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Person PER-000001

Ockert Almero Oosthuizen

24 April 1786 – 26 February 1859 · Oosthuizen line

Connection to the Koup

Held ground in this district: Middelwater (1833).

Names

Baptismal name
Ockert Almero
Given
Ockert Almero
Surname
Oosthuizen

The formal baptismal name and the name a person was actually called are both kept, and neither is derived from the other. Spelling drift between records is evidence, not noise.

Three generations around this person

Jacobus Oosthuizen (b.1722) 1722 Dina Carolina Britz 1732
Ockert Jacobus Oosthuizen (b.1755) 1755
Cornelis van Tonderen 1715 Susanna van Wyk 1725
Susanna Catharina van Tonder 1763
Ockert Almero Oosthuizen 1786 Adriana Cecilia Venter m. October 1807
Johanna Jacomina Oosthuizen 1808 Susanna Catharina Oosthuizen (b.1811) 1811 Ockert Jacobus Oosthuizen 1813 Adriana Cecilia Oosthuizen (b.1816) 1816 Johannes Adriaan Oosthuizen 1816 Petrus Marthinus Oosthuizen 1819 Gert Adriaan Oosthuizen 1820 Jacobus Daniel Johannes Oosthuizen 1823 Catharina Petronella Oosthuizen 1828 Cornelis Andries Oosthuizen (b.1828) 1828 Martha Jacoba Maria Magdalena Oosthuizen 1830 Dina Magdalena Oosthuizen 1832 Ockert Almero Oosthuizen (b.1839) 1839 Hendrik Johannes Oosthuizen 1840~

Work out how this person is related to somebody else →

Click any name and the same three generations are drawn around that person instead. There is no first couple here and no top to the tree: it is only ever the family standing closest to whoever you are reading about, and a blank is a gap in the record rather than a statement about anybody.

Immediate family

Father
Ockert Jacobus Oosthuizen (b.1755)
Mother
Susanna Catharina van Tonder
Brothers and sisters
Married
Adriana Cecilia Venter October 1807
Children

