Kopjes Kraal

123 on the cadastre · on record 1859–1941 · show on the map

Farm number

No. 123

On the cadastre

123, whole farm

District

Prince Albert

Extent, as the diagram states it

4982 morgen 370 sq roods (1863 survey)

Modern surveyed area

4272.2 ha

The historic extent and the modern surveyed area are two separate measurements and are not presented here as confirming each other. The first is what a surveyor wrote on a diagram, usually in morgen. The second is what the modern cadastre draws.

Why this farm is here

Ger(H)olm Marincowitz held it. 23 km from Klaarstroom.

Ger(H)olm Marincowitz is on record on this ground directly. No trace needed.

• story A written history names this ground Rondawel's history: from a widow's mark to today's Marincowitz farm
• story A written history names this ground The war reaches the Koup
• story A written history is set on this ground Kopjes Kraal's story since 1859
• story A written history names this ground Short years of great change, 1858-1860
• …and 2 more, listed in full further down this page.

Stories

• mentions this farm Rondawel's history: from a widow's mark to today's Marincowitz farm
  From a loan-farm widow who signed with a mark to the Marincowitz farm of today: the full documented history of Rondabel No. 124 - the Venter household of 1829, the twelve-farm grant day of 1841, the Oosthuizen-Theron partnership of 1868, the 1910-34 subdivisions, and the two graves by the huis nobody has read.
• mentions this farm The war reaches the Koup
  The Anglo-Boer War came to these farms twice: up the road from Klaarstroom on 2 February 1901, when a running fight through Die Gang left three men dead, a Boer of Scheepers's commando and two British soldiers, and a farmer buried all three; and quietly in 1903, when a woman from Tulbagh married into a Prince Albert family having lost two brothers in Natal thirty-four days apart.
• about this farm Kopjes Kraal's story since 1859
  Crown land surveyed in 1859 at 6,325 morgen and resurveyed four years later at 4,982 - about 1,343 morgen fewer, unexplained. Granted in 1871 to Gerolm Marincowitz of Trieste, whose surname reaches the Karoo from the Adriatic and not from the Netherlands. A stock route across it was ended by a line in a provincial gazette in 1926, and half of what was left became Kromrivier in 1934.
• mentions this farm Short years of great change, 1858-1860
  Between February 1858 and February 1860 the Koup acquired a road to the sea, buried the couple the whole district descends from, laid out a village, had Crown land surveyed on its eastern edge, and met the industry that paid for the next forty years.
• mentions this farm The words from the sources, 1753-1971
  A glossary of the words these documents actually use — leeningsplaats, opstal, erfpacht, kwitrent, morgen and square roods, veldkornetskap, Weeskamer, vendue, d'oude — each illustrated by a verbatim line from the family's own papers.

What this farm became

From 1934 this ground stopped being one farm, and the story continues on the pieces cut from it. Its own record above ends there; what happened afterwards belongs to a portion, not to the whole.

• 1934 Kromrivier (Kopjes Kraal No. 123 Ptn 1)

Who stood on this ground, and how they were related

Everyone the record places here - by deed, by residence, or by burial - and the kinship between each pair of them. Two numbers are given and they are deliberately kept apart. Steps is how far apart two people are in the family graph, counting a marriage as one step. The common ancestor is the nearest one they share by blood, with the year they were born. A pair four steps apart through a couple born in the 1750s is a relationship; a pair ten steps apart through a progenitor born in the 1630s is background, because almost everybody descends from him. Read both.

1. 1871 Ger(H)olm Marincowitz held 1871-05-17
2. 1941 Gerolm Samuel Marincowitz buried on 1941

Drawn from the parentage and marriages this project holds, never from a shared surname. A pair with no common ancestor here may still be related through a link nobody has recorded yet.

What the record holds, in order

1. November 1859 document SG diagram 1927/1860
   P.A.Q.1-17
2. November 1863 document SG diagram 1035/1871 (pt 1)
   P.A.Q.1-28
3. November 1863 document SG diagram 1035/1871 (pt 2)
   P.A.Q.1-28
4. 17 May 1871 ownership Ger(H)olm Marincowitz (11 February 1805–13 May 1890)
   quitrent · grant · confidence high
5. 1934 boundary change subdivision: becomes Kromrivier (Kopjes Kraal No. 123 Ptn 1)
6. 1934 boundary change remainder: becomes Kopjes Kraal No. 123 Remainder
7. 30 October 1941 burial Gerolm Samuel Marincowitz (22 June 1870–30 October 1941)
   Kopjes Kraal 123 farm cemetery, Not read by this project; recorded from the eGGSA caption, which is a transcription made by somebody else.
8. undated document SG diagram verso 1035/1871 (verso)

Ground cut out of this farm

• Kromrivier (Kopjes Kraal No. 123 Ptn 1) 1992.3 ha
• Kopjes Kraal No. 123 Remainder RE/123 · 2279.9 ha

Bordered by, as the diagram names them

• N Perseken Hoogte
• E Minies Kraal
• E Oude Muure
• S Klip Fontein
• W Rondabel

On the 1915 divisional map

As the Surveyor-General printed this farm in 1915: the registered holder, the date the title was issued and its quitrent reference, copied off the sheet as written. The whole map, farm by farm

Buried on this ground

• Kopjes Kraal 123 farm cemetery 1 graves recorded, 1 identified in this project

The burials also appear on this farm's timeline above, each at its own date.

Also bordered by, as the modern cadastre draws it

Ground that touches this farm on the Surveyor-General's current polygons and that none of the diagrams held here names. Derived from the geometry, not read off a document.

• N Klipgat No. 114
• NE Aschkop (Klipgat No. 114 Ptn 10)
• E Nuwejaarsfontein (Minnies Kraal No. 112 Ptn 7)
• SE Klipfontein A No. 174
• SE Klipfontein Oost (Klipfontein A No. 174 Ptn 1)
• SE Minnies Kraal No. 112 Ptn 5
• S Kopjes Kraal No. 123 Remainder
• S Klipfontein A No. 174 Remainder
• S Driehoek (Rondabel No. 124 Ptn 4)
• W Rondawel (Rondabel No. 124 Ptn 1)
• NW Kromrivier (Kopjes Kraal No. 123 Ptn 1)

Documents

Surveyor-General diagram, 1927/1860, November 1859
SCAN325.TIF

Surveyor-General diagram, 1035/1871 (pt 1), November 1863
10513279.TIF

Surveyor-General diagram, 1035/1871 (pt 2), November 1863
10513540.TIF

Diagram verso, 1035/1871 (verso)
10513280.TIF

Cadastre

Surveyor-General diagram index for this parcel

Research notes

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

Open questions

• Morgen or hectares? extent_text may be inconsistent priority 1 · LEAD-0007

  Are the figures in parcels.extent_text really morgen, or are some of them hectares mislabelled as morgen?

  What would settle it Reading the figure and its unit directly off the diagrams for the nine flagged parcels.

What the record is missing

• The record stops in 1871 and never resumes second order · B2 trail-ends

  Kopjes Kraal was worked as far as 1871-05-17, with Ger(H)olm Marincowitz the last owner on record. 155 years follow with nothing. Who held it after that, and is it still one farm?

  What would settle it The current title deed traced backwards, each transfer names the one before it, or the Surveyor-General's subdivision diagrams, which are what usually explain a farm going quiet.

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.