Dimelow

This most interesting and very unusual surname is of English (Anglo-Saxon), locational origin, from some minor, unrecorded, or lost village or hamlet believed to have been situated in Cheshire, which derived from the Olde English pre 7th Century "hlaw", a hill, and the Middle English "dimple", a dip in the ground. There are an estimated seven to ten thousand villages and hamlets that have been lost in Britain since the 12th Century. The prime cause of these disappearances was the enforced "clearing" and dispersal of the former inhabitants to make way for sheep pastures at the height of the wool trade in the 15th Century. Natural causes such as the Black Death of 1348, in which an eighth of the population perished, also contributed to this phenomenon. Early examples of this surname include: the marriage of Mary Dimelowe and Joshua Dutton, at Bunbury, Cheshire, on May 11th 1730; the marriage of Mary Dimiloe and Edward Owen on August 30th 1748, also at Bunbury; and Samuel Dimela of Bunbury in 1794 and Sarah Dimmellow of Nantwich in 1783, recorded in the Church Registers of Cheshire. John Dimlow married Mary Rushforth at St. Peter's, Leeds, in 1770, and Margaret Dimelow and John Bush were married on October 5th 1775 at St. James', Westminster, London. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of John Dimmiloe, which was dated November 2nd 1701, a christening witness at Warrington, in Lancashire, during the reign of King William of Orange and England, 1689 - 1702. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was known as Poll Tax. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.