Genealogical Society of South Africa
Durban and Coastal Branch
Volume 24 Issue 2/2008
Message from the
Treasurer
Members are reminded that
our membership fees for 2008 are due and are as follows :
- to
receive a printed copy only of the
“Familia” the cost is R120
- to
receive an electronic copy only of “Familia” the cost is R100
- to
register on eGGSA the cost is R30 (in addition to one of the above).
The
cost of additional publications can be ascertained on the Renewal Form, or by
enquiry to the Treasurer.
Please note that subscriptions may be
deposited in ANY branch of Nedbank in South Africa – our banking details are :
Account Name : The Genealogical Society of South Africa
Bank : Nedbank
Account No. : 2144 092 346 (Broadway)
NB : Members
banking via INTERNET must quote the Code No. 114405 as well as our account
number. Please notify the treasurer
of your renewal either by post, telephone (evenings) or by e-mail.
We would like to remind members of our
local branch, who are familiar with the internet, that they are entitled to
RENEW their membership of the GSSA in the electronic (virtual) branch, i.e.
eGSSA. If our members decide to avail
themselves of this option, please remember to elect “Durban and Coastal”
as your land-based branch. In this way
you will have the best of both worlds, the facilities on offer at the FHC in
Durban, as well as all the resources based in the internet branch. For more
information on this option, please contact one of the committee members.
***
“Thank You”
“Illustration of Early English
Script”
Thank you to Dave Honour for his
very interesting talk on early English script and for the copies of the slide
presentation which have been circulated to members.
“Who do you think you are”
Also a big thank you to Lyn Paul
who has donated two DVD's of the "Who do you think you are" series to
our library. We will shortly be making
these DVD's available to members.
***
Family Name Database
“Brick walls”
On the questionnaire recently sent out, we also
asked you to record your “brick walls” – there were quite a few of these!! If you can assist with information please
contact the member direct.
¨
Willson Charles George : “Born 1850 and one of the founders of Dundee –
came to South Africa in 1851. Anything
of interest about his extended family would be appreciated”.
Marie Bestel : besthold@iafrica.com
¨
Jacobus Johannes
Pretorius: “I am seeking any info
on Jacobus Johannes Pretorius born in Vryburg, Cape around 1890. He married Annie Francina Buys, born 1909”.
Larry O’Donoghue : lodonoghue@gfp.co.za
¨
Samuel Webber : “I am seeking the parents of Samuel Webber. He married Frances Parker at St. Georges
Church, Hanover Square, London on 27 November 1771”.
John Ross Yelland : jsrgy@intekom.co.za
¨
Adriaan Smuts : I have problems researching the activities of
Adriaan Smuts, son of Tobias Smuts while resident in Natal approx. 1840 to
1850. There were two cousins with the
same name in Natal at the time. The son
of Tobias was 10 years younger than his cousin. My objective is to put together a picture of the life of Adriaan,
son of Tobias. I have not been able to
trace any information regarding the wives of Tobias and Adriaan. I have their names but no other
information.”
Sarie Lapping : s.lapping@telkomsa.net
¨
William James Calverley : “I seek information on William James Calverley
born 11 August 1864 in Amanzimtoti, died 1 January 1935 in Dundee, Natal. He married Grace Florence Markham on 14
March 1892 in Nqutu, Natal. It is
thought that his mother was Jane (Calverley) Jones, father John William Jones,
but I cannot find proof of this”.
Sandi Calverley : mbutu@lantic.net
¨
James Sutcliffe : "My
2nd great-grandfather, James Sutcliffe, born of parents James
Sutcliffe and Fanny Dixon in 1857 in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, England, is
listed as being born in Ireland in British census records from 1851 thru
1891. In particular, the 1881 census lists him as being born about 1832
in Abbeyleix, Queens County, (now Leix/Laois), Leinster, Ireland. In
these census records James Sutcliffe resided in Liverpool, in Hoole, and
finally in Chester, Cheshire, by which point he was widowed with seven
children. In subsequent research, I located a James Sutliff, christened
on 16 Oct 1831 in Abbeyleix, Laoighis, Ireland - born of parents Gilbert
Sutliff and Elizabeth Spratt. I now need some way in which to confirm
whether this James Sutliff is indeed my 2nd great-grandfather.
Was this the only Sutliff family living in Abbeyleix at the time and was James
the only child born to this couple? Can anyone out there assist me in my
quest?".
