Lodewyk Bothma

24 May 1802 – 30 June 1874 · Bothma line

Connection to the Koup

Held ground in this district: Spreeuw Fontein & Toornits Kraal (Spreeufontein No. 26) (1871~).

residence Spreeuw Fontein & Toornits Kraal (Spreeufontein No. 26) ../1874-06-30
event An aardvark turns up the FIRST gold nugget on Spreeuwfontein - twenty years before the rush1871-08

Names

Baptismal name: Lodewyk
Given: Lodewyk
Surname: Bothma

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

Stephanus Botma (1762-1830) 1762

Jacob Cloete Johanna Kruger

Huibrecht Cloete 1763

Lodewyk Bothma 1802 Elsje Jacoba Maritz (1813-1892) m. 26 January 1834 Josina Cornelia Steenberg m. 3 April 1821

Frans Stephanus Botma (1834-1908) 1834

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: Stephanus Botma (1762-1830)
Mother: Huibrecht Cloete
Married: Elsje Jacoba Maritz (1813-1892) 26 January 1834, Josina Cornelia Steenberg 3 April 1821
Children: Frans Stephanus Botma (1834-1908)

A life in the record

before 1874-06-30 land Lived on it, Spreeuw Fontein & Toornits Kraal (Spreeufontein No. 26)
24 May 1802 born Born
3 December 1802 event Lodewyk Botma is baptised at Tulbagh, six months old
Born 24 May 1802 in the Klein Roggeveld, baptised at Tulbagh on 3 December. Four Botmas stood as godparents and nobody else did: Stephanus Jacobus, Johanna Catarina, Cristiaan and Aletta Fransina. The register writes the family Botman and the mother Huijbreg Kloete.
3 April 1821 married Married Josina Cornelia Steenberg
26 January 1834 married Married Elsje Jacoba Maritz (1813-1892)
August 1871 event An aardvark turns up the FIRST gold nugget on Spreeuwfontein - twenty years before the rush
2½ oz, round, water-worn and encrusted with crystals, in the spoil of a burrow on Lodewyk Bothma's farm 50 km from Prince Albert. Young Bothma took it for a sheep dropping, kicked it aside, then pocketed it as a pretty stone for his mother; she thought it "queer" and it ended up on a cupboard. Sir R
about 1871 land Held it, Spreeuw Fontein & Toornits Kraal (Spreeufontein No. 26)
30 June 1874 event Lodewyk Botma dies on Spreeuwfontein, three years after the first gold came off it
Death notice 588, filed 15 July 1874: 'at his residence Spreeuwfontein, Division of Prince Albert'. A farmer, a widower of Elsje Jacoba Maritz, no will, an inventory annexed, twelve children named as heirs. The clerk gave his age as seventy-two years, one month and six days, which counts back to the
30 June 1874 died Died

Ground they are on record on

Spreeuw Fontein & Toornits Kraal (Spreeufontein No. 26) held it · about 1871 to 30 June 1874
Spreeuw Fontein & Toornits Kraal (Spreeufontein No. 26) lived on it · before 1874-06-30

Stories

subject The aardvark's hole and the Gatsplaas gold rush, 1871-1892
subject The Botmas of Spreeufontein

Sources

"The Karoo's mini gold bonanza" Engineering News / Mining Weekly21 Feb 2014
Death notice 588, Lodewyk Botma, died 30 June 1874 at his residence Spreeuwfontein, Division of Prince AlbertFamilySearch, "Cape Province. Probate Records 1874, 1873"Image 1699 of 2,135. Death Notice no. 588 (75*), filed 15 July 1874Supplied as a screenshot. The ark and film/image numbers were never captured, so the original cannot be ordered from this entry alone.
Tulbagh baptism, 3 December 1802: Lodewijk, son of Stephanus Botman and Huijbreg Kloete, born 24 May 1802Cape Dutch Reformed Church Registers, filming project S-AF 00532, ROLL NUMBER 884, item 5: TULBAGH G4/7/7, BAPTISM, 1791-1811Page 51, entry 90

Research notes

[SRC-068] Found the first nugget in 1871 as a YOUNG BOY on Spreeuwfontein - he took it for a sheep dropping, kicked it aside, then carried it home as a pretty stone. He sold it to Samuel "Saamie" Luttig for £5.50. Later planned the village of GATSPLAAS on the farm, named for the hole the first nugget came out of. CORRECTION: earlier notes had him simply as the farm owner at the time of the find.

