The Strahle Surname DNA Project was originally organized to determine whether two lines of American Strahle families—that of John George Strahle (b. Germany) and that of John Strahley (b. Germany) of Tuscawaras County, Ohio—were related or not. Both families had the family folklore of German brothers immigrating to America in the late 1840s. Both families migrated together to Owen County, Indiana and surrounding counties. Various spellings of the name were used by subsequent generations.