| Notes |
- John Alston is the most remote Alston ancestor in the direct connected line. He is descended from William Alston of Stisted in Essex.
This is a family of great antiquity and is said to be of Saxon extraction. We find them mentioned as early as Edward the First's reign, When William Alston of Sisted, in Essex, did grant and confirm to John de Carpenter of Naylinghurst, so much of his better land in Sisted, except his mansion house there.
Saxham Hall, in Newton, was anciently the seat of the Alstons for many hundred years. In Edward the Third's time, Hugh Alston bore for arms, azure, ten stars, or 4,3,2,1, which was long before coat armour was granted by patent. The same Coat of Arms is used by the American families.
The Alstons purchased "Odell" from the Chetwoods in 1640. Castle Odell commanded a delightful prospect overlooking the Ouse River, whose beautiful meanderings are remarkably striking. Between it's curves on the north rises a wide extended hill covered with the noblest wood in this country, containing more than three hundred acres, and known by the name of "Odell Great Woods".
Alstons through the Temple lines, are traced without an unbroken link through Alfred the Great to Harderick, the first known Saxon King, B.C. 90.
The Alston Family can claim a rich heritage with very marked characteristics. In personal appearance they were very tall, erect, muscular, with florid complexion, blue eyes, and brown or flaxen hair. they held much wealth, though not given to money making as a business, and have but seldom been paderers for political preferment, or sought public honors. Rather, they have acted the part of wealthy country gentlemen who lived well, bestowed upon their families all the pleasure and luxuries which circumstances could afford, and dispensing hospitality with a liberal hand. Strong in their attachments and unyielding in their antagonisms. They have ever been ready to make common cause with a friend, defend injured innocence, befriend the weak, or fight against whatever they conceived to be injustice, wrong or oppression, and as masters were kind and considerate to their servants. Their own conduct being open and above board, they held in abhorrence all sham or pretence of every kind, or anything that savored of dishonesty or meanness, preferring death to dishonor. Their women, while always proud of their ancestral lineage, were gentle in their homelife, unfaltering in their devotion, true and faithful in all that goes to make up the sum of domestic and social endearment and happiness, cherishing virtue as the crowning jewel of womanhood.
From Kimber and Johnson, Baronetage of England, 1771, Vol. I, p.457. as quoted in THE ALSTON FAMILY, p. 11. After some descents from the above, said William Alston, of Stisted, the linealdescendant of this family was John Alston, of Newton, in Suffolk. He was the father of William, who, by Ann the daughterof Thomas Symons, had issue.
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John Alston of Newton in Suffolk the most remote ancestor in the direct connected line. But of him there is little known except that he is stated to have been descended from the above-mentioned William, of Stisted, in Essex. Investigation has brought to light several Alstons living in the neighbourhood of Newton and Sudbury as contemporaries of Job?, so that it will not be rash to assume that the migration from Stisted occurred some while anterior, and that the family had ramified around Its new settlement. Probably too its position had become established and assured, for John was father of William
Source; Cresswell, Lionel (1905) Stemmata Alstoniana, Table1.
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