Jan Soules

Jan Soules, also recorded as Jan Sol, was a Protestant refugee who married Mayken Labis in London, England, in 1586. He is presented in recent research as the likely father of George Soule, the Mayflower passenger, although the proposed connection remains under investigation.

Jan Soules, also known in the supplied material as Jan Sol, was born in 1565 and died in 1627. He belongs to Barbara’s family and is identified as the 11th great-grandfather in the supplied relationship information.

In 1586, Jan Sol and Mayken Labis were married in London, England, where they were identified in the marriage record as Protestant refugees. They later had seven children baptized in the Dutch Reformed Church at Haarlem, Holland, between 1590 and 1599. Their eldest known son, Johannes Sol, was baptized in 1591.

Recent research, including Y-DNA evidence described in the supplied notes, has proposed that Jan Sol and Mayken Labis were the parents of George Soule, the Mayflower passenger. The notes state that this evidence supports Dutch ancestry for George Soule and that an English family connection has not been documented. This conclusion is described as still under investigation.

The supplied material further suggests, but does not establish, that Jan Sol may have been a grandson of Jan van Sol of Dordrecht. Jan van Sol was said to have left the Netherlands for Danzig in 1530 because of debts connected with an inn, to have acquired the Robitten estate near Bardeyn in East Prussia in 1536, and to have returned to Brussels in 1550. These proposed earlier generations remain uncertain.

Through the family line provided, Jan Soules was the father of George Soule; George was the father of Susanna Soule, who married John West. The descent continues through Elizabeth West, Jeremiah Wheeler, Nancy Wheeler, Nancy Wheeler Arnold, Daniel Braley Tuthill, Phebe Celeste Tuthill, Nora Leslie Fox, Floyd Nelson Sherrell, and Doris Helen Sherrell.

Historical context

Jan Sol and Mayken Labis appear in the supplied notes as Protestant refugees in London during a period of religious conflict in Europe. Their later children’s baptisms in the Dutch Reformed Church at Haarlem place the family within the Dutch Reformed community.

The notes also connect their son Johannes Sol, a printer in Leyden, with the political and religious controversy surrounding William Brewster’s presswork for Perth Assembly. They state that Johannes died suddenly, probably while assisting with that printing, but this circumstance is presented as a probability rather than a documented conclusion. The related account of his apprentice Edward Raban and the movement of printing equipment is likewise interpretive and should be treated cautiously.

Sources & research

Record of the Celebration of the Tercentenary of the Introduction of the Art of Printing into Aberdeen by Edward Raban in the Year 1622. Aberdeen, Scotland: The Master Printers’ Guild, 1922, p. 42.

Louise Walsh Throop, “William Brewster’s Subterfuge,” Mayflower Descendant, vol. 66, no. 1, Winter 2018, pp. 14–22.

A. L. E. Verheyden, Anabaptism in Flanders 1530–1650. 1946; reprinted 1961, p. 31.

Louise Walsh Throop, “Further Searching for the Origins of Mayflower Passenger George Soule: Printer’s Devil in Leiden?” Soule Kindred Newsletter, vol. 43, no. 4, Autumn 2009, p. 10. Link supplied in notes: https://soulekindred.org/resources/Documents/Newsletters/PDF-Newsle...

Wikipedia, “George Soule (Mayflower passenger).” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Soule_(Mayflower_passenger)_