DEARMAN & MOLLETT

I have yet to find some more definitive evidence before deciding which of these two men was William Dearman’s father.  Indeed it may well be that his father was somebody else entirely.

I have discounted the other possibles who lived rather further north in Hertfordshire, simply because of geography, but it is not impossible that William’s father could have been one of those candidates, for people did travel - indeed I think that Thomas’s wife Esther originates from there.  These two however, married and had children in the Essendon area - William in Hertford and Thomas in Little Berkhamsted.  Their children all have typical Dearman names too.  If only one of them had named a child Mahalah,  - then I would have been sure!

I also have no idea what they did.  I have chosen this Italian portrait of poor peasants (note they have no shoes) because I would be amazed if these early Dearmans were wealthy.  They might have had a trade though.

All that I know of them is shown in the right-hand column.  At the moment I am leaning towards Thomas as the ancestor, simply because Little Berkhamsted is right next door to Essendon and Henry, his last child, was baptised there.  The names of the children are similar and so not a deciding factor.  And neither William nor any of his descendants have used either Ruth or Esther as a name for their daughters.  So this is pure supposition.  I’m sure whoever he was would have been something like the men in Cerutti’s painting though.  It would have been a universal look for most of the agricultural population of Europe at that time.