In this journal we welcome three new members to the Society: Ann Noone, Mark Jordan and Evelyn Blay.

Ann is a descendant of Elizabeth Soul and Severin Borland, who married in Manchester Cathedral on 20 December 1852. Ann has done a lot of research into her Borland line and now wants to investigate the Soul side of the family. Elizabeth was the daughter of John Soul and Hannah Paybody, and was born in Olney, BUK, in 1841. Church records and wills show that this Soul family has lived in Olney since at least the late sixteenth century with descendants of Elizabeth's brother John still living there today.

Mark is researching his mother's family. Her father George William Soul was born in Swindon in 1922 where his father was employed by the Great Western Railway. Mark's family has been traced from Wiltshire, back to Bisley in Gloucestershire and from there to Sherborne, Yanworth and finally to Cirencester, where William Soul married Mary Sansom on 30 September 1749. Mark has vivid memories of his great grandfather William Frederick Soul (1895-1981) who he remembers as a frail little old man with an artificial leg – the result of an injury in the First World War.

Evelyn joined the Society hoping to learn more about the family of her great grandmother Elizabeth Esther Sole who married George Kemble in Hackney in 1873 at the age of 20. Elizabeth's parents were James Sole (b 1824, Hackney, MDX), a lamplighter, and Elizabeth Kidd (b 1830, St Albans, HRT). The family has been traced back to the marriage of John Sole and Sarah Hale on 27 November 1692 in Throcking, HRT.

I've spent most of the last few months adding the 1911 census data to our database and as a result many of the family trees have grown substantially – the Kelshall tree now includes information on more than 2000 people, while the family descended from William Soul and Mary Sansom, mentioned above, now numbers more than 1100. If you'd like an updated version of your family information, please get in touch.

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