Ancestors of Chuck Soergel and Ruth Wolf

Chuck Soergel's 80th birthday celebration in 2002 in front of the Jones-Neely Log House, surrounded by his wife Ruth and family — Captured in 2002 during Chuck's 80th birthday celebration, this photo features his wife, Ruth—whom he wed in an Army Chapel back in 1944—standing directly behind him. The rest of the family gathers around them clockwise from the bottom left: daughter Susan Soergel, son Gary Soergel, grandson Jared Soergel, grandson Phil Jancosko, son-in-law Ron Jancosko, granddaughter Jessie Manning and her husband Jason Manning, and daughter Deb Soergel. They are sitting in front of the Jones-Neely Log House that Chuck's 2nd great-grandfather constructed around 1800.

The Mission

Chuck Soergel was occasionally OBSESSED with finding his roots. But this was in the days prior to the internet, and it required a lot of visits to local churches, libraries, and cemeteries. And Germany......we can't forget about the international travel needed to meet his newfound cousins and feed his curiosity of where the story of Ruth and Chuck started. Chuck also investigated, and solved, a family mystery. Ruth's mother, Ethel, had always wondered what happened to her husbands grandfather, Gustavus Wolf. He mysteriously disappeared one day in 1868, leaving behind a wife and very young son.

We have more tools now - including DNA testing and online databases - that will allow us to go further and faster into the family past. This website was created to share with all the many, many cousins and those looking to see how our family was pieced together, and answer the following question: WHEN AND WHERE DID OUR ANCESTORS COME FROM AND WHY MIGHT THEY HAVE LEFT THEIR NATIVE COUNTRIES?

This one's for you Dad. Miss you always.