In 1897, Isaac Maclay published a genealogy of the Sater family in the American colonies. In the Sater genealogy at the back it lists "William Towson married (first) Catherine Allen of London, a descendant of Oliver Cromwell; (second) Dinah. He died in 1771." And with that throwaway line he has left generations guessing, how was Catherine connected to the Cromwells?
The most common connection made (in various blogs and on Ancestry) is to make her mother Elizabeth Cromwell, daughter of Henry Cromwell. This lady has the advantage of being born in the right place (Westminster) at the right time (about 1660) and being connected to Henry's father, Oliver. The disadvantage is that she is married to somebody else.
We have been trying to work backwards from Catherine Allen (we know when and where she was born) and forward from the late Tudor Cromwells such as Sir Henry Cromwell, the Golden Knight. The two routes have yet to meet but before the English Civil War there were a lot of Cromwells and they were not perfectly recorded.
If anyone has ideas as to where to go next in the search, or for criticism of the work so far please add them below. The main discussion of who Catherine's mother was is on the mother's profile.
