Index of family-genealogies from
South Africa
Ø Cloete
Descendants of Jacob Cloete who arrived at the Cape
of Good Hope in 1657, & Sophia Raderootjes, who arrived in 1659,
both from Uetz, north of Köln (Cologne), Germany. -- Updated April 2017
Ø Nysschen
Descendants of Albertus Petrus Nysschen, from the
Netherlands & Aletta Dorothea Roesdorf, who were married in
Swellendam on 23 April 1826
Ø Rheeder
Descendants
of Jacob Salomon Röder (1748-1828), who arrived at the Cape in 1767,
from Arnstadt, Germany, & Maria Elisabeth Benade (1759); and of JSR
& Maria Margaretha Heyts
Ø Strydom
Descendants
of Joost Strijdom, who arrived at the Cape in 1678, & Maryna Ras,
born at the Cape in 1669 -- Updated September 2020
Ø Zietsman
Descendants
of Paul Ludwig Sieszmann, who arrived at the Cape in 1771, from Stolpe,
Germany, & Susanna Cordier, born at the Cape in 1761 -- Updated June
2017
If you wish to discuss or add information, please contact me through my email connection. Please note that any genealogy information for persons born after about 1940 will not be published on this web site, unless they are known to be deceased. Bona fide researchers can obtain extensions to these genealogies (where they exist) by direct contact with me, unless the originators of the information requested otherwise.
List of abbreviations, terms & sources used in these files:
Estates:
NAB, NAB MSCE - Natal archives, Pietermaritzburg
TAB - Transvaal archives, Pretoria
VAB - Orange Free State Archives, Bloemfontein
KAB - Cape Province/Colony Archives - Cape Town (sometimes also indicated by MOOC)
MOK - Kimberley Archives, Master of the Supreme Court
GMHG - Border Archives - Grahamstown, Master of the Supreme Court
PTA MHG - Pretoria Master of the Supreme Court
OVS - Bloemfontein Master of the Supreme Court
DR - Zimbabwe Archives
SK (or DN) - generic abbreviation of sterftekennis/death notice
NAAIRS : National Automated Archival Information Retrieval System - Indexes to archival repositories.
Most of these genealogies were started from family trees in the huge South African genealogy sources printed as C. C. de Villiers (“Geslacht-register der oude Kaapsche familien’, 1894), supplemented by Dr. C. Pama in the 20th century (‘Genealogies of the old Cape Families’) and Dr. D. F. du Toit Malherbe (‘Family Register of the South African Nation’, 1966). The series SA Genealogies by at first Heese and Lombard (at the Human Sciences Research Council) and later by the Genealogical Institute of South Africa (GISA), Stellenbosch), and its updated successor “South African Families” by GISA, were extremely useful as starting points. In the case of the Strydom family of course the published SAG genealogy is in fact a truncated genealogy extracted in 2004 from the database constructed by Andrew Sydow and Dan Strydom, and which is being extended on this set of web pages.
Many of the older readings in estates were done at the Archives and in Masters of the Supreme Court offices, by a variety of researchers. Much later (2015-2016) the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints (LDS) has made available online many photographs of death notices (Many millions of images), and in many cases of complete estate files - on FamilySearch
Baptismal and marriage registers from various churches were accessed in many ways - directly from registers, from the photocopy collection in the main South African Archives (FK series), and in later years from the incredible collection of images of the LDS, available online at Familysearch.
Civil collections of marriages and deaths were likewise provided online by the LDS through FamilySearch.
