The Salts yDNA project was initially started to establish the yDNA markers for the Washington County, TN Salts families and has now expanded into a Salts/Solts project to determine yDNA markers for the various Salts lines in the United States and the descendants of Heinrich Solt (perhaps Heinrich Zoll in Germany).

Additionally, fourteen of the Salts/Solts descendants have taken the Family Finder test, which uses autosomal DNA. Both males and females may take this test.

Currently, there are 2 subgroups of matches.

– These six men have a common male ancestor within the last 12 generations. Five men descend from Henry Salts/Solts or John A. Salts/Solts of Washington County, TN. One man descends from Heinrich Zoll/Solt born in Germany and died in Penn.

Family lore has it that the Salts families originated in the US through the immigration from Germany of two (possibly three) brothers in the mid 1700's. Family legend has one brother eventually going to Indiana and the other to Tennessee. Is anything like this story in your family? Let us know! Family stories are seldom passed down precisely accurate but usually retain a kernel of fact.

At this time, after much research, we think there were 2 early lines of Salts families inthe US. The Irish/English Salt or Salts line was in Virginia and moved into Ohio and then westward. The German line, originally Solts or Solte or Sold, was first in Pennsylvania and then a recent Solts immigrant from PA was listed in the 1761 tax lists in Rowan County, NC  (documented). In 1792, Henry Salts married Mary Brown in Rowan County, NC and moved to Washington County, TN around 1797. Henry Salts and John Salts were listed as members in the Cherokee Baptist Church there around 1805.

Five Salts families were listed in the 1830 Washington County, TN census - Henry Salts, his sons Jesse and Daniel; John Salts Sr., and a younger John Salts, Jr. There is DNA work in progress to determine the connections between these and other Salts families,  as well as their connections to Solts families in Pennsylvania.

 On several documents from the early 1800s, the name for the Washington County, TN group has been found as SOLTS. Henry Salts signed two official documents in 1832 as Solts. John Salts's 1842 headstone has SOLTS. By 1850, the family used the name Salts and later various family lines changed the spelling to SALTZ, SAULTS, SAULTZ, SALTZS and even SULTS and SAULS. 

Many SOLTS families are found in Penn. in the early to mid 1700s. Solts researchers think the German name may have been Zoll. A recent yDNA test has shown a descendant of Heinrich Zoll/Solt, a 1749 immigrant to Penn., to have a genetic distance of zero at 37 markers (Subgroup 2) from a descendant of Henry Salts of Washington County, TN. This means these men had a common male ancestor within the last 12 generations.

– These men descend from Samuel Salts of Washington County, TN. Samuel’s mother is thought to be a daughter of Henry Salts and Mary Brown based on Family Finder matches to descendants of Jacob Brown the Wagon Maker and his wife Elizabeth Goettgen. Old family stories stated that Samuel Salts descended from the Gov. John Sevier line. This information was included in a document written on family history after the Civil War by Samuel’s son William B. Salts. Two descendants of Valentine Sevier have tested and their yDNA matches the descendants of Samuel Salts. At this time, Samuel Salts descendants think his father was Samuel Sevier, the son of John Sevier Jr.

We encourage Salts and Solts males (or any of the various spellings) to yDNA test. We have people who have tested, but do not match either of our subgroups. We also encourage male and female descendants of Salts and Solts to take the Family Finder test.

Please contact me if you have any questions about the project.

Connie Gray – mcigray@bellsouth.net