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Kohli surname

Kohli surname

Jan Kohli Lynch (View posts)
Posted: 8 Aug 1999 12:00PM GMT
Classification: Query
Surnames: Kohli

My maiden name was Kohli and my ancestors came from Switzerlan, however I am finding that the Kohli surname is also common in India. I would like to find whether the name originated in Switzerland or India. Anyone know the history of the Kohli surname in India.
Pls. e/mail me at ; jkl25xmas1@hotmail.com

Re: Kohli surname

Steve Kohli (View posts)
Posted: 4 Oct 2001 2:46AM GMT
Classification: Query
Jan i was reading the post and you requested about Alma who married a Ralph Kohli There was a Ralph Kohli in Oak Harbor ,Ohio(he has passed on) but hid=s widow isstill alive as far as I know Hope this helps

Re: Kohli surname

Posted: 19 Feb 2007 9:02PM GMT
Classification: Query
Surnames: Kohli
Hello,
My husband recently had a DNA test from DNA Tribes. Surprise India showed up! Kohli is a very common India name. The little research I have done tells me that thousands of Indians migrated to Europe thru England for hundreds of years. These people first came as servants. Later they emigrated as professionals i.e. doctors, lawyers etc...
Many Indians then migrated to other parts of Europe. DH's ancestor is Katherine Kohli b. 1816 in Bern Switzerland. All the other Kohlis I have found originate from that area.
Family History is so fun!!
Joanna

Re: Kohli surname

Posted: 25 Feb 2007 6:19PM GMT
Classification: Query
Many thanks for the information regarding the Kohli's from Berne Switzerland---my ancestor was Christian Kohli from Berne, a tailor, so I knew there had to be a connection to the Indian Kohli's. Is your husband a Kohli?
Jan Kohli Lynch

Re: Kohli surname

Posted: 25 Feb 2007 8:23PM GMT
Classification: Query
No not anymore. Katherine Kohli is his great great grandmother. Katherine was married to David Karlen whose paternal grandmother is Anna Zabli (west African name). On David Karlen's maternal Kammacher line about four generations back is a Jaggi (VERY common Northern India name). I got all of this on www.familysearch.org. This is the LDS site and free to all.
BTW I have been doing non-stop historical research and there was a lot of migration from India and other parts of the world to Europe. This does not appear to be as uncommon as one might think.
(Me on my soapbox) We need to get out of our "little box of Euro-centrisim" and into the "big tent of hummanity" where the big fun party is going on:)
Thanks for being open minded
Joanna

Re: Kohli surname

Posted: 26 Feb 2007 11:20AM GMT
Classification: Query
Where was Katherine Kohli from--who are her parents. Just thrilled that my hunch is probably right--a Swiss relative of mine must have married a Kohli from India, thus the last name being found in both Switzerland AND India...and my family is part Indian.
Jan Kohli Lynch

Re: Kohli surname

Posted: 26 Feb 2007 11:20AM GMT
Classification: Query
Where was Katherine Kohli from--who are her parents. Just thrilled that my hunch is probably right--a Swiss relative of mine must have married a Kohli from India, thus the last name being found in both Switzerland AND India...and my family is part Indian.
Jan Kohli Lynch

Re: Kohli surname

Posted: 26 Feb 2007 3:57PM GMT
Classification: Query
Jan,
Familysearch.org does not have Katherine Kohli’s parents listed. She was born in St. Stephen Bern, Switzerland in 1816.
I have found some more Swiss Kohli family.
Just so I was keeping with open-minded frame of thought; I checked on the rest of DH’s Swiss side of the family. The previously mentioned Katherine Kohli married David Karlen. They had Louise Karlen b. 1853 in Bern, Switzerland, died 1901 Idaho, USA. There are no other siblings listed.
I checked up the Karlen line for any other non Swiss sounding names. On David Karlen's grandmothers line the Krammachers;3 grandmothers up is Magdalena Jaggi b. 1670. Jaggi is a very common Indian name.
So I thought why not, I will check Louise Karlen’s husband’s family Kunz. On the Kunz side of the family way back I find a whole lot of Kohli’s. Johannes Kohli b. 1578; Johannes Kohli 1604; Benedicht Kohli b. 1645; Johannes 1696; Susanna Kohli b. 1719. Susanna married Jakob Ludwig Mani. I wonder about that name so I check and find Tibetan and India roots. Tibet is next to Northern India so this makes sense. The Mani line goes back to 1732. I can see that there are cousins marrying cousins especially with the Manis. SO I would bet that there is a connection between the two Kohli families.
Also Indians have been emigrating from India to Europe since the last 1400’s beginning with the Portuguese and later the British. This really is very possible. That and DH’s DNA Tribes test. The India lines are WAY dominate in his test. Email me at thebriscoes at Comcast dot net if you would like to discuss this further.
Joanna

Re: Kohli surname

Posted: 16 Mar 2007 8:46PM GMT
Classification: Query
Surnames: Kohli
I live in Edmonton AB Canada. My grandfather Ernst Kohli was born near Bern Switzerland in the 19th century. He and a number of his brothers and sisters emigrated to the U.S. in the 1890's or early 1900's (I have the ship manifests from the Ellis Island website). Grandpa Ernst married Marie Richenbach and they settled in California where my father Ernest Jr. was born. The family then moved to Alberta where Grandpa registered a homestead. Somewhere along the way they name was anglicized by removing the umlaut from the "o" and adding an "e", which is quite common. When I searched "koehli" in an all-america phone book a few years ago, I got a large number of hits in the east and midwest U.S.

I too have noticed that Kohli is a common (East) Indian name, but I don't know if that is a result of historical intermarriage or simply coincidence. "kohl" in english is "coal", and my swiss friend tells me that "kohli" means "coal miner" and that there are, or were at least, a lot of coal mines in the Bern area.

Incidentally, a Dutch war bride once told me that in her country, "kohli" meant "little cabbage head", and was a term of endearment.

I still have a lot of relatives in California, although I do not know them, and the name is different since it was my grandfather's sister who settled there.

Re: Kohli surname

Posted: 18 Mar 2007 9:51AM GMT
Classification: Query
Surnames: Kohli
Very interesting info, thank you. Pls. e/mail me at jkl25xmas1@hotmail.com
and we can discuss further. My Kohli's were also from Bern, and settled in Ohio.
Thanks, Jan Lynch
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