Woolmer

This interesting and unusual name has its origins in the Olde English pre 7th Century personal name "Wulfmaer", meaning "Wolf-famous". It is recorded as a personal name in the Domesday Book of 1066 as "Wlmer" and "Vlfmer" and by 1230 is found in the Pipe Rolls of Norfolk in the shape of one "Wulmarus Lamb". The surname could also be locational from a lost village in Ormskirk, Lancashire called "Wolmoor", meaning "Wolves' moor". There is another place in Hampshire, Woolmer Forest, that may well have generated the surname too. Here the name means "Wolves' pool". Locational names were often given to those who left their original residence and went to live or work in another village or town. Cecily, daughter of Edwarde Woolmer, was baptised at St. James' Clerkenwell in 1588. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of William Wulmare, which was dated 1260, Assize Rolls of Cambridgeshire, during the reign of King Henry III, The Frenchman, 1216 - 1272. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was known as Poll Tax. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.