DEARMAN & MOLLETT

This is my other totally unknown great-grandmother.  My father’s side of the family was a complete mystery to us until we started on this family history journey and his mother’s side of the family was even more of a mystery than his father’s.  I hope  this French portrait of Madame Alfred Sensier by Jean-François Millet stands in for Catherine, who was, like most of our (and probably everybody else’s) ancestors, an ‘ordinary’ woman.  

The photograph at the top right, may, in fact, actually be Catharine herself, and I am pleased to see that there is a slight resemblance between the two women.  The photograph is from a wedding photograph - bride unknown, although I am pretty sure that it is one of her daughters.  My father is there - obviously young, with, probably his mother. It is a photograph of the bridal party and so I am making some assumptions about who they all are, but I'm fairly certain that I am correct.

There are tragedies and triumphs in even the most ordinary of lives, and I hope that her story will interest you.  Indeed one thing that family history teaches you is that nobody is ‘ordinary’.

Catharine was a Londoner and her story takes us from one side of the river to the other and back again.  Interestingly most of her life was filled with women - she had no brothers and only one son that survived, but, of course there were fathers and husbands to compensate.  It must however make a difference if your children and siblings are predominantly of one sex.  Her father died young, and her mother remarried, which also must have had an impact on her life and her choices - not that there probably were many because, if you are from the lower orders your choices are limited.  Truth to tell I do not currently have an idea of the nature of Catherine - maybe writing her story will clarify her for me. 

Her birth certificate has her name as Catharine, but it is most often written as Catherine.  At her marriage she signs her name ‘Catherine’.