I AM compiling my family history and seek information about John Cosgrove whose parents, Patrick Cosgrove and Mary Mottershaw, lived at 62 Leyland Street, Blackburn, when they married at St Anne's Church nearby on July 19, 1930.

Mary was a spinster at the time and already had a daughter born out of wedlock in 1922.

The problem is that her son, known to everyone as John Cosgrove, may have been another of Mary's children before she married. In that case, he may have really been called John Mottershaw.

I have reason to believe he was taken into the care of the Cottage Homes on Queens Road near Queen's Park Hospital at one time. I am also told he enlisted in the Navy and after the war returned to live in Blackburn with another relative of mine, Annie Collins.

It is also possible that he was a child from Patrick's two previous marriages.

One was to Ann Moran in 1907, also at St Anne's Church. In between, he also married someone else - I don't know who or where but it was not at St Anne's.

I hope that any living relatives of Patrick Cosgrove or Mary Mottershaw will contact me and shed some light on this mystery.

S COSGROVE (Mr), 22 Whitebirk Road, Blackburn, BB1 3JD. Tel. 01254 676003.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.