Emma and James.. the story unfolds

When I started this fun exercise there were two documents which were going to be the load stone of the whole project. These were the death certificate of Emma and James.

Within the first few days I had found mention of them on the national Archive. These document were almost 200 years old and the national archive did not want to transcribe the information. The normal sequence of events, was that I would find an entry on the archives data base, send in an email and like magic and a bit of effort from a lovely lady named miss ShoeShoe, I would get transcribed information. This time it was different, it was a different archive and full resistance was being given on doing any work.  After trying to find an researcher to do it, I finally put in an order to eggsa. As promised six weeks later I was able to pay for the work they had done and I received the documents that I had wanted to start the whole family tree on.

Seeing as these document came after adding over a 1000 people to the tree, it was with a bit of trepidation that I viewed these information contained on the documents. I was pretty happy with what I had on the tree as I had tried to base it on proof of births and deaths. It turns out that death certificates are awesome documents and not creepy at all.

The leaps of faith that I had done, which I was not happy with was James Welch, the first one that came over with the 1820 settlers. What the 1820 settlers documents said and what I found out were not the same. I went with my gut and chose to believe the info that I had turned up even though it was not what I would have liked. I had made James 10 years younger than the documentation and Scottish. I had even found a whole lot of relatives to show where his genetics came from. I would need to delete all these people and throw out all I knew, depending on what was on a single piece of paper.

With great trepidation I found his death certificate in the many files held in the zip folder. with a quick double click, there it was. The actual pudding on which the proof was based. Well there it was. James had sneaked onto a boat pretending he was 24 when in reality he was only 15. His parents were stated and were the same as I had found and lastly, there it was, he was born in Scotland. Emma seems to have liked the tartan boys, with both her husbands coming from Scotland.

The next column of information was quite a shock. My dear Emma had not been chaste for the first 10 years of her marriage and waited until she was 25 to produce her first child. No the silly girl had popped out 3 children before Henry. There were 2 more girls after James and before Mary.
All told James and Emma had 8 children. What a shock. It makes it even more impressive that Emma managed to find a second husband.

James died at 53 and Emma was only 36. She managed to keep them all alive and run the farm. I had been so impressed with the fact that Emma had so few children. This fact now needs to be replaced with the image that I have allocated to all the women on the tree. Ladies, it is not a clown car! It is supposed to be used to craft exceptional humans, not just huge numbers so that the chances of your genetics surviving would be achieved.

We now get to Emma's info. What first amused me is that she maintained a lie for 45 years of her life. Emma was born in April 1821.  She and James got married in May of 1837. Emma had just turned 16. We now fast forward to her second marriage. This happened in January 1862. By all that is mathematical Emma was about to turn 42. She now shaves a year off her age and becomes 39.

She dies 5 days after her birthday in the year 1908. This would have made her 87, but no as bold as brass she has it reported that she is 86. We now have a dilemma, did Emma get married a 15 and the original fact that she was born in 21 is incorrect or did the silly lady take a year off her age and maintain this lie for the last 46 years of her life.

The sad bit about Emma's death certificate is that of all of her 9 children, the youngest 2 girls predeceased her. She has now given me so many more family member's to find.

Thanks James and Emma, appreciate not only your lives, but also the the genetic contributions.

Have a good one.

The Spraggs have been found

I have been trying to find family for my husband's mother. She was Stella Otto. Her father was Hermanus Otto and her mother Stella Spraggs. The Otto's were easy to find and before I knew it I had a line of Ottos going back to 1452 when Endres Otto was born in Germany. The tree at this point was quite lopsided with so many relatives being on one side and none on the other side.
I had researched as far as I could and had a basic record of all the people who were named Spraggs who lived in South Africa, as well as the Aunts that I had met.

I was doing my normal thing of googling people when all else has failed, when there it was a YouTube video containing all the names that I have been looking for. Being cheeky I emailed the person who had loaded the video. What a delight. The mystery was solved with one quirky statement. Rich Spraggs told me that his grandfather said that he never grew hair on his ankles as his father had worn chains in Australia. Well there we have it, I had been looking for relatives on all the wrong continents.