[FS L6L7-5PZ, 9 Aug 2026] DATED, AND THE DATES SPLIT THIS ROW IN TWO. Lodewyk BothmaH was born in 1802 and died in 1874, married ELSJE JACOBA MARITZ (PER-001605) at Worcester on 26 January 1834, and was SIXTY-NINE in 1871. He cannot be the young boy who kicked the first nugget aside. His grandson and namesake LODEWYK BOTMA (PER-001606), eldest son of Frans Stephanus, was fifteen that year and is the likely finder. This row now holds the grandfather; the boy is PER-001606. [TO VERIFY] which of them laid out the village.

[SRC-592] SPELLED 'LODEWYK BOTMA' on his son's 1908 death notice, where this project holds him as BOTHMA. The two forms are one name in this family and always have been: the same son signs Botma in 1884, 1885 and 1930; H. W. Bot[h]ma signs both ways within six years; and the eGGSA captions from the Botma burial ground on Spreeufontein carry both spellings off stones in one enclosure. Nothing here is two families.

[SRC-597] PARENTS AND A FIRST MARRIAGE. His father was STEPHANUS BOTMA 1762-1830 (PER-001937) and his mother HUIBRECHT CLOETE (PER-001938), married at Cape Town on 3 November 1782. AND HE MARRIED TWICE: JOSINA CORNELIA STEENBERG (PER-001939) at Worcester on 3 April 1821, six children, dead in 1833; then Elsje Jacoba MaritzH in January 1834, seven more, the first of them Frans Stephanus who would die on Spreeufontein in 1908. Widowed and remarried inside a year, which is the pattern his grandson repeated three times.

*** [SRC-599] THE PARENTAGE IS NOW ON AN ORIGINAL, NOT A TREE. *** The Worcester register of 3 April 1821 enters him as 'LODEWIJK BOTMA, STEPH:s ZOON, van Cabo de Goede Hoop, BURGER ALHIER, jongman', marrying Josina Cornelia SteenbergH. The patronymic confirms Stephanus BotmaM as his father independently of FamilySearch, and 'burger alhier' places him at Worcester in 1821.

*** [SRC-602] HIS OWN DEATH NOTICE, AND IT SETTLES WHERE HE WAS. *** He died on 30 JUNE 1874 'at his residence Spreeuwfontein, Division of Prince Albert', so the Botma hold on this farm is his own and was not inherited from his father. He is entered as a farmer, a widower of Elsje Jacoba MaritzH, and he left no will. Twelve children are named as heirs, the seventh of them Frans Stephanus (PER-000323); two daughters married Botes men and two married Botma men.

*** [SRC-603] AND HIS BAPTISM, which fixes the birth the death notice only implies. *** Born 24 MAY 1802 in the Klein Roggeveld, baptised at TULBAGH on 3 December 1802 with four Botma godparents. The stated age of 72 years 1 month 6 days counts back to the same day. The register writes the family BOTMAN and his mother KLOETE.

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

Is the ruin on Spreeufontein Portion 1 a gold-rush building, and are the workings above it diggings? priority 2 · LEAD-0121
Two photographs of 29 March 2024 carry real device coordinates on Spreeufontein Portion 1: a collapsed dry-stone building at -32.969131, 22.290139 (855 m) and broken rock and spoil 232 m south and 74 m higher at -32.971036, 22.289128 (929 m). Do either belong to the 1891 rush, or to Gatsplaas, or to ordinary farming?

What would settle it Any contemporary map or report locating the diggings or the village; or a visit recording the ruin's plan, dimensions and any datable material - a fireplace, window openings, mortar, bottle glass, a dump. [14 Aug 2026] TWO CALL NUMBERS NOW ANSWER THE FIRST HALF OF THIS: CCP1/2/1/78 ref A12 for 1891 and CCP1/2/1/23 ref A30 for 1871. What they will not give is a coordinate for the ruin in IMG-0010; only a visit or a map does that.

What the record is missing

30 years, and the ground changes hands to nobody we can follow first order · B1 succession
On Spreeuw Fontein & Toornits Kraal (Spreeufontein No. 26), Cornelis Floris Johannes MeyerM is the last owner recorded from 1841-04-15, and the next entry is Lodewyk BothmaH from 1871~, 30 years later, with no person in common. No document records the handover at all.

What would settle it The Deeds Office transfer register for this farm between 1841 and 1871. A transfer names its predecessor in title, so one deed closes the whole gap.
The record stops in 1874 and never resumes second order · B2 trail-ends
Spreeuw Fontein & Toornits Kraal (Spreeufontein No. 26) was worked as far as 1874-06-30, with Lodewyk BothmaH the last owner on record. 152 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.

Elders

FamilySearch profile L6L7-5PZ