Liverpool & South West Lancashire FHS - Forum

I am trying to find details of my great grandmother Margaret Smith. Her marriage certificate says she was born in Liverpool 1854/5. She gives Alexander Smith as the father's name. However we suspect she may be an orphan or illegitimate. She married in the RC church in Cheshire. Can anyone suggest how I can find out her DOB and resolve the details of her origins? Registrar can't match the details.
Thank you
Jo

Hi Jo and welcome,
Can you tell us who she married and when? What was her father's occupation and what were the witnesses' names?

And please tell us the census page references for each census you have found her in. The reference will be similar to RG 12 [for 1891] - Piece: ? - Folio: ? - Page: ?
1861 will be RG09; 1871 will be RG10, etc.

Hi Jo,
An afterthought... meant to ask about...

Registrar can't match the details.

Please tell us exactly what you said in the birth cert application. What were all the details you supplied to the GRO?

Hi and welcome to the forum.

I can only add, please give us the details from the censuses you have her on, especially before she was married, and from these perhaps we can work backwards to pinpoint her.

Thank you all for your interest. I cannot add much more info. Margaret Smith married Edmund Carroll 1877 at St Peters RC chapel in Stalybridge. Father Alexander Smith was a saddler deceased. She was living in a nearby village at Bank Side, Mossley and worked as a cotton tenter. Marriage witnesses were Edward Melia and Ellen Carroll. I can only find her after her marriage in the censuses 1881-1911. She is a housewife from Liverpool with 4 live children except by 1911 she probably got confused and put Stalybridge as her birth place as well as her residence. She died in 1914 in her 60th year. We told the registrar all this and added she may have been orphaned early or been illegitimate. They found 8 M Smiths born 1854 in Liverpool but none with father Alexander. I think I have hit the brick wall without any info of her early life Thank you Jo

I'm a little confused as to whether we should be looking at her in censuses 1881 and 1891 in Manchester or Liverpool. Could you please give the full details and the references for them.

I think these,

1881, RG11, P4054 F23 Page25

1891, RG12, P3291 F81 Page26

1901, RG13, P3796 F124 Page41

1911, RG14, Piece24427.

Re:

Father Alexander Smith was a saddler deceased.

Are you sure Alexander's occupation was 'Saddler'?

I can only give you what she told the registrar at the time. There were blacksmiths in her husband's family. Maybe a common interest
Jo

I can find her in the censuses from 1881 onwards in Stalybridge Lancs till her death there in 1914.
I cannot find her there in 1871 which is 6 years before her marriage in 1877 aged 23.
I am hoping she was still in Liverpool her birthplace but have had no luck finding her.
If she was illegitimate or orphaned, are there records I could use to try and trace her origins?
I believe she was of the RC faith.
Thank you
Jo

The main one I could think of is the Workhouse Records or those for Industrial Schools, such as Kirkdale, thesea re held at the Liverpool Record Office.