
TL Koehnline
Honor Code SignatorySigned 8 Apr 2018 | 45,038 contributions | 1,058 thank-yous | 1,730 connections
My name is Thomas Koehnline (/ˈtɒ.məs 'kɛnlaɪ̯n/ in IPA; pronounced "KEN-line"). Online you'll often find me listed as "TL," which you're free to call me.
I'm a student of Folklore & Ethnomusicology and Linguistics, at Indiana University Bloomington, originally from Seattle, WA. I first got into genealogy when I was still quite young, shortly after the death of my great-grandmother in 2011. She had been interested in her family history for much of her own life, especially in her ties to notable families such as the Perrys, & after her death I found myself going through trees that she & my mother had compiled covering all those branches of the tree. While I was certainly fascinated by them, what fascinated me more was the sides of the family we knew less about: the more recent immigrants, with stranger names (like Koehnline).
Since then I've lost a significant amount of time to this hobby & sometime-profession. I spend a lot of it on here helping to build out various branches of the tree that might be related to me, or might just have some tangential connection to another project I'm working on. I jump around a lot, & at any given time might have several different projects I'm working on here- whether or not any of them are properly finished, who's to say?
Due to my own research interests & academic background, one of the major things I try to involve myself in on WikiTree is promoting a cultural plurality on our site, primarily by following & helping others to follow the "their conventions instead of ours" standard our site promotes. I personally believe that this is one of the most important, & oft-overlooked rules we have on our site, which bills itself as a Wiki-format service. As such, where I can, I try to ensure that name fields on the site actually provide names in the mother tongues of the individual's themselves. I focus especially on languages I myself have some background in, particularly Yiddish, Czech, Japanese, & a variety of others that I can either speak or read.
While I haven't officially started any One Place Studies yet, one of my major interests right now is in ethnogeography, the places where people live & their relation to a given space. Often times I like to construct maps of addresses & townships where members of a given family are known to have lived, churches they attended, graveyards they were buried in. I find it provides a much more complete idea of the ways our ancestors lived, & their relations to the places in the modern day.
Outside of my genealogy work, you can find me involved in the world of folk music: I play the violin, banjo, & have tried to pick up a number of other instruments. I have also been involved, for about a year (as of Jul 2024) in Shape Note Singing, & will likely take up some families to research on here that relate to the history of that tradition. I'm also involved in a variety of other things, all intertwined with my folklore studies.
If you happen to be related to me, or any profiles I've worked on, feel free to reach out! I keep pretty busy, but when I can I love helping others with their genealogical work. I'm also certain there's a lot of my work on here that can be greatly improved upon, which I'm always striving to do.
Connections to Super Bowl halftime show performers: TL is 23 degrees from Prince Nelson, 21 degrees from Dan Aykroyd, 16 degrees from Garth Brooks, 30 degrees from Chubby Checker, 24 degrees from Ella Fitzgerald, 19 degrees from Dusty Hill, 30 degrees from Whitney Houston, 22 degrees from Mick Jagger, 21 degrees from Paul McCartney, 21 degrees from Tom Petty, 19 degrees from Chris Stapleton and 21 degrees from Shania Twain on our single family tree. Login to see how you relate to 33 million family members.
Categories: Banjoists | WikiTree Challenge Researchers | Koehnline-1 IN Connections | Koehnline-1 GZG Connections | Koehnline-1 | LGBTQPlus | Violinists | Linguists | Clan Munro | Seattle, Washington | Y-DNA Haplogroup J-M172 | En | No-3 | Cs-3 | Ja-2 | German Roots | Czech Roots | Slovak Roots | Slavic Roots | Scottish Clans Project | Czech Roots Project
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Thanks for helping us out- it's great to have you!