When Gustav James Tohl was born on 14 March 1885, in Kooringa, South Australia, Australia, his father, Gustav Johann Martin Peter Tohl, was 50 and his mother, Eliza Young, was 35. He married Florence May Ballantyne on 2 August 1907, in Hammond, South Australia, Australia. He died on 13 April 1971, in Yatina, South Australia, Australia, at the age of 86.