I have found so many wonderful characters in my husbands line. This is the answer to why he has such a marvelous brain. The genetics are there for the viewing. I was able to follow the line back to 1760. There are English and Irish in the mix. The only thing my husband was a miffed about was that the only criminals we could find were an Irish lass who stole serviettes and the man she married who were sent to Australia  for being drunk and stealing an umbrella in front of a police man.

These are not harsh underworld characters. These are ancestors to be proud of. These people would cause you to have an interesting brain. I still need to find pictures of this pair.

Until later, I must just send out a further thank you to Rich and his mother for all the valuable information they have given me.

Johanna Louw - Info from the source

I have been struggling to find any info on my grandmother Johanna Louw. I have googled all over the show. I have seen her in movie created for my parents wedding. I have seen photos of her at that wedding. I have seen pictures of her when she was young with her children. I have even found a proof of her death. There is a head stone and the National Archive had a record of her passing.

She died two years before I was born. I was brought up on tales of this amazing lady. She was a fine seamstress. The story goes that people would bring her pictures from a magazine and she was able to create these articles of clothing with uncanny precision.  She was also a whizz at maths, with her claim to fame was toting up the amount owed at the grocery store and being able to check the merchants. Ye well, it was a long time ago.

She bought up three sons in often trying times. The one thing about her was that she was deaf due to measles. She lost her hearing at about 7. She taught all her boys to sign but was able to lip read. It was interesting that this had a knock on effect. Growing up my father unconsciously signed whilst he talked. The chin was stroked when something was said to be pretty. Hands were made into a pitch when it was time to go home. There were many more examples and I find myself doing the same gestures. My sister and I used to spell out words to each other to amuse ourselves in public gatherings. I still find it strange that this ability is not just known. I find myself signing to my husband and all that he does is put on his "say what" face. The strangest thing that my father did was after grace every evening he would tap the table to show that it was time to eat. This was due to him having to do this for his mother who would wait for the tap to open her eyes and commence with the meal.

I had tried all my tricks and could find nothing about her. The fact that I knew were based on her headstone and with information that my mother repeatedly said when I was a child. This was that, my grandmother's mother's maiden name was Barnard. I search high and low for a marriage between a Louw  and a Barnard. This was fruitless.

On Friday my sister happened to mention that she had spoken to our father and he told how my grandfather had met my grandmother in the then South West Africa.
That was news to me. I pursued this new lead but to no avail. My father is currently not doing so well and has spend the last few weeks in a nursing home. He lives about 2 thousand KM away. Well I tested the waters and soon we were having a great SMS conversation. Within a few messages he had answered all the questioned I needed to be able to find the people. I did have to ask other people about translations of names. Who on earth new that Gawie is the nickname for Gabriel. The good and bad thing with South African Afrikaans families is that once you have found one male name into the family it is extremely easy to follow the name through the generations.

Well now that the Louw and Barnard line are settled it is time to pursue the Spraggs. I personally think that it is just as important to follow the matriarchal lines. Unfortunately information pertaining to women seems to be extremely slack.

So what do you think, leave a comment, they really are fun! 

It is all in a name

My husband has a name that can be traced back to 1682 .

These are how the steps go.

It all starts with Elizabeth Bosman born Joubert in 1764 who had a brother named  Francois Joubert  who was born in 1768.

She duly marries Daniel Bosman who has a grandfather born in 1682 with the name Hermanus.  Daniel's father is also named Hermanus Bosman

Elizabeth has a child in 1786 and combines her father-in-law's name with that of her brother and we have the first Hermanus Francois. The year is 1786.

The first Hermanus Francois Bosman  has a sister named Martha, and she marries Johannes Francois Joubert and they name this child Hermanus Francois. We have now got to 1814.

Hermanus has a sister named Elizabeth. She is born in 1836,

She gets married to Cornelius Johannes Otto. They have a child in 1857 and name him Hermanus Francois Otto.

When Hermanus Otto grows up, he gets married and they have a child in 1894. This child will become my husbands grandfather. He has the name Hermanus Francois Otto.

The 1894 Hermanus marries an lady named Stella Spraggs and they have three daughters.
The youngest is named Stella and marries a fella named van den Raad.

Their eldest child is named Hermanus Francois van der Raad; and that ladies and gentlemen is the way you get a English speaking South African with an Historic name.

This was a fun exercise of following a name through a family tree.