A life in the record

  1. 24 April 1786 born Born
  2. 11 May 1786 event Ockert Almero Oosthuizen baptised, with Venetian noblemen as witnesses
    [SRC-076] Born 25 April 1786, baptised 11 May as "Ocert Almaro". Seven witnesses, three of them Venetian: "Louij Almaro Pisanie Baron de Felion van Venesia in Italia", "Alviese Almaro Pesanie", and a third Almaro of Venice. ALMORO is a Venetian patrician name of the Pisani house. This is the moment
  3. 11 May 1786 occasion Baptism
  4. about 1804 witness Witnessed a baptism · Sara Maria Oosthuizen
  5. 1805–1813 event The Oosthuizens on the southern Olifants River
    The chapter the map long could not show, drawn at region level because that is what the paper pins. The 1805 Swellendam roll counts the household holding ground 'aan d'Olyphants Rivier' at 43 uuren from the drostdy. Ockert Jacobus dies on the loan place De Modder Fonteyn on that river in April 1809,
  6. October 1807 married Married Adriana Cecilia Venter
  7. October 1807 event Ockert Almero Oosthuizen marries Adriana Cecilia Venter
    [SRC-073] At Swellendam. Ockert Almero Oosthuizen and Adriana Cecilia Venter. Fourteen children over 33 years: the first baptised at Graaff-Reinet in 1809, the seventh at Beaufort West in 1821, the eighth born at Prince Albert in 1823. The baptism registers alone map the family walking west into the
  8. 23 April 1809 event The estate at de Modder Fonteyn is inventoried
    MOOC8/28.63. Ockert Oosthuijzen died intestate on the Olifants River leaving eleven children, the youngest two years old. The inventory walks the house room by room and then out to the yard, where it finds an ox wagon, yellowwood planks, WAGONMAKER'S WOOD and a broken chaise - and in the winkel a be
  9. 16 June 1817 event Jan Adriaan Oosthuizen baptised at Graaff-Reinet
    Born 20 November 1816, baptised 16 June 1817, with four witnesses in two couples - his uncle Gerrit Adriaan Oosthuijzen with Petronella Schoonman, and Adriaan van Deventer with Maria Sophia Venter. THE LAST TIME THIS FAMILY APPEARS IN THE GRAAFF-REINET ENTRIES GATHERED HERE (the register itself has
  10. 16 June 1817 occasion Baptism of their child, Johannes Adriaan Oosthuizen at Graaff-Reinet
  11. 1821 event Ockert Almero Oosthuizen appears in the Beaufort West opgaafrol
    [SRC-073] The 1821 tax roll shows him farming in the Beaufort West district - the earliest documentary attestation of the root ancestor on the ground, twenty years before the 1841 grants.
  12. 1833 land Held it, Middelwater
  13. August 1833 event The loan farm Middelwater surveyed for Okert Oosthuizen
    8,843 morgen including the Government ground Drooge Kloof, in the Zwarte Berg, Field Cornetcy of C. Hatting. C.L. Stretch again. This is the parent survey behind the 1883 resurvey.
  14. 5 March 1837 event Ockert Almero Oosthuizen baptised at Beaufort West
    Born on Middelwater 27 November 1836, baptised at Beaufort West on 5 March 1837 - a fourteen-week wait, which is what distance did to these families. Both paternal grandparents stood as witnesses, with a Venter and a Strydom for the other two sides. Nineteen years earlier his father had been baptise
  15. 5 March 1837 witness Witnessed a baptism · Ockert Almero Oosthuizen
  16. 16 February 1840 witness Witnessed a baptism · Ockert Jacobus Oosthuizen (1839-1842)
  17. 1842 event Zwartberg NG congregation founded on the farm Kweekvallei - and the town of Prince Albert with it
    The congregation stretched west as far as Rietbron. Ockert Almero Oosthuizen served as a deacon at its founding and bought five erven of Kweekvallei for the church ground.
  18. 12 July 1844 witness Witnessed a baptism
  19. February 1859 buried Buried, Prince Albert, burial ground not identified
  20. 26 February 1859 event Ockert Almero Oosthuizen dies in his own house at Prince Albert
    [SRC-077] Death notice 5848, filed 8 March 1859. Aged 72 years 10 months 2 days; occupation landbouwer; a widower of eleven months. He died NOT on a farm but "in zijn eigen huis te Prins Albert". Thirteen children survived him or are named; the village he died in had existed for only fourteen years.
  21. 26 February 1859 died Died

Ground they are on record on

Who stood with them

Who signed at a baptism, a will or a survey is not incidental. It is the clearest surviving record of which families stood close to which.

Stories

Others of the same name

Afrikaans naming repeats hard, and the Cape Dutch naming pattern reuses a name on purpose, a child who died young has the name given again to a later sibling. These are different people. Never match on a name alone.

What we don't know

A sourced gap beats an unsourced fill. These are the open questions on this person, stated rather than papered over.

