The western part of Essex, together with the eastern borders of Hertfordshire, seems to have been the heartland of the Dellow families in the 16th and 17th centuries. Within Essex the area extended from north of Bishop’s Stortford – from villages such as Farnham and Manuden - in an arc around to the south of Bishop’s Stortford, encompassing villages such as Ugley, Widdington, Hatfield Broad Oak, High Laver, Willingale Spain and Shellow Bowells. It is from here that the families spread through Herfordshire to Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire, Berkshire and the growing metropolis of London only a few miles to the south.

The family trees for Essex are quite fragmented. As I find and work my way through the parish records they should improve. Even so, because formal church records only began in the 16th century information on the origins of the family before this period has not yet been traced.