Some of the FamilySearch links:
Cape Province. Master of the High Court. Probate Records 1834-1989 The entries in NAAIRS that are tagged with MOOC
Transvaal. Master of the Supreme Court. Probate Records 1869-1958 The entries in NAAIRS that are tagged with TAB and MHG
Orange Free State. Master of the Supreme Court. Estate files 1832-1989 The entries in NAAIRS that are tagged with VAB and MHG
Pietermaritzburg (Natal). Master of the Supreme Court. Deceased estates 1846-1950 The entries in NAAIRS that are tagged with MSCE
Cape Province (Kimberley). Supreme Court. Probate Records 1871-1937 The entries in NAAIRS that are tagged with MOK
[Thanks to Linda Farrel for alerting us to these links]
Historical Record Collections - Africa - This collection contains i.a. links to numerous South African, Namibian and Zimbabwean Church and Civil Records
The earliest Strydoms were taken from existing genealogical works, and extensively reworked/checked with the aid of the published photographs, and sometimes transcriptions, of Cape documents from the 17th and 18th centuries ( TANAP, eGGSA, LDS, Hugenot Society), and many individual and group genealogies. Joos Strydom’s ancestry is based on the gigantic works of J.M.G. Leune, Belgium, regarding the inhabitants of the Liefkenshoek area in the Waasland, coupled with the earlier research on the van Strijdonks, Waasland, by many Belgian researchers such as Jean-pierre van Eygen, and the Truymans, Albert and Harry, summarized on these pages since 2003. The various South African genealogical journals such as “Familia” and “Genesis”, as well as local societies’ newsletters and journals, were likewise used as good sources of already interpreted data. Likewise the sources made available by GSSA (Genealogical Society of South Africa) have been very useful. Some of these include lists such as the quasi-census muster rolls of the VOC at the Cape of Good Hope, which provide much information about the numbers of people in a household, including sons and daughters; unfortunately not the children’s names.
Limited use was
made of the secondary sources of MyHeritage, Geni World Family Tree, WikiTree,
and FamilySearch Family Tree. Clues are
developed from these to enable searches for better sources, since these sites
provide only very limited references to sources of data. Many of the users of MyHeritage provide
information on newer generations, that are clearly the product of family histories
by persons closely related to the genealogy branches involved. These are then judged to be as good a source
as the many family members who contribute their family histories to us in
written or electronic form. The
Genealogy program used for the database of Strydoms is Rootsmagic, currently
version 7, which provides flagging and direct connections to MyHeritage, GENI
World, WikiTree, and the LDS genealogy database.
Familial
connections are generally validated by multiple sources, or single primary
sources. In the latter case it will be
noted that Death Notices and the like, although encouraged by the law to be
correct and complete, are still once in a while full of errors - accidental,
through ignorance of facts, and through deliberate obfuscation. The personal histories of families are
usually excellent sources of connections, if we learn to trust that the
information is not wholly derived from older published sources. Memories are
fallible, especially after 50 years or more have elapsed, and we have learned
to cross-check where possible - but those “extra” family members are always
useful to help establish “correct” genealogies.
Typically the few available church records have gaps in a family -
likely due to families temporarily or permanently moving somewhere else. Then a family recollection does wonders in
assigning members to those gaps.
Incorrect assignments to families are also sometimes exposed by personal
family records. In the older South
African context the nearly universal adherence to the traditional pattern of
naming children (eldest son for father’s father, 2nd son for
mother’s father, eldest daughter for mother’s mother, etc.) is used as a good
tool to help assign/cross-check familial connections. Dates are also closely examined for logical
placement, which is helped in the case of Rootsmagic by the program flagging
specific entries, based on preprogrammed criteria.
These
Genealogies are therefore very carefully assembled, and strive to be
correct. It is of course a given that errors
will be encountered, and we therefore do not pretend that they are 100%
accurate. It cannot be used in any
proceedings with assumption of correctness in the legal sense, due to the
stated uncertainties in history and historical documents. We will be glad to be apprised of errors,
whether typographic, data, or interpretation, and will enter corrections as
they are validated. Do be aware that
like any scientific endeavor, this genealogy will always be in a state of
re-examination in the light of new data, and expanded when new subjects are
connected to the tree. It is therefore
as a matter of course an incomplete, but growing, genealogy.
Some parts of
the current Strydom genealogy are greyed, to indicate weak links but with
enough information to be likely. Special
notes in alternate colored fonts are provided in a few instances where there
are known or expected issues with placement of connections - and these are
meant to solicit input and data from knowledgeable readers on the correctness
of the proposed parts of the genealogy.
Page constructed by Dan Strydom, 2003
Page last updated: September 21, 2020