David Sutcliffe : sutty@xsinet.co.za
¨
Benjamin Goldswain : “I am seeking the names of the wife and offspring
of Benjamin Clifford Goldswain born 27 March 1902”.
Prof Kenneth Knight : profken@iafrica.com
Bulletin Board
v
Family Name Database/Brick Walls
Please remember it is still not too late to send in
your family names if you have not done so already as this is an ongoing
project! If you would like your “brick
wall” to be printed in the newsletter, please send an email to kdee@mweb.co.za.
v
History
of The London Gazette
The London Gazette (originally called The Oxford
Gazette) is the world’s oldest continuously published newspaper and is still
published since it was established by Charles II whilst the Court (effectively
the government of the time) was removed to Oxford during the Great Plague of
1665. When the Court returned to London
the name was then changed to its current title.
Since the beginning The London Gazette has
provided a mix of State intelligence, government notices and trade/business
news. The earliest editions were full of the movements of ships and reports
from the trade routes published alongside official notices about royal
appointments and state visits. The start of the Great Fire of London was
recorded on 2 September 1666.
The London Gazette contains all official dispatches
when Britain is at war. For example The London Gazette extraordinary published
22 June 1815 announced victory at the Battle of Waterloo on 18 June. The
declaration of War against Germany in 1939 was also recorded in The London
Gazette.
Visit the very interesting London Gazette archives at their website www.gazettes-online.co.uk or at www.google.com - then type in “London Gazette” for a wonderful ‘time-warp’ experience!
v
Olive Schreiner: Portrait of A South African Woman
Johannes Meintjes' biography of Olive Schreiner
"Portrait of A South African
Woman” is now available as a cd-book.
The preface of this 195-page book can be viewed
at:
http://www.cdbooks-r-us.com/supportdocs/schreinerpreface.pdf.
You can also visit http://www.cdbooks-r-us.com ,
where more information on this book (as well as a range of others ) can be
found.
Meintjes' books are characterised by their attention to detail and meticulous
research, and this one is no different.
A good index is provided.
v
Stellawood
Cemetery Recording Project
Our Chairman has been in contact with
the authorities in an effort to obtain permission to photograph the registers
and gravestones at Stellawood Cemetery, but as usual it is very difficult to
get an appointment to meet with them. However in preparation for the project, if you are interested in
helping out with this mammoth task please either phone or email one of the
committee members.
v
Websites
For those who are researching British
ancestors, here is a great site of links:
www.pricegen.com/english_genealogy.html
v
Help us grow our membership
If you know of anyone who is interested
in genealogy and family history please help us out this year by encouraging
those interested parties to join us as a visitor at one of our meetings on the
2nd Saturday of each month.
We will be there to welcome and assist anyone interested in joining the
Society.
v
Graveyard photographs
If anyone
has graveyard photographs they would like to share with eGGSA then Eleanor
Garvie has an upload facility to do that for you. If so please send the photographs in jpeg format and also
indicate where the photograph was taken.
Eleanor’s email address is : garviek@dbn.stormnet.co.za
v
Ikes Books and
Collectibles
Please
note that we have had to postpone the visit to Ikes Books & Collectibles but
will be organising a visit during mid-June.
A separate notice giving all details will be sent out in good time.
v
Emagameni
EGGSA has advised that the long awaited web site
www.emagameni.co.za is now online.
The Tom Andrews, “Emagameni, Place Name and Research”, has a place
in our history, and will be enjoyed by all.
The purpose of the website is to make the information and research
of Tom Andrews, author of “Emagameni” available to all researchers and
interested parties. There are still a number of his books which will be added
and the website will be periodically updated with new articles as and when the
electronic formats are completed, so please revisit regularly.
Tom Andrews left a life long legacy of valuable articles, books
and information of Pretoria and South Africa’s place names, that will benefit
generations of all South African’s irrespective of race, colour or
religion. His research documents and books are housed in the Voortrekker
Monument's Archives.
v
Can Anyone
Help ?
I recently received the following request from Bill Croucher of
Queensland, Australia. Can you offer
him any help please?
“I am
hoping you can point me in some good direction for my enquiries.
My
family name is LAPPIN and while I am still tracing when they (maybe convicts)
moved from Ireland to Australia in the early 1800’s I am already aware there is
possibly only two male descendants surviving this lineage, me being one.
