My great-great-grandmother was Hannah Stacey Cotterill (I have just discovered her name - very exciting!) and the story is she was born (in a castle?) in Kilkenny (no birth certificate found) from a pretty well-to-do family. She married against the family's wishes, a Patrick Mulherin (no marriage certificate found) and at some point they moved to Oldham in Lancashire, where the two girls were born. One was my great-grandmother, Mary Mulherin (b.1885) and her sister Matilda Mulherin (b. 1887)
The story continues that Patrick died around 1889 and Mary was taken back to Ireland by the grandparents. However, the girls' mother Hannah insisted that it was either both girls or none. Matilda was a sickly baby and had to spend around 18 months under medical care, something to do with her eyes. This obviously wasn't acceptable to the grandparents and the girls remained in Oldham/Bolton.
There is some story about the girls being summonsed to Liverpool to 'sign away their inheritance' sometime c. 1920.
And some of the Cotterill relatives, we know, went to Canada.
Does any of this link in with someone's geneaological knowledge of the Cotterills?
