The Sole Society, a Family History Society researching Sole, Saul, Sewell, Solley and similar names

SOLES Co-ordinator's Report April 1995

By Bill Soles

For the past six months I have been ab­stracting SOLES births and marriages from the GRO indexes and this work is now complete. I shall next be moving on to the deaths.

Since my last report, I have made quite a bit of progress in tracking down the American branches of my Birmingham SOLES family. The archivist at Woburn Public Library, Massachusetts, put me in touch with Mrs. Elizabeth (Betty) Gay of Cin­cinnati, Ohio, whose father Clifford Oscar Soles was the grandson of Edward Oscar Soles, the elder brother of my great­grandfather who emigrated to Massachu­setts in 1842. Berry's interest in genealogy arises from the fact that her three children have inherited a rare disease called Dystonia brought into her family by one of her mother's ancestors.

Betty has sent me information which am­plifies considerably my knowledge of the American SOLES, particularly the family tree of her branch. She has pictures and articles about the Soles Market in Woburn, Mass., a photograph of her grandfather Frank Edward Soles, and her father's diary from World War II. She told me Woburn Library has a great deal of information on the SOLES family. They have index cards on articles in the newspapers on different Woburn families and through this Betty was able to obtain copies of letters written by her father during World War II.

Betty is in the process of writing a family history in the form of biographies of each individual appearing on her family tree starting with our common ancestor William Soles onwards and including all the de­scendants of his emigrant son Edward Os­car Soles. There are a lot of names with no biography at all, but some of the biogra­phies are very full. Although I have found a few minor errors, when the history is completed it will be a very useful addition to our archives, indeed it is already.

Betty also told me that the same day that she received my letter, her cousin David Soles phoned to say he had received a letter from a Howard M. Brown of Fort Worth, Texas enquiring about the SOLES family. His great‑great‑grandmother was Fannie Lee Soles born in Texas in 1870. Her ancestors came from Alabama and before that North Carolina, so she probably links not with the Woburn branch but with the Soles family of North Carolina descended from George Soule the Pilgrim, from which Jane Anders and Barbara Lyle are de­scended.

Also the same day that she received my letter Betty had a call from her sister in Massachusetts telling her to watch CNN because there was an anchorman on the evening news called SOLES. Betty made enquiries and found he was called Linden Soles and he could be contacted at the CNN Centre in Atlanta Georgia.

I have also been trying to track down the descendants of Edward Oscar's brother, William H. Soles, who emigrated with his brother, returned to England and then went back again. The Town Clerk at Arlington was able to supply me with details of the births of his children, the death of his first wife, his remarriage, his second wife's death and finally his own in 1888. I was also able to obtain a copy of his will. His son, also called William H. Soles, was described as of Chicago, so there may well be SOLES descendants there.

The search goes on!

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