I am told that 2 brothers visited Durban in the very
late 1800’s or more likely early 1900’s and one stayed there, married had
children and died there. I am trying to
find out what happened to his children and their descendants. By the way, his name was John Henry Graham LAPPIN, his children
(4) were Allen, Unk, Doris and Sheila.
Are you able to
help me in my endeavors to find by Durban relatives?”
If you can help Bill please email him at wjc@bigpond.net.au
v
FHC Library
(Church of the LDS)
Please don’t forget to visit the FHC Library in Silverton Road. There
are some wonderful books on their shelves. There are too many to mention,
however, here are a few titles to whet your appetite :
·
Genelogieé Van Die Afrikaner
Families in Natal B. Cilliers
·
The Irish in S.A. 1795-1910 Donal P.
McCracken
·
Genealogies of Old S.A. Families A-K Vol 1
·
Genealogies of Old S.A. Families L-R Vol 2
·
Genealogies of Old S.A. Families S-Z Vol 3
·
Goldswain Author Unknown
·
The Curries from Sunbury County H. Daryl Currie
·
John Parkin and his family N P Sellick
·
Richard Thomas Hall 1823 - 1889
·
Twin Trails: Fynn Family and Southey
Family Marjorie Dick Davies
·
Sarah Elizabeth Wright Alexander
C Toohey
·
Barrymore. Records of the Barrys of
Co.Cork Rev. E Barry
·
van der Byl 1667 - 1967 en van der Bijl J van der Bijl
·
The World of Batemans Halbert's
Family Heritage
·
William Anderson 1790-1873 and his
descendants Robert Watt Anderson
·
Die Familie van der Walt in S A C M van der Walt
and others
·
Die Retief familie in S A P J
Retief
·
Die de Beer familie. Drie Eeue in S A David W de Beer & Jaleen
de Beer
e Bosman
·
The Behrmann family from Ocean Lodge Adolph and Ian Behrmann
1883 – 1983
·
The Clarks of Clark Road Stuart C
Clark
****
“It’s never too late!”
By Dave
Honour
My father, Vernon Keith Honour was very proud to
have served in the RAF during the Second World War. He had only been a mere young teenager at the start of the war
but having lived near Biggin Hill was totally smitten with the aerial battles
and soon signed up for the Air Training Corps.
Dad eventually got his chance to serve King and country entering service
in 1944 as a Leading Aircraftsman.
Initial training in Lincolnshire ended with the
question “What is your normal occupation?” the response of “carpenter” was met
with “Oh good we need meteorologists, go to the room at the end of the
corridor”. So dad’s entry in to the realms of active service was as a
weatherman and he was dispatched to Ceylon ready for the last offensive against
Japan.
All through my youth dad talked about serving on an obscure island in the
Indian Ocean called the Cocos Islands.
Although only being on the islands for about six months dad seemed to
have a story about many different events from swimming in the lagoon to loosing
flying boats in the course of a hurricane. So many stories seemed to be told
that we often switched off when we heard the words “When I was in the Cocos
Islands..”. Unfortunately when dad died these stories went with him and
how I then regretted for not listening more intently to the little bits of
information that would later make my task of recording the family history that
much easier.
I felt it was my duty to try and remember these
stories and started to look on the Internet for information on the Cocos
Islands airbase and why dad had been sent to these obscure islands at the end
of the war. The history of the islands was fairly well documented on several
websites that I found but nothing gave me details of the reason why the RAF
needed to be there. I then tried a
different track and did a search of the squadron dad had been involved
with. The first round of searches on
Google gave me several websites involving 99 Squadron so I searched within the
results for “Cocos Islands”. Bingo, up
came not only a site for the squadron and its history but also a section purely
relating to the base and the people who served there. I eagerly read through the articles to find out as much as I
could and came across a series of photographs of all the aircrews of the
bombers. I knew dad had not been
aircrew but looked through them to get a feel for what it must have been like
for men stationed on this little atoll in the Indian Ocean. Then I found a photo entitled “Un-named
crew” and opened it up. My first reaction
was “what’s my son doing in this photo” then couldn’t believe my eyes when I
realized that it was actually my father I was looking at. He was only 19 at the time he served
overseas and although just older than my son the resemblance was
remarkable. I contacted the webmaster
for the website and gave them all the details so that at least one member of
the un-named crew now has a name, the rest must have been members of the base
flight centre but unfortunately I could not remember any names that dad
mentioned.
