De Hoop (Drakenstein)

District: Drakenstein

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

Schalk Willem van der Merwe (1673-1740) held it. Not yet placed on the map.

Schalk Willem van der Merwe (1673-1740) is on record on this ground directly. No trace needed.

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.

Each bar is one person's time on this ground. A faded bar has no recorded end and is closed at the next arrival, which is our inference and not a date anybody wrote down. Where two people who follow each other are related within six steps, the step count is printed between them.

1692 Schalk Willem van der Merwe (1673-1740) held 1692-09-08
1692 Anne Prevost (1681-) held 1692-09-08

Steps	Between	Nearest common ancestor by blood
1	Schalk Willem van der Merwe (1673-1740) · Anne Prevost (1681-)	none within twelve generations

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

8 September 1692 ownership Schalk Willem van der Merwe (1673-1740) (14 July 1673–21 March 1740), Anne Prevost (1681-) (18 February 1681–?)
freehold · estate inventory · confidence high

Research notes

[30 Sep 2026, SRC-698] Named in MOOC8/6.51 (SRC-698) as "een plaats ofte hofsteede geleegen aan Drakensteijn, gen:t de Hoop volgens erfbrief de dato 8:e 7:br 1692" - title 8 September 1692, the earliest dated ground this project holds for the van der Merwe line. The second part of the inventory was taken ON this farm on 11 October 1740, in the presence of the heir Roelof van der Merwe, which is why its contents are listed separately. Bequeathed with Wittenberg to Roelof. NO CADASTRAL MATCH ATTEMPTED YET; "De Hoop" is among the commonest farm names at the Cape.

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