Can anyone tell me what's going on here? Alternate maiden names for kids

[ColC]

The 1871 posted looks very good, as the Ancestry link does not seem to be connecting, so freecen below.

1871 Henry Street, Stockton

MCLEIGH   Henry   Head   38   Iron Dealer   Ireland   -      
MCLEIGH   Catherine   Wife   36      Ireland   -      
MCLEIGH   Isabella   Dau   14      Lancashire   Manchester      
MCLEIGH   Margaret A   Dau   7   Scholar   Durham   Sedgefield      
MCLEIGH   Catherine   Dau   4   Scholar   Yorkshire   South Stockton      
MCLEIGH   James   Son   10   Scholar   Durham   Sedgefield      
CONLIN   James   Boardr   15      Northumberland   Newcastle      

Colin

[Tickettyboo]

It might have depended on who registered the births if she was commonly known by both names. 

Is she the Isabella with Thomas McLEIGH and Catherine in 1871?  They didn't marry until 1860 and Isabella was born in c1856.

The McLEIGH children have KELLY as a mother's maiden name so this might be Isabella's birth.

WILSON, ISABELLA
Mother's maiden surname: KELLY     
GRO Reference: 1856  M Quarter in MANCHESTER  Volume 08D  Page 159

Debra 

I was about to post the same. :-)

I've seen a few cases where MMN was one thing for some of the children and another for others.
It did boil down to who registered the birth and what knowledge they had. In the cases I've seen the mother registered children with the correct MMN - according to 'her' birth registration
and Dad/ Mother in law registered other children with the mmn as the one she was known by before they married

No-one fibbed, they all did what was expected and gave the details to the best of their knowledge.
Boo

[SamuelF992]

This is all really interesting. Thank you everyone. That Kelly registration seems to make sense. My only question now is - if there's a Kelly and a McLeigh, where did the Wilson come from? 

[Tickettyboo]

the Wilson comes from:

FreeBMD
Marriages 1860 Q4 Leeds 9b 561
has 2 couples listed on that page, two of the names are Thomas McLeigh and Catherine Wilson
Not writ in stone from that info that they married each other.
so to check :
Yorkshire BMD
http://yorkshirebmd.org.uk/
Search Marriages 1860, Leeds District for
Catherine Wilson
and that result confirms she 'did' marry Thomas McLeigh

1871 census
Piece4903/folio7/page8
Has Thomas and Catherine with Isabella born before they married,  3 other children since they married. These three younger ones all check out as having a MMN of Kelly.

So the hypothesis is that Catherine was born Catherine Kelly, then at some stage either married someone called Wilson or was his sort of common law wife and had Isabella in 1856.

The Wilson man either died or they split up (which would make the marriage to Thomas McLeigh bigamous), no way of knowing unless we can find records to back that up - death/burial etc

The marriage cert from 1860, Leeds would tell you if she was a widow (or claimed to be) at the time of the marriage.
and the birth cert for Isabella Wilson mmn Kelly would hopefully give her father's name.

Boo

[Gadget]

Possible

RC Baptisms
2nd Jan 1856 Manchester St Mary
Isabella Wilson d of Johannes Wilson and Catherine Kelby (b 5 Jan 1855)

Transcription only

[SamuelF992]

Ah fantastic stuff both. Thank you so much everyone. Some excellent investigative work!

[Gadget]

I've just remembered that one of my Mates line married a John Joseph Westgarth in  Ebchester, on 3 April 1893*.  I'll check up and see if it's the same family.

* modified to give more info re marriage

[maddys52]

Well done to all, great detective work!