There is a Sohl Family History mail list you may wish to join.
This mail list is intended to let any and all branches of the far-flung Sohl family communicate and work together to discover our family history. It is a free list, open to anyone interested in the history of the Sohl family.
I set up this mail list in 2000 with the hope to find out more about my family
history. I can only trace my paternal lineage back to my great, great
grandfather, Frederick Sohl, who emigrated from Germany. I’ve enjoyed talking to
people on the list with the same name as mine, but have found no real leads so
far.
Because of this, I’ve decided to experiment with DNA based genealogy, and I hope
that some of you might do the same. Testing can tell us if we have a common
ancestor, although it can’t really tell us who that person was, or exactly when
they lived. It can also tell us if others in the database already are related.
This will also help us determine alternate spellings for our name.
I find this very exciting—if you decide to join in this project, your test may
help us determine how our tangled web of Sohl families relate to each other,
both in recent times and historically. As the project grows and more and more
people join, this picture will grow clearer and clearer.
I have set up a Surname Project (since no one has done this before) with Family
Tree DNA, the leaders in geological DNA testing. (This is the same company
chosen by National Geographic for the Genographic project
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/genographic.html). They are a well
respected laboratory, with a solid privacy policy.
A video about DNA testing for genealogy can be found at:
http://www.familytreedna.com/videoaudio.html
And more information can be found at the company’s web site:
http://www.familytreedna.com
You may view information about the Sohl surname project at:
http://www.familytreedna.com/surname_join.asp?code=W82631
This surname project is open to all members of the Sohl family, as well as those
with names that may be related. Because of the way paternal DNA testing works,
only male members of the family can be tested. Women can find out this
information by having a father or brother tested.
You may also want to consider other tests for maternal descent, although those
will not generate matches as part of this project. I personally find this a very
exciting, new branch of genealogy.
The cost of a basic test is $99.00 (US). I hope you can join me in this project,
and if you have any questions, feel free to raise them on the newsgroup and I
will answer them if I can.
Update: 08-15-07: Results!
I have continued the testing of my line and have found that my line is:
R1b1c
For details see Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_R1b_(Y-DNA)#R1b1c
This line is very common in Europe, but much less so elsewhere in the world. There is some very interesting deep history for this line, some of which is listed in this article.
This is what I would expect, since family oral history puts my great grandmother (and presumably her husband) arriving from Hannover, in northern Germany.
Since this type is so common in Europe and the British Isles, I contacted EthnoAncestry which offers tests to dig deeper into the R1b1c. The result of that test narrowed things down to:
R1b1c9* (S21)
I just received a map showing population density in northern Europe for this type, which is shown below:
To quote from the message: The distribution of S21 is shown in orange,
along with the rest of R1b
in pale yellow. S21 is most common in the Germanic areas of the North
European plain and also in England. The frequency drops dramatically
south of the Alps. The much rarer S29 group is shown in brown: confined
almost totally to the Germanic-speaking areas.
From what I understand, the area of highest density is most likely the point of origin, which again makes sense for family from Hannover.
Arlo Sohl has reported online "Our genealogist in Germany maintains that all Sohls in Germany are descendents of a Sole who came to Germany from the Netherlands in the late 1400s. This remains to be proved, but would love to find out."
An origin in the Netherlands would certainly make sense based on this map.
By the way, the "*" simply means that there is no research to take this line further. (and it also means that I will have a chance to spend even more money in the future if I want to know more.
If you have a family web page, particularly one with genealogical information, I'd love to add a link to it here.
My line does not have much information to offer at the moment--I hope to get what we do have digitized and posted on this page in the near future. In any case, here's a start:
Norm Frederick Sohl Jr. (b. 1954)--Norman Frederick Sohl (b. 1924)--Frederick John Sohl Jr. (b. 1893?)--Frederick John Sohl(b. 1860)
I know that Frederick John Sohl Sr. Married Marta Schroeder Sohl (1869) from Hannover, Germany. They were married in Quincy, IL. I have some more information from the Schroeder side of the family.
If you can add to the story, please drop me a line--contact information is on the main page at www.sohl.com
--Norm
This page was last revised 08/15/2007