Mystery Mary

[Girl Guide]

Well it seems that Tom died as a Mottershaw

Deaths Sep 1957 
MOTTERSHAW    Tom    74    Northwich    10a   369

Gives a birth year of 1883

[Girl Guide]

Hhmmm, in the 1939 Register his surname is Hollingsworth living in Cheshire. Not allowed to give a great deal of information from the 1939.

I've found Tom's marriage

Marriages Dec 1907
ASTBURY    Lily        Northwich    8a   475   
MOTTERSHAW    Thomas        Northwich    8a   475

I'm going to have to go out soon.  I'll have a look again later.

[Girl Guide]

Well I can find Tom in the 1911 living at Dlamere Kelsall Chester, Delamere, Cheshire with his wife and two sons.

He is down as Hollingsworth.

It's Mary who is proving difficult to pin down.  I'll have a look and see what I can come up with, if anything.  Depends on whether she married, although so far it doesn't look like it, and what surname she was using, Hollingsworth or Mottershaw. The last sighting I have of her is in the 1881 census.

[MrsYC]

Yeah he died a Mottershaw, he took everyone to change their names. I’m wondering whether Mary went to live with the Symms? I’ve a feeling that one of them is Toms biological father. Tom went to live with his grandparents as a child

[Girl Guide]

Anything is possible with family history    I'll see if Mary went under the Symms name at all.

[Girl Guide]

Nothing under the Symms name or the Billington one which was the other name on the 1881 census.  Mary seems to have done a thorough vanishing act. 

Perhaps she emigrated.  I assume that you have nothing for her other than that she is the mother of Tom and born in Cheshire in 1861?

[MrsYC]

Literally nothing about her o just can’t find her? I did find a birth record where she was listed as Martha instead of Mary but I am still hitting a wall

[MrsYC]

She left Tom with his grandparents and that’s all we know

[Girl Guide]

The problem is you don't know what surname she was using.  Hollingsworth, Mottershaw or Mottershead or a corruption of any of those names.  Did she stay in Cheshire or go elsewhere?

Did she marry or not?  Did she use her second name of Elizabeth instead of her first at some point?

Questions to which answers at the moment are not forthcoming.

Do you feel that she probably stayed in Cheshire or went elsewhere?