De Modder Fonteyn (Olifants River)

District: Citrusdal (Olifants River valley)

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

Ockert Oosthuizen (b.1755) had an estate taken here. Not yet placed on the map.

Ockert Oosthuizen (b.1755) is on record on this ground directly. No trace needed.

story A written history names this ground The muster roll
story A written history is set on this ground The Oosthuizens of the Koup
document A document in the collection describes this ground DOC-0065

Stories

mentions this farm The muster roll
Nine fields in a Dutch East India Company ledger: a young man from Woerden - or Werden, or Werl - sails from Texel owing the Company his passage, sees Table Bay 127 days later, and five years on stops being a servant and becomes a settler. Everyone in this project descends from that decision.
set here The Oosthuizens of the Koup
Eight generations east, from a VOC soldier off the Land van Schouwen in 1685 to a farmer baptised at Prince Albert in 1909. An 1809 estate inventory shows a forge on the Olifants River and explains in one line why the family left: the farm was sold to the eldest son for 1 000 rixdollars, and the rest had to find ground elsewhere. After 1836 they stop moving, and title and a congregation arrive in the same two years.

What the record holds, in order

23 April 1809 document estate inventory
MOOC8/28.63
23 April 1809 estate Ockert Oosthuizen (b.1755) (1755–about 1809-04)
MOOC8/28.63 · de Modder Fonteyn, gelegen aan d'Olifants rivier
1809/ ownership Jacobus Johannes Oosthuizen (b.1784) (1784–29 October 1867)
freehold · purchase from estate · confidence high

Documents

catalogued, no scan held

Estate inventory, deed MOOC8/28.63, 23 April 1809

Research notes

[SRC-092] "ter plaatse genaamd de MODDER FONTEIJN gelegen aan d'OLIFANTS RIVIER" - where the estate of Ockert Oosthuijzen was inventoried on 23 April 1809. THIS IS THE CITRUSDAL PLACE the family remembers, now documented. Sold out of the estate to his eldest son Jacobus Johannes OosthuizenL for 1,000 rixdollars, of which 344 had been paid off by 11 December 1810. THE WESTERNMOST PARCEL IN THE MODEL and the family seat before the trek east. Frans has stood in a building on the property [SRC-086] - whether it is this farm needs the deeds to confirm [TO VERIFY].

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

Open questions

Two Oosthuizen-Venter marriages in eighteen months, on the Olifants River priority 1 · LEAD-0034
Ockert Almero married Adriana Cecilia VenterM in Oct 1807; by April 1809 his sister Cornelia Petronella was married to Petrus Jacobus VenterM. Were the two Venters siblings, and is this a double alliance between two families about to move east together?

What would settle it Petrus Jacobus VenterM's parents. If they are Jan Louis VenterL and Johanna Jacomina SmitM, it is a double alliance and the case is made.

What the record is missing

The record stops in 1809 and never resumes second order · B2 trail-ends
De Modder Fonteyn (Olifants River) was worked as far as 1809/, with Jacobus Johannes OosthuizenL (b.1784) the last owner on record. 217 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.