Background

I never had the opportunity to spend quality time with my exceptional grandfather. It was only much later before I realized that both my grandfather and his father not only had adventurous lives but also kept records of their experiences. Their unusual lives are exemplified in the epitaph on my grandfather’s grave in Lushoto, Tanzania where he was buried in 1948:

These two photographs were taken a few years apart in the overgrown cemetery of Lushoto in Tanzania. On both occasions the dense bush had to be chopped down with pangas by Ingo Müller a great grandson of Peter Johannes Thiel, the son of Gustav Thiel who stayed in Germany. Ingo now spends part of his life in Tanzania and appears in the photo with his daughter Halina and his wife Margrit.

My interest in the family history was stimulated by my father’s two siblings who emigrated with their parents to Tanganyika while my father and his two other sisters stayed in South Africa. His brother, Peter, visited us on several occasions over the years first from Uganda and later from Perth in Western Australia. He had an excellent memory and on two occasions in 1985 and 1989 I recorded his answers to my questions about his own life and the life of his parents in Tanganyika. In 1961 their eldest sister, Corrie, moved back to Pretoria from Tanga in Tanzania. I often spent time with her to assist her as she suffered from the effects of polio contracted during childhood. She also shared information with me about my grandparents life in South Africa and Tanganyika as well as my great grandparents time in Palestine. She always maintained that her grandfather, Gustav Thiel, had 21 children and that a “diary” of Gustav Thiel existed and that somebody promised her a copy which she never received. These claims were confirmed when I was presented on the occasion of my 30th Matric reunion by one of my fellow pupils, Leonie van Coller, with an excellent Afrikaans translation of Gustav Thiel’s “diary” on his 20 years in Palestine. Leonie married Ewald Walter Thiel and made the translation from a copy of the German version given to her by her father in law, William Gerard Thiel, a grandson of Samuel Gustav Thiel, the third child from Gustav Thiel’s first marriage. Details of 19 children were given. Julia, born on 17 November 1855 had a stillborn sister (not included in my records) while Julia survived only 11 days.
Through my contacts with several family members I could gather information about the 19 children as well as the 54 grandchildren of Gustav Thiel from both his marriages as well as details of descendants in the 4th, 5th and further generations.
Details on the lives and offspring of each of the 10 children of Gustav Thiel will be presented separately but the basic details of Gustav Thiel, his two wives, 19 children and 54 grandchildren are summarized in the two tables below.

54 Grandchildren