Sources

  1. Middelwater No.169 original loan-farm diagram (1833)Surveyor-GeneralSG Dgm 349/1833
  2. "Frederick Oosthuizen - die man wat die Zeekoegat Kerkie 100 jaar gelede gebou het", Lydia Barella Prince Albert Friend (blog)29 Sep 2007
  3. Family Group Record: Ockert Almero Oosthuizen (1787) x Adriana Cecilia Venter (1792) - posted to a genealogy list as "Oosthuizen X Venter"private (email, forwarded to Frans)Johan Jacob Pottas, Bloemfontein, 13 October 2005; compiled from South African Genealogies Vol 07: O-Ph, with KAB MOOC and VAB citations
  4. Baptism, 11 May 1786: Occert Almaro Oosthuijzen, child of Ocert Oosthuijsen and Susanna Catharina van Tonder FamilySearch, "South Africa, Dutch Reformed Church Registers (Cape Town Archives), 1660-1994"index entry ark 1:1:624P-3Y54; register page 34; born 25 April 1786, baptised 11 May 1786; image 3Q9M-CSV8-W9W5-D | *** THE PAGE ITSELF SEEN 20 Aug 2026, supplied by | *** CONGREGATION IDENTIFIED 20 Aug 2026: PAARL, register G3/3/4, BAPTISM 1786-1799. From the film's own DETAIL OF ITEM NUMBERS sheet, ITEM 9. Roll 79, project S-AF 00532, DRC Centre Cape, filmed 14 Aug 2000, operator Tinus Berry 6179, reduction 16. The same sheet lists items 4-8 as earlier Paarl baptism registers and items 1-3 as Stellenbosch marriages. ***
  5. Kennisgeving van Sterfgeval no. 5848 (43): Okker Almero Oosthuysen, filed 8 March 1859 FamilySearch, "South Africa, Cape, Probate Records of the Master of the High Court, 1822-1990"DGS/film 007844939, image 1888 of 2166; collection cc=2517051, waypoint WV44-SZX:1598082377; estate no. 5848 (43)
  6. Baptism, 16 June 1817: Jan Adriaan, child of Ockert Almero Oosthuijzen and Adriana Cicilia Venter FamilySearch, "South Africa, Dutch Reformed Church Registers (Cape Town Archives), 1660-1994"index entry ark 1:1:6VBS-163C; register pages 198-199, entries of June 1817; congregation GRAAFF-REINET, confirmed 20 Aug 2026 by the register's own index (see notes) | *** THE REGISTER IMAGE ITSELF, 20 Aug 2026: FamilySearch film #008147799, ITEM 2, 'Graaff-Reinet. Baptism Registers 1815-1822', IMAGE 130 of 275. The page number 199 is written in the top right corner of the leaf. ***
  7. Baptism, 5 March 1837: Ockert Almero, child of Jan Adriaan Oosthuise and Susanna Catharina Oosthuise, Beaufort West FamilySearch, "South Africa, Dutch Reformed Church Records (Stellenbosch Archive), 1690-2011"; citing GISA, StellenboschSouth Africa > Cape > Beaufort West > Baptisms 1819-1844 > image 198 of 302; ark 3:1:S3HY-68TW-G3P; cc=1392488, wc=M64H-PNL:13850901,13850902,14731201,14762701
  8. MOOC8/28.63 - Inventory of the estate of Ockert Oosthuijzen, taken at de Modder Fonteyn on the Olifants River, 23 April 1809 Cape Archives (KAB), Master of the Orphan Chamber; transcription published by TANAP / Globalise (Huygens KNAW)MOOC8/28.63, {18090423}
  9. Beaufort West NG Gemeente, Baptisms 1819-1844 (doopregister) FamilySearch, "South Africa, Dutch Reformed Church Records (Stellenbosch Archive), 1690-2011"; citing Genealogiese Instituut van Suid-Afrika (GISA), StellenboschSouth Africa > Cape > Beaufort West > Baptisms 1819-1844 > 302 images. Waypoint wc=M64H-PNL:13850901,13850902,14731201,14762701; cc=1392488. Last image (302 of 302) is ark:/61903/3:1:S3HY-68TW-GKL. Held here: 91 distinct page images, filed under their ark suffix in sources/registers/beaufort-west-baptisms-1819-1844/
  10. Swellendam opgaafrol J 318, 1805 - the Oosthuizen section, film 008145384 images 39-42 FamilySearch, "South Africa, Cape Province, Probate Records / Opgaafrollen" - microfilmed by the Genealogical Society of Utah at GOV ARCHIVES CAPE TOWN RSA, operator C MARAIS, 25 Jul 1978, film unit ser. no. 3385, project S-AF-20-B, roll number 65. Original at the Western Cape Archives (KAB).Film # 008145384, images 39, 40, 41 and 42 of 519. Target card transcribed as printed: LOCALITY OF RECORD SWELLENDAM / CAPE PROVINCE; TITLE OF RECORD OPGAAFROLLEN / CENSUS - TAX; VOLUME/S J 318; YEAR/S INCLUDED 1805. Entries 767-790. | *** THE SECTION IS NOW BOUNDED AT BOTH ENDS, 20 Aug 2026. *** BEGIN card at IMAGE 4, END card at IMAGE 66, both reading identically: LOCALITY OF RECORD SWELLENDAM / CAPE PROVINCE; TITLE OF RECORD OPGAAFROLLEN / CENSUS - TAX; VOLUME/S J 318; YEAR/S INCLUDED 1805. Filming block on the begin card: MICROFILMED BY THE GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY, SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH, AT GOV ARCHIVE'S CAPE TOWN RSA; OPERATOR C MARAIS; REDUCTION X 18; DATE FILMED 25 JUL 1978; FILM EMULSION NUMBER 5460-417-231; FILM UNIT SER. NO. 3385; PROJECT NUMBER S-AF 20 B; ROLL NUMBER 65. So IMAGES 4 TO 66 ARE VOLUME J 318, and images 39, 40, 41 and 42 sit securely inside it.Supplied as a screenshot. The ark and film/image numbers were never captured, so the original cannot be ordered from this entry alone.
  11. Swellendam baptism register 1798-1807: the baptism of Sara Maria, daughter of Ockkert Oosthuijzen and Susanna Catharina van Tonder, born 16 November 1803FamilySearch, "South Africa, Dutch Reformed Church Registers (Cape Town Archives), 1660-1994"Film #008148300, ITEM 3 = SWELLENDAM G7/4/1, BAPTISM, 1798-1807, 270 pages. Image 185 of 264. Entry numbered 29 in the left margin.
  12. GEORGE opgaafrol J 89, 1811 - the foster household on the Olifants River, in the first year the district existedFamilySearch, from the Cape Archives J-series. Filmed by the Genealogical Society, Salt Lake City, at Gov Archive's Cape Town RSA.Film # 008145124, image 93 of 545. TARGET CARD: LOCALITY OF RECORD GEORGE / CAPE PROVINCE; TITLE OF RECORD OPGAAFROLLEN / CENSUS - TAX; VOLUME/S J 89; YEAR/S INCLUDED 1811. Filming block: OPERATOR C MARAIS; REDUCTION X 14; DATE FILMED 9 MAY 1978; FILM EMULSION NUMBER 460-394-361; FILM UNIT SER. NO. 3385; PROJECT NUMBER S-AF 20 B; ROLL NUMBER 12. Column headers as written: 'Naamen der In en Opgezeetenen boven de 16 Jaaren en van hunne Vrouwen', then Mans Naamen | Vrouwen Naamen | Mannen | Vrouwen | Zoons | Dogters | Knechts | 'In Dienst hebbende Hottentots'.
  13. A sweep of the published MOOC8 for the officials who signed the 1809 Modderfonteyn inventory - and the Cango estate they took four days earlier TANAP / Globalise (Huygens KNAW), Cape transcriptions, Orphan Chamber MOOC8MOOC8/28.63 (23 Apr 1809), MOOC8/28.25 (19 Apr 1809), MOOC8/28.22 (17 May 1809), MOOC8/26.65 (1807), MOOC8/25.40 (10 Jul 1805), MOOC8/25.18 (1804). Volumes machine-searched: MOOC8_21-30 and MOOC8_31-40, the ranges covering Faure's tenure. Volumes below 21 are published under a grouping this sweep did not resolve and were NOT searched, so the signing range given below is a floor, not a census.

