Mary Ann Fairbrother

AUDITED 25 Oct 2026 - BIRTH NOW SOURCED: 1851 census, Hill Top, Esh: widow, 58, born Warrington, Lancashire. NO PARENTS ENTERED. CORRECTED 16 Aug: surname Fairbrother, not Mason. BIRTH SOURCED, PARENTS NOT ENTERED - 25 Oct 2026. The 1851 census (HO107/2389 f.558 p.8), read on the image, finds her at Hill Top, Esh, the address of the 1841 household, as "Mary Johnson, Head, Widow, 58, Domestic duties", born "Lancashire Warrington", with Anne 22, John 20 and Catherine 11, all born Lanchester. The address and the three children make the identification certain. It is the first record found that states her birthplace, and it shows George dead by 30 Mar 1851. HER AGE. 58 in March 1851 and 48 in June 1841 both put her birth in 1792-93; the birth year stays 1793. CANDIDATE PARENTS, NOT ENTERED: Thomas and Ann ("Nancy") Fairbrother of Warrington, fustian cutter, whose daughter Mary was baptised at St Elphin, Warrington, on 28 Dec 1794 (Lancashire Online Parish Clerks transcription). She is the only Mary Fairbrother baptised in Warrington 1781-1812 in either the St Elphin register or the Non-Conformist registers (TNA RG 4), which hold no Warrington Fairbrother at all. Two things stand against her. Her own ages give 1792-93, while that couple's son William was baptised on 17 Feb 1793. And three Lancashire Marys of the right age were baptised elsewhere: at Up Holland on 18 Mar 1792 (daughter of James Fairbrother, carpenter) and at Manchester in 1791 and 1792 (daughters of John Fairbrother). Only the 1851 birthplace sets them aside. The 1815 marriage register (Manchester St Mary, entry 163, read on the image) was witnessed by "Wm Fairbrother" and a second Fairbrother read as "Thos" on the original and "John" on the register's copy. It was not a James, as an earlier transcription had it. WHAT WOULD SETTLE IT: a clearer reading of that first witness, or a record naming this Mary Ann's parents or a sibling, such as Thomas Fairbrother's burial or a William Fairbrother in Manchester c.1815. Registers K1312-K1316. AUDITED 16 Aug 2026 - SURNAME CORRECTED FROM MASON TO FAIRBROTHER. Five Roman Catholic baptism entries of her children at Esh Laude St Michael's, Lanchester, Co. Durham (Durham Records Online 419739, 412606, 423665, 409647, 409118) name the mother FAIRBROTHER in every one: Mary (1831), Margaret (1833), Mary (1835), Mary (1837), Mary Ann (1839). The 1839 entry reads "Mary Ann Fairbrother", which is this tree's given name exactly, so the given name is unchanged and only the maiden surname was wrong. MASON IS UNSUPPORTED. Before this correction the surname Mason appeared exactly once in this database, on her alone, and she carried zero citations. DISCREPANCY, recorded and NOT resolved: the 1833 entry for her daughter Frances reads "Margaret Farbrother" where the 1831, 1835, 1837 and 1839 entries read Mary or Mary Ann. Four of five agree and the outlier is bracketed on both sides, so a two-wives reading would require the sequence Mary-Margaret-Mary-Mary Ann inside eight years within one surname. Read here as a clerical slip - but the register says Margaret, and that stands recorded. A mechanism once offered here (a twelve-month-late 1835 baptism) is WITHDRAWN 13 Oct 2026: the register image, RG 4/2281 p.15, shows Margaret born 17 July and baptised 19 July 1835, two days apart (K1031). The 1833 Margarita stays a slip on the four-of-five count alone. Her death (June 1856, Durham) carries no citation and is NOT covered by these baptisms; it may have arrived from whatever supplied the surname Mason, and this correction is not evidence for it. Her BIRTH at Warrington is now sourced to the 1851 census (25 Oct 2026, above). Full account: ancestry/documents-read-index.md K139-K142; ancestry/parentage-rings-plan.md.