A quick Friday morning update on this! First, we want to thank everybody who has helped/contributed in any way to unpick Alma's story! I think we would have been perpetually stuck with this one given the potential unofficial surname change!
The crucial link which binds Alma to the Cross name is the WW1 pension records, but somewhat more importantly the PoW information for her son William, which gave a DoB of 23 Jul 1897 (officially, the year is wrong by 2 years, but given the variety of years we have been looking at
....)
This DoB in this PoW document perfectly ties to a 1939 record where we find a William Kelly of the same DoB with Margaret Gertrude Higham and a number of children, and tracing backwards located their marriage in 1919, Wigan.
However, the curveball is this marriage shows William as "William Joseph Kelly" - Pre marriage, there is no suggestion he ever had a middle name and when researching some 6 months ago, we originally discounted this pairing as the wrong William!
With this new information I needed access to this marriage certificate to see what was on it, but I remained on the fence about ordering, I generally only order paper certs where there is an almost certainty that it's the correct person.
I happened to be looking at Ancestry Thrulines for my wife's DNA and stumbled across a suggestion of a match that routed through Alma and then William Kelly - why we didn't explorer this earlier I don't know! The tree appeared to be good and detailed enough tree, so I started doing my due diligence to verify the information. A few things stuck out - IE very specific dates for BMD's. I decided to reach out to the creator of the tree and manager of the DNA record, explaining the position and the information found so far.
This morning, they sent me a number of certificates, including William and Mary's marriage (4th Aug 1919) which shows William as a coal hewer, and his father Patrick Kelly (deceased - coal hewer)
Bingo! A marriage certificate and a verified family path down to the DNA match via William Kelly confirms that the uncovered story of Alma post 1911 and that she at some point she became Alma Cross and partnered with George Cross!!
As for her daughter Lily Elizabeth, born 1907, she 100% won't be Patrick's, and I suspect that George Cross won't be her father either, although clearly had a hand in looking after her (although using the term loosely based on the news articles!). Speaking with my mother in law, she explained how the neglect article 'rang true' with Lily as she was always precious about making sure that no food was ever wasted and it was always known that the family line had a rough upbringing.
I am sure there might be a handful of new finds as we continue to dig and I will 100% share them here as appropriate. Chances are myself and my wife will take a trip down to Newton Cemetery in the coming months as its not too far away, to see if (and it's a big if!!) there is a headstone for Alma and George, as well to see if we can locate the communal resting place/marker of Patrick.