Research notes

Root ancestor. [SRC-067] A DEACON at the founding of the Zwartberg NG congregation in 1842, and one of those who handled the purchase of the church ground - he bought five erven from the first owners of the farm Kweekvallei, on which Prince Albert was laid out.

29 Jul 2026 [SRC-073]: parents now known - Ockert Almero OosthuizenL the elder (PER-000118, 1755-1809, died on de Modder Fonteyn) and Susanna Catharina van TonderMen (PER-000119). Married Adriana Cecilia VenterH at Swellendam, Oct 1807; fourteen children (PER-000003, 000004, 000122-000134). In the 1821 Beaufort West opgaafrol. Pottas gives his birth year as 1787 against our 1786-04-24 [TO VERIFY].

29 Jul 2026, TWO ORIGINALS [SRC-076, SRC-077]. BAPTISM: born 25 April 1786, baptised 11 May 1786 as "Ocert Almaro", son of Ocert Oosthuijsen and Susanna Cathanina VAN TONDER. DEATH NOTICE 5848, filed 8 Mar 1859: died 26 February 1859, aged "72 jaar 10 maanden en 2 dagen" - which computes back to 24 April 1786, ONE DAY BEFORE the register's birth date. Occupation LANDBOUWER. Marital status WEDUWNAAR - his wife had died eleven months earlier. AND THE ANSWER TO A STANDING QUESTION: he died "IN ZIJN EIGEN HUIS TE PRINS ALBERT" - in his own house in the village, not on a farm. By 1859 the root ancestor had left the land and was living in town. Birthplace on the notice is left blank. The notice lists THIRTEEN children, all of age, two already dead (Susanna Catharina, and Catharina Petronella who left one minor son, Okker Almero de BeerM).

