Jackson / Price Family Tree. Genealogy includes Saxton, Rolinson, Wollaston, Moon families and the numerous other branches and twigs!

Garry Price tells me of his having once worked with a 'Wollaston' who was descended from a family called Wollstein. I was, therefore, very interested to read about this family in Donovan Wollaston’s From Now to Domesday with the Wollastons. He makes two references to the family, first of all when writing about the Bishop’s Castle branch of the Wollastons and then in a short chapter about the Wollsteins.

( From ‘Bishops Castle Branch’)
“ The name Wollaston crops up in Canada. America and other parts of the world. These people should be considered with a certain amount of caution. It could be that like the Wollsteins they have chosen the name because they like it. This occurred when John Edward Israel Wollstein fled to England from Poland in 1810 when the rest of his family had all been killed. Although some of the members of this family retained the new name of Wollaston some subsequently returned to their previous name.”

(Page 123 of Donovan Wollaston's "From now to Domesday")
As there are so many Wollastons descended from the Wollstein family I feel that as this book will probably come into the hands of some of them it would be of interest to them to have the facts as I know them. I have corresponded with some of them and they are not all clear as to their origin - one thought he had German ancestry but hoped it was a long way back!

The following information has been given me by J. D. Wollaston, Master Mariner, who holds documents left by his father. The history begins with Count Wollstein of Poland, an interpreter to Prince Jerome on his Egyptian Campaign. Jerome, Napoleon's brother, was later King of Westphalia. Wollstein also accompanied Napoleon to Moscow. In 1830 the family took part in the Polish rising and the whole family was killed with the exception of John Edward Israel Wollstein a boy of 14 wounded and left for dead, but who escaped and made his way to England. He married an English girl, May Carter, settled at Kingston-on- Thames and had eight children.

Later came World War I and their German sounding name brought them humiliation and insults, stones and broken windows, in spite of the fact that one family had five brothers serving in the British Army. In 1919 the family held a conference and decided on a change of name, and because they knew a village named Wollaston and it being not unlike their own name it was adopted by this branch. There would have been other descendants of John Edward who did not change their name, and I believe others may have reverted to their original name.

I have cited a copy of the deed poll of the change of name made by one of the brothers Louis James Wollstein on 11 July, 1919 - his four brothers and four sisters made the change about the same time

A search of the 1881 census confirms much of Donovan’s story. There are only three families bearing the name Wollstein, all coming from Shropshire. The eldest appears to be the John of Donovan’s article.

He is recorded in the census as age 64, as would have been the boy in the story, and was born in Breslau, Prussia. Breslau was later part of Poland. His wife’s name is given as Mary not May, but this is a common discrepancy.

A search of The London Gazette expands a little on the last paragraph. I have found five deeds poll in the Gazette, spread over three years. This means that it did not happen in quite the way that Donovan suggests (The dates are the date of the deed poll. The dates of the notices may be some time later. )

• William Henry W - 6th November 1917
• John Edward W - 17th July 1918
• Arthur Christopher W - 4th January 1919
• Louis James W - 11th July 1919 (Louis was serving with his regiment in Mesopotamia and it was September before the deed poll was entered in London)
• Margaret Elizabeth W - 23rd October 1920