We have had no new members since the last journal but we've exchanged information with a number of people and this has enabled us to add details to a number of our families.

Rick Soles wrote to ask if we had any information that would lead him to the origins of his 3×great grandparents Edward Sole and Ann Ellison. Edward, Ann and their family emigrated to the USA on the Devonshire, arriving in New York on 20 March 1849. Rick had lots of data on the family after their arrival in America but had not been able to identify where they came from in the UK. We were able to tell him that Edward and Ann had married in Ickham, Kent, on 13 Oct 1816 and that Edward, the second of the 12 children of John Sole and Elizabeth Wanstall, was baptised in Fordwich, Kent, on 21 Aug 1790.

Gary Allison wanted to know if we had any information on Hannah Soul who married William Cowley in 1709. He believes that she is the Hannah Soule, daughter of Samuel Soule and Ann Pope, who was baptised in Coaley on 1 April 1688. Unfortunately we were unable to help – although there are several Soul families in the Coaley area at this time, we have not yet found the evidence needed to fit them together.

Member Judy Steele's 2×great grandparents John and Elizabeth (nee Rae) Sole emigrated to the USA on the Great Eastern, landing in New York on 13 Jul 1863. The family settled first in Newbury and then moved on to Bothwell where John was the founding minister of Bothwell Baptist church. Judy has sent us copies of the GRO certificates that she has for her family and has given us an update on the data she has about them.

Member Frank Soul is researching the career of his great grandfather Matthew Augustus Soul (1828-1881), who studied civil engineering in Edinburgh and whose company is listed in the London Directory of 1861 as 'engineers and steam ship furnishers'. Frank has sent us copies of pictures he found of Matthew's uncle Caleb Soul and his second wife Mary Ann (nee Handley) and of their son Washington Handley Soul. Frank also sent an article and picture of Agincourt, the house in Strathfield, New South Wales, that Washington bought in 1903 when he retired from business after the amalgamation of the chain of chemists and druggists that he set up with his father with Pattinson & Co to form Washington H Soul, Pattinson & Co.

Roger Clayton wrote us to ask if we had any information about Basil John Butler Sole, son of Arthur Baron Sole. Roger had seen an article on the family in Soul Search (July 1998) in which it was stated that no marriages had been found for any of Arthur's three children. During research into his Clayton family Roger had found a will that indicated that Basil Sole had in fact married Isabella Vera Clayton, though he'd been unable to trace where and when. The marriage does not appear in the UK marriage indexes so it seems likely it occurred abroad, perhaps while Basil was in charge of St Michael's School, Sandakan, British North Borneo or during the time that he spent as a missionary in China, though Roger has postulated that perhaps Basil also visited South Africa, since that was where Isabella's father died in 1934 and it is known that Isabella spent some time there.

Ancestry and findmypast.co.uk are continuing to increase the number of parish registers accessible through their websites. Among those recently made available that are of particular interest for the Sole section of the Society's database are the registers of Surrey and Kent. 

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