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

SOLE Co-ordinator's Report August 2010

 

 

We welcome Lynn Harber (nee Soal) to membership. 

 

Lynn said she had just started to prepare a family tree, but apart from her father Frederick Jack SOAL (1919-2003), her grandfather George SOAL (1890-1949) and her great grandparents Arthur and Sarah (nee CORPS) SOAL she had little to go on and was looking for more detailed information.  She came to the right place; as from that brief information we were able to connect Lynn with our largest Sussex family (almost 1400 known descendants) which we have traced back to 1640.  Lynn said she had read the article (Journal July 2000) by member Lizzie Love which mentioned her family and I hope Lizzie was able to send her a copy of the newspaper cutting and photo of her grandfather, which was mentioned in the article, as Lynn had never seen a photo of him.  

Meanwhile I have sent to Lynn a copy of her main tree chart and the branch chart in which she appears, with all the information we currently have.  This includes the sad fact that her great grandparents Arthur and Sarah were both killed in their home during a bombing raid in 1940.  I hope Lynn was not completely overwhelmed by the amount of data we have on this family, but since it was despatched we have not heard anything further from her.

 

We have received a few enquiries since my last report, none of which so far have led to new memberships. 

 

It is not really surprising in the case of Paul who wrote “my 3x Great Grandmother was born Charlotte SOLE in Herne Bay sometime around 1814.”  Paul had to search through five generations to reach a SOLE ancestor so clearly it is not one of his prime names.  However we know about Charlotte, the daughter of Edward and Bennett (nee BETTESWORTH) SOAL and who are part of our largest Kentish family. 

 

Before Charlotte married Paul’s ancestor George NASH at Canterbury in 1839 she gave birth to an illegitimate daughter Caroline in 1838.  Caroline’s father could of course been George but there is no known evidence of this and we have no further information on what happened to her.  Hopefully Paul will come back with such information and anything else he may know about Charlotte after she married George.

 

I have been busy connecting the recently published 1911 census data with our families and the information contained in it has been quite enlightening. 

 

A case in point is that of William SOLE who married Annie Miriam WITHERALL at Redhill, Surrey in 1907.  They had nine children between 1908 and 1928 and many grandchildren and great grandchildren.  For a long time I had been unable to identify William’s birth but the 1911 census has solved the problem.  When he gave his father’s name as Thomas, his age as 38 and birthplace Redford Sussex, I could see that he was a member of the same large Sussex family as was Lynn Harber, mentioned above; except he was in a different branch of the tree. 

 

However we had already married off William with Emma KETCHER in 1897 and they had given birth to four children between 1898 and 1902.  I had also previously discovered that Emma SOLE (nee KETCHER) had remarried in 1915 so I assumed that her marriage to William had ended in divorce.  It was virtually certain from the 1911 census that William’s marriage to Annie was a second marriage and with his two wives he sired 13 children which would have been considered a large family in the early 20th Century. 

 

So a further 60 descendants have found their rightful home in our records.  

 

 

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