WHERE THE NAME ALMERO COMES FROM. The 1786 baptism has seven witnesses, and three of them are Venetian nobility: "Louij ALMARO PISANIE Baron de Felion van VENESIA IN ITALIA", "Alviese Almaro Pesanie" and a third Almaro "de Felion de Venesie". ALMORO (Almorò) is a distinctively Venetian patrician given name, and it belongs to the PISANI family - Alvise Pisani was Doge of Venice, and Almoro Pisani recurs through that house for centuries. The child was named for his godfather. So the ALMERO that runs down six generations of this Afrikaans farming family - to Almero Jacobus Hitge OosthuizenL (1878-1961), and to two more Almero Jacobus Hitges after him - is a Venetian nobleman's name, given at a Cape baptism in 1786. Transcription of an 18th-century hand, so [TO VERIFY] - but a Geneanet South African tree already carries a "Louis Almora (Alviso Louis) Pisani", which is very likely the same man. Worth its own story.

THE FAMILY STORY [SRC-080], told long before the register was read: the name Almero came from an ancestor's RICH FRIEND, who said that if a son were named for him the boy would inherit. The 1786 register does not mention an inheritance, but it does show a man who was no relation standing godfather and giving his name - and the tradition gets the crucial thing right, that he was a FRIEND. Whether anything was ever inherited is open; Pisani was exiled and stripped in 1795.

29 Jul 2026 [SRC-085] A CONTRIBUTION BACK TO THE PUBLISHED RECORD. Combrink traces the given name ALMERO out of the (Du) Pisani family into ROUX (1822), GREY (1865) and BOTES (about 1921), and notes it among Pretorius, Smuts and De Villiers. HE DOES NOT LIST THE OOSTHUIZENS - and this baptism is 1786, thirty-six years before his earliest transmission. On the evidence we hold, the Oosthuizen line is the EARLIEST DOCUMENTED PASSAGE OF THE NAME OUT OF THE PISANI FAMILY, and it ran for a hundred and seventy-nine years. Worth telling the onomasts.

29 Jul 2026 [SRC-092] The 1809 estate inventory lists him as heir no. 2, "Ockert Almoro Oosthuyzen OUD 23 JAREN" - which puts his birth in 1786 and confirms the baptism. He also owed the estate 56 rixdollars, the balance on A WAGON HE HAD BOUGHT, and he signed the inventory himself as "Ocker Almero Oosthuysen" - so at 23 he was already using the name.

[31 Jul 2026 SRC-092] A DETAIL WORTH THE STORY: the 1809 inventory shows him, aged 23 and eighteen months married, owing his own father 56 rixdollars 'per rest op een gekogte wagen' - the balance on a wagon he had bought from him - marked 'vold:', paid in full. His father was a wagonmaker. He signs the inventory himself, 'Ocker Almero Oosthuysen'. A newly married man buying a wagon from his wagonmaker father, two years before the family begins moving east: that is the vehicle of the migration, named in a document.

[SRC-294, Fred van Zyl, 6 Aug 2026] Given as b7c3d3, dated 11-05-1787. THE DATE IDENTIFIES HIM RATHER THAN CONTRADICTING HIM: 11 May is the day and month of his BAPTISM in SRC-076, which records him born 25 April 1786 and baptised 11 May 1786. Fred is quoting a baptism date as a birth date with the year one out, which is the commonest slip in compiled genealogy - and it settles beyond doubt that his b7c3d3 and this project's root ancestor are one man. NOTE FOR THIS ROW'S OWN SAKE: birth_edtf here reads 1786-04-24 while SRC-076 says 25 April 1786. One day, and the source is the register. [TO VERIFY]

[17 Aug 2026, SRC-456] Fred van Zyl also has FOURTEEN children for this couple, taken from Ockert's death certificate, which is what this model links. He believes there were TWO MORE, and notes that most websites give eight or ten with the names differing. Open, and his method for testing it is worth borrowing: list the children by birth date in order and look for gaps and overlaps. [TO VERIFY]

