Rietfontein

Portion: subdiv of 169
District: Prince Albert

This parcel has no matched survey polygon, so it cannot be drawn on the map. That is a gap in the cadastre match, not an absence from the record.

Why this farm is here

A piece of a farm already in this model. Not yet placed on the map.

parcel Cut out of Middelwater
lead An open question in this record is about this ground People on this site linked to nothing

Before this ground was cut out

This is the history of Middelwater, the farm this ground was part of until 19XX. It is shown here because this ground was that farm, and separately from what follows because before the cut the record says the farm's name and not which part of it. Not everything below necessarily happened on this piece.

1777/1860 boundary subdivision: from De Claar Stroom (the 1777 loan farm)
1777/1860 boundary subdivision: becomes Middelwater
1777/1860 boundary same_as: becomes De Claar Stroom (Klaarstroom No. 178)
1777 event De Claar Stroom loan farm granted parent farm of Middelwater and Klaarstroom This is PAR-000097, Klaarstroom No. 178. The loan farm itself is PAR-000004.
1821~ to 188X ownership Cornelis Andries Oosthuizen (1792-06-14–1860) occupation · confidence medium
1821~ residence Cornelis Andries Oosthuizen (1792-06-14–1860) farming
1822 ownership Jan Louis Venter (1754–1824), Johanna Jacomina Smit (1760–1824) loan farm · occupation · confidence high
1822 residence Jan Louis Venter (1754–1824) tax roll
1833 boundary consolidation: becomes Drooge Kloof
1833-08 document SG diagram 349/1833 Bf.W.Q.5-7
1833 to 1841-04-15 ownership Ockert Almero Oosthuizen (1786-04-24–1859-02-26) loan farm · occupation · confidence high
1836-11-27 residence Ockert Almero Oosthuizen (1836-11-27–1922-01-02) birth/farming
1836 residence Susanna Catharina Oosthuizen (b.1819) (1819-05-31–1856-09-24) farming
1841-04-15 ownership owner not named in the record Perpetual Quitrent · grant · confidence medium
1850~ residence Cornelis Andries Oosthuizen (b.1828) (1828–1871-04-24) farming
1860-02-18 residence Johanna Machteld Petronella Strydom (1792-01-05–1860-02-18) farming · to 1860-02-18
1865 event The 1865 drought: watering the Middelwater orange grove from vats So dry that Jan Adriaan Oosthuizen, then living on Middelwater (PAR-000001), watered the orange grove before the house with wagon and vats so the trees would not die; the only water left stood in the heights toward Kouwveldt at the steep drift. His grandson's diary carries it, from his son's telling - the only picture of daily life on Middelwater in the 1860s this record holds.
1865~ residence Johannes Adriaan Oosthuizen (1816-11-20–1882-08-11) memoir
1883 boundary subdivision: becomes Klein Vlei (Middelwater portion)
1883-10 document SG diagram 1364/1883 P.A.Q.3-3
1883 document SG diagram verso 1364/1883 (verso)
1884-03-24 ownership Jacobus Daniel Johannes Oosthuizen (1823-09-02–1903-06-11), Oosthuysen co-owner (unidentified) quitrent · grant · confidence high
1923 boundary subdivision: becomes Vaste Water (Middelwater No. 169 Ptn 5)
1926 boundary subdivision: becomes Avondrust (Middelwater No. 169 Ptn 6)
1988-07/1989-08 document SG diagram L.G. 6955-90 K.354/96
1990 document SG diagram L.G. 6954/90 K.354/96s
19XX boundary subdivision: becomes Rietfontein
undated boundary remainder: becomes Moreson (Middelwater No. 169 Remainder)
undated boundary subdivision: becomes Middelwater No. 169 Ptn 1
undated boundary subdivision: becomes Middelwater No. 169 Ptn 2
undated boundary subdivision: becomes Middelwater No. 169 Ptn 3
undated boundary subdivision: becomes Ebeneser (Middelwater No. 169 Ptn 4)
undated boundary subdivision: becomes Middelwater No. 169 Ptn 7
undated boundary subdivision: becomes Remainder (Middelwater No. 169 Ptn 2)

