The creation of this website is long overdue. Its primary aim is to record the available information about the lives of Gustav Thiel (1825 – 1907) and his descendants. We collected most of our information personally from living descendants of Gustav Thiel, and we also aim to record our gratitude for their unselfish sharing of information. Unfortunately, several of these generous individuals have since passed away, but we trust that their families will share and enjoy the information with us.

Karl Hermann Emil Thiel (1918 – 2015) with Pieter Thiel in Swakopmund

Pieter Thiel with Eva Maria Müller (1917 – 2015) in Bonn, Germany

Pieter Thiel with Arthur Rolf Thiel (1910 – 2011) and his half sister Zoe Maralette Tonkin

William Gerard Thiel (1908 – 2002)

This website is work in progress. At the moment it consists of introductory details about our interest in the Thiel family in South  Africa and a summary giving details bout the identities and lives of the first three generations. We currently summarized basic details of the 19 children and 54 grandchildren of Gustav Thiel and included detailed information on the lives of only five of the nine children of Gustav Thiel who reached adulthood.  As this should be a living document we intend to add information about the other four branches of the family and any information which might be of interest to us all. We sincerely hope that you will feel free to point out any inaccuracies or add interesting information.

I want to thank my son Hermann and my sister Leonora Steyn for moral support and for invaluable help with editing text.  Maraleen Jonker Arangies  provided excellent professional services to bring the project to this point.

Lastly, I want to mention that my final motivation to complete this project came from Michael Thiel, a great-great-grandson of Samuel Thiel who contacted me some months ago and showed wonderful enthusiasm and interest in the Thiel family history.