I continued my search for information and was
rewarded with finding that a book had been written about the airbase called
“Operation Pharos” the name of the operation that sent men and machines half
way around the world to set up a secret air base from which to launch bombing
raids on the Japanese fleet.
At last I felt that I had complimented the sparse
recollections of dad’s stories with hard facts gleaned from the wealth of
information available on the Internet.
But there was one last thing that was niggling in the back of my mind. If dad had served overseas on active service
why had he never spoken about receiving a medal? I contacted my two sisters and both agreed that they had never
seen a medal or even heard of any mention of one. I decided to do one last
little piece of research, so wrote to the Royal Air Force and asked if there
was any records available relating to medals for the Second World War. By return post I received various forms to
confirm who I was in relation to my father and requests for release of service
records. I duly filled them out and
returned them with the relevant search fee (nothing free in this world). A couple of weeks went by and I thought that
nothing would come of my request, and then out of the blue a little brown
parcel arrived in the post box. I
opened it up to find a neat brown box containing a brand new War Medal 1939-45
complete with certificate.
Sixty one years after the end of the war and
fifteen years after his death, my father had received the medal he never knew
he had been entitled to. For my part I
now felt satisfied that I had not only put some facts and details to those
stories but had rewarded my father as well.
****
“Family Bibles”
If you haven’t done so already please don’t forget
to vist the eGSSA website at www.egssa.org
(library downloads) to view these beautiful Family Bibles and original Family
Registers.
The photographing of the Family Bibles in the
collection of the National Cultural History Museum is an eGGSA project
organised by Colin Pretorius, photography by Annelie Els and help with
captioning by Elisabeth Teir. This project is still in progress.
Some of the Family
Bibles that appear on the site are :
Beukes
/ Swarts Bezuidenhout /
Venter Booijsen / van der
Westhuizen
Botes /
Blightenhout Botha / Vermaak Bronkhorst / Erasmus
Bruwer
/ van der Merwe Calitz / Nel Coetser
Coetzee De Coning / Odendaal De Langen
De
Vries / Venters Dexter / Ward Dryer
Du
Plessis Fourie Freislich /
Hattingh
Hadfield Human Kleinsmit /
Riekert
Koekemoer
/ de Beer Kruger / Venter Marcus / Kruger
Pretorius Pretorius / Coetzee Riekert / Prinsloo
Janse
van Rensburg / Redelinghuys Retief
Smit /
Smuts Smit / Louw Storm / Botes
****
Diary Dates : 2008
14 June To be announced shortly
12 July Personal Research
09 August Visit to Pietermaritzburg
Archives
30 August Stellawood Cemetery photographing of Headstones/Registers
13 September Personal Research
11 October Speaker : t.b.a.
08 November Personal Research
06 December Ancestral Tea + Speaker
We
will advise you of any changes of events, or forthcoming outings which do not
fall on the second Saturday of the month, as arrangements are made.
****
Committee Members 2008 - 2009
Chairman
Jacques Benadie, P. O. Box 2337 Pinetown, 3600.
Phone: 031-708-3746 E-Mail: jaqb@telkomsa.net
Treasurer/Membership
Shirley Richardson
Phone:
031-266 1753 E-Mail : therichardsons@telkomsa.net
Secretary/Newsletter
Judy Letard, P O Box 1000, Mount Edgecombe
4300
Phone: 031-508 7304 (w) Cell: 072-146-7922
E-Mail: kdee@mweb.co.za
Librarian
Paul Bower, P O
Box 1156, Hillcrest 3650
Phone : 031-765
6512 Cell: 082 973 0221
E-Mail: mtu.bower@daimler.com
Octogenarian
Annelise Peters - Ph: 031-208-2910
****
Our Venue for Meetings
Family History Centre,
Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter Day Saints,
144 Silverton Road.
Entrance in Montgomery
Road
Phone: (031) 202 3024
Our meetings are held at 2.30 on the 2nd Saturday of every
month. Our AGM is held on the 3rd
Saturday in January.
For the record, the F.H.C.
is also open at the following times:
Tuesday 10 am – 12 noon.
Wednesday 1 pm – 4 pm
Thursday 9 am – 12 noon and 6.30 pm – 9 pm
Last Saturday of every month from 10 am – 4 pm
Or by appointment phone –
cell 083 661 4457
****
“Victories often occur
after you see no way to succeed
but refuse to give up
anyway”