What the record holds, in order

undated boundary change subdivision: from Middelwater

Research notes

subdivision of Middelwater [TO VERIFY - probably wrong]. [29 Jul 2026, verification pass] The only support for this parcel is one unsourced legacy line ("20th c. - subdivided; a portion became Rietfontein", F01 prose) and PLK-000002 (no document). DOC-0039 (the 1883 verso) lists NO Rietfontein deduction from farm 169, and the modern cadastre has none. This looks like the two-Middelwaters trap run in reverse: the documented relation is Rietfontein (Zeekoegat district, PAR-000052) subdivided into a SECOND Middelwater - not our No.169 subdivided into a Rietfontein. Cadastre match stripped 29 Jul 2026: the record it wore (Ptn 38 of farm 56) belongs to Rietfontein No.56 south of Leeu-Gamka, unrelated to farm 169. Parcel kept pending

HE IS RIGHT, AND IT IS WORSE THAN A DUPLICATE. Both rows were still carrying the SAME cadastre key W052C061000000000056000380 and the SAME centroid -32.880993, 21.889268, which is Ptn 38 of RIETFONTEIN No. 56, south of Leeu-Gamka. The 29 Jul verification pass recorded that this match had been stripped; the note said so and the columns did not. So the two rows were not the same farm, they were two different farms wearing a THIRD farm's polygon, and the index showed both as 38/56. Key, centroid, area and match method cleared on both. Neither is pinned now, per 5: an unresolved place gets no pin. Whether these two rows should be one row is a separate question and is LEAD-0058.

[1 Aug 2026] NO-POLYGON SET, because clearing the key was not enough. Both rows have no farm number, so match_cadastre.py fell back to matching on NAME and put them straight back onto Ptn 38 of Rietfontein No. 56 near Leeu-Gamka - a third farm, and the same wrong pin they carried before. The sentinel is the only thing that stops a name match re-deriving it on the next run.

The research behind this page, kept separate from it: dated working notes, open questions, and what is not yet settled.

Open questions

match_cadastre.py no longer reproduces the geometry on disk priority 1 · LEAD-0017
Re-running match_cadastre.py against the current CSVs changes 11 parcels and does not reproduce what is in parcels.csv. Which is right?

What would settle it Deciding per parcel whether the script's match or the hand entry is correct, then either fixing the script's name-matching or recording the hand values as deliberate.
People on this site linked to nothing priority 1 · LEAD-0074
Which parcels and people exist on the site as dead ends - reachable by a list, but linked to no document, story, owner or neighbour?

What would settle it For the 106 tree-derived rows, a parentage pass merged from the family-tree on tree id - which 6 already names as the direction of travel and which would connect them wholesale rather than one at a time. For the three floating names, find the document each came from and link it.
Two Rietfontein rows: one farm, or one farm and a phantom? priority 2 · LEAD-0058
Should PAR-000010 "Rietfontein" and PAR-000052 "Rietfontein (Zeekoegat district)" be one row, and does PAR-000010 describe a farm that ever existed?

What would settle it Either a Middelwater deduction table naming a Rietfontein, which would make PAR-000010 real and separate, or the absence of one across the full set, which would retire it into PAR-000052.
Three farms carry the same name twice or three times, and ten story links are held back because of it priority 2 · LEAD-0080
Which Rietfontein, which De Claar Stroom, and is Sleutelfontein (Groot and Klein) a real parcel or a composite of two?

What would settle it For each mention, which parcel the sentence means. For Sleutelfontein, whether PAR-000098 should exist at all given PAR-000071/072.

What the record is missing

Nobody is on record as ever having held this third order · B8 never-held
Rietfontein is in the model, and carries no ownership record of any kind, not a grant, not a transfer, not an occupation.

What would settle it The Surveyor-General's diagram for the farm number names the grantee and the date; the deed reference on it opens the transfer chain.

Found by breaks.py reading the model against itself, not written by hand, each one is a shape of missing record, not a fault in the data. The whole set is on the questions page.