Ever since the discovery of the Soret effect, numerous experimental and theoretical works have been accomplished to understand the phenomena in terms of scientific interpretation. There is published review articles existed focusing in different aspects of Soret effect such as, experimental techniques, theoretical approaches, and combination of both theoretical and experimental approaches. However, most of the articles focused on recent or short era only. It is essential for the novice researchers to have historical or chronological database of the works already done by others. In the contemporary study, a historical database of experimental and theoretical works has been offered. Major challenges, limitations, and technical hitches of performing experiments on ground (earth) condition has been selected, and cautiously deliberated. Contemporary experimental works performed in microgravity environment have been incorporated. All of the experimental methodologies and theoretical models have been addressed briefly. However, because of its popularity remarkable attention has been focused on the experiments with optical techniques, and theoretical models based on non-equilibrium thermodynamics. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.