[17 Aug 2026] MERGED PER-000054 into this row. The 'Okert Oosthuizen' of Middelwater diagram 349/1833 is Ockert Almero OosthuizenL. Merged, together with the Vrolykheid and De Claar Stroom identifications, because part of the evidence for each is the existence of the other two (LEAD-0215). The three farms lie in a row, were surveyed in one season, and the men on them are three of the eleven children of the 1809 Modder Fonteyn estate who were raised in one household. Moved across: flourished_edtf=1833/1841. DISAGREEMENTS, kept rather than resolved - the FamilySearch id settles these in one click: display_name: kept 'Ockert Almero OosthuizenL', PER-000054 said 'Okert Oosthuizen'; given: kept 'Ockert Almero', PER-000054 said 'Okert'; doopnaam: kept 'Ockert Almero', PER-000054 said 'Okert'.

[20 Aug 2026, SRC-516] STOOD GODFATHER AT SWELLENDAM, aged seventeen, to his baby sister Sara Maria (PER-000149), baptised there on a birth of 16 November 1803. The register writes him 'Ockkert Almoro Oosthuijzen'. This is his earliest dated appearance after his own baptism of 11 May 1786, and it places him at the Swellendam font four years before he married Adriana Cecilia VenterH there in October 1807.

*** [23 Aug 2026] THE SIBSHIP MARRIED IN BLOCS, AND IT IS THE SHAPE OF THIS WHOLE PROJECT. *** Of the thirteen children of Ockert Jacobus OosthuizenL (PER-000118) with a recorded marriage, SEVEN married children of just TWO households - and in each case they married SIBLINGS.

THE VENTER BLOC, all children of Jan Louis VenterL (PER-000120, b.1754) and Johanna Jacomina SmitM: Ockert Almero x ADRIANA CECILIA VENTER (Oct 1807, Swellendam); Dina Magdalena x JAN LOUIS VENTER the younger; Cornelia Petronella x PETRUS JACOBUS VENTER.

THE STRYDOM BLOC, all children of Daniel Jacobus StrydomM (PER-000337) and Anna Magdalena CalitzM (PER-000338): Jacobus Johannes x ANNA MAGDALENA STRIJDOM (6 Mar 1808, Uitenhage); Cornelis Andries x JOHANNA MACHTELD PETRONELLA STRYDOM (11 Apr 1813); Roelof Adolph x HESTER MARIA CATHARINA STRYDOM; and SARA MARIA OOSTHUIZEN x DAVID JAN STRYDOM - the man granted RONDABEL on 15 April 1841.

A LIKELY THIRD PAIR: Gerrit Adriaan married Petronella Catharina SchoemanM and Pieter Marthinus married Catharina Elisabeth SchoemanM. Neither Schoeman has a recorded parent here, so whether they were sisters is UNTESTED - and the pattern is exactly why it must be tested rather than assumed. An eighth tie runs through the Bothas: Susanna Johanna married Jan Hendrik BothaL, whose mother was a HESTER VENTER.

THE TIMING IS TIGHT. The Venter marriage of October 1807 and the Strydom marriage of March 1808 are FIVE MONTHS APART, and the father died in April 1809. The two alliances were made in the last eighteen months of his life and were still being made fifteen years later.

WHAT IT EXPLAINS: Rondabel. David Jan StrydomM held it from 1841 and it was with Jan Adriaan OosthuizenL by 1868 - and David Jan was married to Jan Adriaan's AUNT. See STO-0043.

*** [SRC-605] 'OCKERT ALMERO OOSTHUISEN, OCKERT ZOON', line 13 of the 1823 Beaufort roll, with Adriana Cecilia VenterH beside him. *** The patronymic puts his father on an original instead of a compiled tree, and it is the contemporary parallel LEAD-0213 needs for the 'As. son' of the Vrolykheid diagram.

[17 Sep 2026] De Villiers (SRC-656) gives 'Ockert Almaro, gedoopt 11 Mei 1787'. The Paarl register (SRC-076) has the baptism on 11 May 1786: same day, and the book's year is a year out.

These are working notes, not finished prose: they carry the reasoning, the corrections and the things still marked to verify. They are kept here so the page itself can read as what is known.

Open questions

Elders

FamilySearch profile 972X-2LJ