@ndhubbard for birth, marriage and death registrations from 1st July 1837 onwards for England and Wales do check out the GRO (General Register Office) website.
Once registered with them, when checking births, for example, it will bring up the mother's maiden name.Not only that, when ordering copies of certificates, you have the option for some of them to have an online digital copy for £2.50. Go to the Frequently Asked Questions section of their website for full details.
If this is the Jane YOUNG that you have found, the mother's maiden name is recorded as BURGON:
View attachment 13544
That might be just muddying the waters, though...
Meanwhile, do you have copies of any of the birth certificates for the other children? If so, what is the mother's maiden name there?
All other Steele children whose documents list MMN have “Young”. And there are a handful of next generation (Mary’s grandchildren) who have Young as a middle name, so it’s clearly what most in the family understood to be her surname.
Obits I have found do not mention her MN or anything about her origin. For many years the same was true about James Steele but I recently found reference to Berwick-Upon-Tweed for him, which is what lead me to this thread
