Origin of surname
It is suggested that this surname is derived from an early French form of tete (head) and was applied to someone with a big head, either literally or figuratively.
Early records
The de la Taste family arrived in Jersey in the mid-18th century in the shape of Jean, who was married to Marie Susanne Sauze at St Helier's Parish Church on 17 March 1736. Payne's Armorial of Jersey says that Jean was one of the final wave of Huguenot refugees who fled their homeland in the 1720s after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. However, he was not born until 1707, over 20 years after the Revocation, and no other member of his family fled France, so it appears that Payne may have been wrong and that Jean left his home at Saintes, near Bordeaux, for different reasons. Payne says that he settled first in Spain but finally moved to Jersey, where he married in 1736. Payne and a French online family tree give his wife's name as 'Souzé', but it appears in Jersey Church records as 'Sauzé'. Jean's father was also Jean, and it appears that he visited Jersey to be a godparent at the baptism of his first grandchild. Jean's parents, siblings and extended family continued to live in the Saintonge area of France. Almost all those members of the family born in Jersey are shown in the tree below, which has been newly expanded to show much more of the French family.
Family records
Family trees
- Descendants of Jean de la Taste, an expanded tree showing the family's French ancestry
Church records
- De La Taste baptisms in Jersey
- De La Taste marriages in Jersey (groom)
- De La Taste marriages in Jersey (bride)
- De La Taste burials in Jersey
Great War service
Notes on our list, abbreviations used etc
- Herbert Colin de La Taste (1899- ) (St H) son of Herbert Gerald and Katherine De Salis, OV, 2nd-Lieutenant, Sherwood Foresters
- John Mellish de La Taste (1875- ) (St H) son of John James and Elvina, OV, Captain RE
Family wills
Burial records
Family photographs
John de la Taste photographed by Ernest Baudoux
Major de la Taste photographed by Ernest Baudoux
Miss de la Taste photographed by Ernest Baudoux
Family businesses
Family gravestones
Click on any image to see a larger version. See the Jerripedia gravestone image collection page for more information about our gravestone photographs
Tips
The church record links above will open in a new tab in your browser and generate the most up-to-date list of each set of records from our database. These lists replace earlier Family page baptism lists, which were not regularly updated. They have the added advantage that they produce a chronological listing for the family name in all parishes, so you do not have to search through A-Z indexes, parish by parish.
We have included some important spelling variants on some family pages, but it may be worth searching for records for a different spelling variant. Think of searching for variants with or without a prefix, such as Le or De. To search for further variants, or for any other family name, just click on the appropriate link below for the first letter of the family name, and a new tab will open, giving you the option to choose baptism, marriage or burial records. You will then see a list of available names for that type of record and you can select any name from that list. That will display all records of the chosen type for that family name, and you can narrow the search by adding a given name, selecting a parish or setting start and end dates in the form you will see above. You can also change the family name, or search for a partial name if you are not certain of the spelling
The records are displayed 30 to a page, but by selecting the yellow Wiki Table option at the top left of the page you can open a full, scrollable list. This list will either be displayed in a new tab or a pop-up window. You may have to edit the settings of your browser to allow pop-up windows for www.jerripediabmd.net. For the small number of family names for which a search generates more than 1,500 records you will have to refine your search (perhaps using start or end dates) to reduce the number of records found.
New records
Since August 2020 we have added several thousand new records from the registers of Roman Catholic, Methodist and other non-conformist churches. These will appear in date order within a general search of the records and are also individually searchable within the database search form
A--B--C--D--E--F--G--H--I--J--K--L--M--N--O--P--Q--R--S--T--U--V--W--X--Y--Z