I need help with this strange surname...

Andrik73

Since I began researching my family tree, I haven't been able to overlook one surname in particular... "Esolk". It was the surname of my great-grandmother, Prospera Pura Viñoles Esolk, from Uruguay.

The surname "Esolk" appears to be of Prussian-German origin. This is known because my most distant ancestor (and the one who brought the surname to South America) was Juan (Ján, Johann, idk) Esolk, a man who, according to his grandchildren's birth certificates, was "of German/Prussian origin/nationality".

As you can see, the surname Esolk has few or no records online. It is such a rare surname that it is limited only to our branch of the family, which has made it quite difficult to find more records or information about it. It is also worth noting that "Esolk" IS NOT THE ORIGINAL SURNAME; it is a modified variant of the real surname upon arrival in South America.

And yes, before you ask, I've tried EVERYTHING: I've contacted relatives, genealogists, reviewed newspapers, and archives on external websites, and the result remains the same: almost nothing is known about the surname.

And as if that weren't enough, there are also mentions of other Esolks around the world (apart from Uruguay and Brazil, of course). For example, there are records of Esolks in the former Czechoslovakia, Finland, the United States, and Israel, records dating from the 1850s to the 1970s.

All the information I've been able to gather about Juan Esolk in the last 6 months is in his FamilySearch profile, which I'm sharing below: https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/details/G67K-ZL8

List of possible surnames:Klose (Esolk backwards becomes Klose), Cieslik, Solk, Hasulke, Haseloch, Hadzeleck.

I hope you can help me get closer to my goal. At this point, ANY INFORMATION COUNTS, no matter how small or how little, everything counts toward advancing the investigation.

Thank you very much. I look forward to the community's responses.

jamiehadlock

I typed in the surbame Esolk into the search engine on Ancesty.com and all the replies popped up in Urugay. So either someone by that name might have started families in those areas or perhaps there was a name changed from some other countries name that was modified in some way.

Just thinking of the top of my head. The name Klose you mentioned, maybe look into a German Nazi connection. I haven't checked the dates that you are referring to, but is is possible that a Klose might have inverted his name like mentioned and went into hiding in Uruguay?

jamiehadlock

Just did a very unscientific test on Ancesty.com and The name Esolk did not seem to come up at all until the early 1900's. Before that Eslok or some form of that was coming up in West Indies, and in UK. In early 1700 the name Easlock was coming up. In 1900 there were a lot of Esolk in Uruguay. But that may be because that is the year Ancestry has access to the records of that country.

jamiehadlock

Google AI current answer for what it is worth

From available information, an emigrant named Esolk was born in Germany in 1828 and moved to Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay. Another individual with the maiden surname Esolk was born in Uruguay but traveled back and forth between there and Switzerland. While these instances provide early recorded dates and locations for individuals with the surname Esolk, they do not definitively establish the earliest appearance of the surname in official documents.It's important to note that the earliest reliable genealogical records vary greatly by location. For example, English parish records begin in 1538, while the earliest records in Utah date back to 1847. In other parts of the world, records may be much older or more recent depending on the specific location and availability of historical documents. Therefore, to pinpoint the absolute earliest date and location where the surname Esolk appeared in documents would require extensive genealogical research and access to historical archives in various regions potentially connected to the name's origins. 

Using AI info perhaps this is the beginning family of one of those families

Ignacio EsolkMaleDeceased•PMSK-ZR9