We have one new member to welcome in this journal, Diana Reed, who is researching the SOOLE family of Ickleton, CAM. Diana and I have not yet had the opportunity to exchange information in detail but I am hoping that she will be able to extend the Ickleton tree, which currently consists of 262 individuals.

Over the last few months there has been a steady trickle of SOLE enquiries, mostly via the Internet, and although for the most part these researchers have chosen not to join the Society, we have nonetheless gleaned much valuable information from them. Mike Reidy is researching his wife’s SOLE connections: her great-grandparents were John Lyons of Kanturk, Co Cork and Winifred Sole of Banbury. John and Winifred met on one of John’s regular trips from Ireland to the horse fairs at Banhury. The couple married in Banhury in 1878 and then settled in Kanturk. Before hearing from Mike, we had very little information on the Banbury SOLEs - just a few 1881 census entries. However, his query provided the necessary impetus to explore this family further and just working backwards through the censuses has so far taken the family back to a Samuel Sole, who according to the 1851 census, was born in Aston leWalls, NTH in about 1777.

Alan Deller has been researching the family of his grandmother Rosemary Soule, who was born in Northleach, GLS in 1883. Rosemary’s father, Joseph, was a solicitor’s clerk and a lifelong member of the Wesleyan Chapel. According to Alan’s mother he was known in the family as "Holy Joe". The Society has been able to give Alan some details about the earlier generations of his family and has in return received information about the later ones together with some family anecdotes.

Margaret Dunton was looking for information on Mary Soul who married William Dunton in Olney, BKM in 1799. In her initial enquiry she seemed rather doubtful that we’d he able to help as at that time this was the only mention of SOUL she had on her tree and she was amazed that we could immediately identify William and Mary as part of the large Olney clan. Margaret also has SEWELL interests that she hopes to be able to follow up through the Society.

Teena Hartsfield has traced her family back to Ebenezer Soule who was born in Massachusetts in 1778. Ebenezer married Sarah Oakley in Columbia County, New York in 1803 and they brought up their 14 children in New York state. Ebenezer’s son Nathan Ethan later moved to Wexford County, Michigan, where many of his descendants still live today. Teena has so far been unable to discover who Ebenezer’s parents were.

Two new sources of SOLE data have become available in the last few months: the LDS British Isles Vital Record Index CD and The Commonwealth War Graves Commission Debt of Honour Register. The Vital Records Index is very similar to the IGI but for the most part covers different parishes. The Debt of Honour Register lists the inscriptions on the gravestones and war memorials for the dead of the two World Wars that are maintained by the Commonwealth Graves Commission and thus covers service personnel from the UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. It also includes some memorials to civilians killed in air raids, such as 17-year-old Charles Arthur Sole of Bethnal Green, LND, who was killed when a bomb hit Bank Tube Station in January 1941. The information given in the register varies greatly but is often sufficient to enable us to identify the individual. The data from both these sources have been added to our database.

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