Thanks Marienne. The extra name is very useful indeed :-) He may have been Marcella's brother (lots of finding out to be done before I can confirm that) as her maiden name was Sterling.
I have chased shadows for about 9 years trying to find out information about my husband's G Granny, Mary Wilson (nee Cochrane). She and her husband had a sweetie shop on Tunnel Road for many years.
From census returns I knew she was born in Antrim and had her 1898 marriage certificate and the entry from the marriage register at the church which told me her father was William Cochrane and that is about all I could find. Her address at the time of marriage was 6 Boundary Place.
I could find no trace of her in the 1891 census in England but looked in 1901 for 6 Boundary Place and found Marcella and John Keenan and, like Mary, they were confectioners.
That was a very tenuous connection, but I kept going back to it, my gut feeling was that somehow they may be related and that in the fullness of time, if more records from Northern Ireland came online and if I got better at searching ! I may just crack it eventually.
and now, very recently, I have got somewhere, I have Mary's birth cert which says her mother's maiden name was Sterling. Mary's parents' marriage cert shows Marcella Sterling as a witness. Marcella's birth record and Mary's Mum's birth cert show they were sisters. Its been a long slog, baby step by baby step but its paid off.
and now, thanks to you I have a potential 2x G Uncle to look at and see if I can tie him in.
The moral of the story is, with lots of patient baby steps and the help we get through the kindness of strangers, it 'is' possible to do what seemed at one time to be impossible :-)
Thank you SO much, you have really helped.
Boo
