M. de Beer (veldkornet)
active 1833–1834 · de Beer line
Connection to the Koup
Took part in something recorded here: Vlakfontein surveyed by C.L. Stretch (1833-07).
Names
- Baptismal name
- M.
- Given
- M.
- Surname
- de Beer
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.
A life in the record
-
July 1833
event
Vlakfontein surveyed by C.L. Stretch
On 24 July 1833 Pieter Johannes Swanepoel signed before field cornet M. de Beer that he was "volkomen te vreeden" with the way surveyor Stretch had measured Vlakfontein and that the beacons had been properly shown to him. General plan No 21, No 9 Vlakfontein. The same surveyor and the same field cor
- 24 July 1833 witness Witnessed a survey · Pieter Johannes Swanepoel (b6c5d7)
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.
- they stood for
Pieter Johannes Swanepoel (b6c5d7) survey · 24 July 1833
on Vlakfontein (Koup), Rietkuil No. 119 (Kouka)
Stories
- subject The fifteenth of April, 1841
- mentioned The men who drew the lines
What we don't know
- No birth date is recorded.
- No death date is recorded.
- Neither parent is recorded, so this person is not attached to the tree above them.
- No dated record ties this person to a specific piece of ground.
A sourced gap beats an unsourced fill. These are the open questions on this person, stated rather than papered over.
Sources
- 'n Tak van die Swanepoel-familie in Suid-Afrika, 1699 tot 1999: 'n genealogiese en kultuurhistoriese studie Universiteit van Stellenbosch (SUNScholar)MA thesis, Departement Geskiedenis; studieleier Dr M Burden; April 2003; handle 10019.1/53526
Research notes
[SRC-072 + DOC-0004] Field cornet of the Koup. Witnessed Pieter Johannes SwanepoelL's acceptance of the Vlakfontein survey on 24 Jul 1833, and the 1834 Varsche Fontein diagram places that farm in "the Field Cornetcy of Mr De Beer". The same official on both documents - independent confirmation that the two surveys belong to one campaign.
29 Jul 2026: strong candidate identification - Matthys Andries de BeerM (PER-000274), b. May 1799, d. 25 Sep 1876, father of the man who married an Oosthuizen daughter in 1851 [TO VERIFY].
[4 Aug 2026, SRC-254 + SRC-257] TWO MORE DOCUMENTS PUT HIM OVER THIS GROUND, and they are dated 1839 rather than 1833-34. Both Riet Fontein No. 12 and Waterfall (later Bokfontein No. 94) are surveyed by C.L. Stretch in 1839 "in the GOUPH District of Beaufort and FIELD CORNETCY OF M. DE BEER". So the de Beer field cornetcy spans at least 1833 to 1839 and covers the Gouph, and four separate diagrams now name it. That strengthens the identification with Matthys Andries de BeerM (PER-000274) without proving it. [TO VERIFY]
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.