especially after 1881, the children were all in Edinburgh, except for my grandmother, she had been with her maternal grandmother in Derby for a while, then after she died, her sister Effie had taken her to Edinburgh, then she arranged for her to be sent to Canada as an orphan
I have her records kindly arranged by Barnardos, in which there are a few excerpts of letters sent to her from her father, one in which he remarks "no wife and no job, but never mind my dear we will manage, Effie has been so selfish"
Apparently my grandmother had confessed to the Home authorities, that she was not an orphan at all. Her father at the time of writing had been in Birmingham. It was also mentioned that he had discussed with her the family history (how I wish I had that letter !
There was never any mention that the mother had died, and by 1891 George Nelson had acquired a new "wife" whom he married in 1910 in Derby. I had assumed that Mary Hannah must have died around that year, because he stated he was now a widower on the marriage cert.
However, if its true that Mary Hannah died in 1919 (as had been mentioned in the family tree of Roads of Buckingham) then obviously the marriage was bigamous.
These events could have been the reason why my mother never told me anything about the family`s past, or that George Nelson & Mary Hannah had parted. Sadly my grandmother died in 1941 when I was only 10 years old, so I never had the chance to learn anything about her early life, she might have told me about her parents had she lived until I was an adult, but then she might not have I`ll never know anyway.
I have started to go through the family tree mentioned, in the hope that I can find some link as to why the author inserted the information about Mary Hannah, or if I can find any clue as to where she "lifted" the information from
someone somewhere obviously has the information, if only I could find out who!
Sorry for blethering on, I`ll shut up now, and just say thanks again for taking an interest and trying to help, it is appreciated.