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Person PER-000118

Ockert Oosthuizen (b.1755)

1755 – about 1809-04 · Oosthuizen line

Connection to the Koup

Married into a household on this ground: Susanna Catharina van Tonder (1783-01-26).

Names

Baptismal name
Ocker
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.

Immediate family

Father
Jacobus Oosthuizen (b.1722)
Mother
Dina Carolina Britz
Brothers and sisters
Married
Susanna Catharina van Tonder 26 January 1783
Children

A life in the record

  1. 1755 born Born
  2. 1755 event Ockert Oosthuizen baptised as "Ocker"
    [SRC-091] Son of Jacobus Oosthuijsen and Diena Carola Brits, with OCKER BRITS and Johanna Botha as witnesses. Second son, so by the naming pattern he takes his mother's father's name - and that grandfather is standing at the font. No Almero: the family name at this point is simply Ocker, and it came
  3. 1755 occasion Baptism
  4. 26 January 1783 married Married Susanna Catharina van Tonder
  5. 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
  6. 11 May 1786 occasion Baptism of their child, Ockert Almero Oosthuizen
  7. 27 April 1802 event The estate of Jacobus Oosthuysen d'oude is inventoried
    [SRC-093] MOOC8/24.27. Taken at the place of the son Pieter Cornelis, where the widow was living. The old couple owned no farm: 140 sheep, Rd:s 300 cash, one enslaved man named ANTHONY VAN DE KAAP, and Rd:s 1382:5 out on loan to their own eight surviving children. Their son OCKERT - heir no. 3, 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. 23 April 1809 occasion Estate inventory at De Modder Fonteyn
  10. about 1809-04 event Ockert Oosthuijzen dies and his youngest is taken in by his eldest son
    [SRC-074] Ockert Oosthuijzen (1755-1809) died at Citrusdal about April 1809, leaving thirteen children. FamilySearch records the youngest, Daniel Jacobus Johannes (b.1807), as a FOSTER child of his eldest married brother Jacobus Johannes and Anna Magdalena Strijdom - who had married at Uitenhage the
  11. about 1809-04 event Ockert Almero Oosthuizen the elder dies at Citrusdal
    The generation that did not go east. He married at Swellendam in 1783 and died in the Olifants River valley about April 1809 - while his son was already baptising children at Graaff-Reinet, seven hundred kilometres away. The family property at Citrusdal is said still to be standing. Thirteen childre
  12. about 1809-04 died Died
  13. 19 August 1821 occasion Baptism of a child of their child, Cornelis Andries Oosthuizen at Beaufort West

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

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. FamilySearch Family Tree - Oosthuizen direct line FamilySearchperson pages 972X-2LJ, LZ1Q-GDF, LDQC-R1B, LDQC-R17, LDQC-RTX and their family views
  2. 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
  3. The first Almero, or his parents, lived at Citrusdal - and the property still standsfamily
  4. Baptism 1755: Ocker, child of Jacobus Oosthuijsen and Diena Carola Brits FamilySearch, "South Africa, Dutch Reformed Church Registers (Cape Town Archives), 1660-1994"; State Archives, Cape Provinceark 3:1:3Q9M-CSV8-WT5C; cc=1478678; register pages 30-31, ANNO 1755, entry 9
  5. 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}
  6. MOOC8/24.27 - Inventory of the estate of Jacobus Oosthuysen d'oude and his widow Dina Carolina Brits, taken 27 April 1802 Cape Archives (KAB), Master of the Orphan Chamber; transcription published by TANAP / Globalise (Huygens KNAW)MOOC8/24.27, {18020427}

Research notes

[SRC-073 + tree] FATHER OF THE ROOT ANCESTOR PER-000001, and so one generation further back than the model went before. Married Susanna Catharina van TonderHen 26 Jan 1783 in the Overberg. Pottas gives his birth as 1754, the tree as 1755. Died about April 1809 at Citrusdal - i.e. the family was still in the western Cape a generation before Beaufort West.

29 Jul 2026 FamilySearch: married Susanna Catharina van TonderHen 26 Jan 1783 at SWELLENDAM (the tree said Overberg). FS id CORRECTED 29 Jul 2026 to LHLG-S2Z; I had first read it as "LHIG-S27" off a small render - an I for an L and a 7 for a Z. Thirteen children.

29 Jul 2026 [SRC-077]: the death notice of his son names him "Okker Almero Oosthuijsen", and the 1786 baptism register gives him simply as "Ocert Oosthuijsen".

*** [14 Aug 2026, CORRECTED - THIS ROW READ THE 1859 NOTICE THE WRONG WAY ROUND FOR SIXTEEN DAYS.] *** The sentence above used to end "so the father carried Almero too", and S008's whole argument is that he did not: he was baptised plain OCKER in 1755, and a death notice written by his son's family in 1859 - fifty years after he died - is the one document that gives him Almero. That is a courtesy written backwards onto a dead man, not a name he carried, and it is exactly the kind of back-formation this project is supposed to catch. S008 was corrected on 13 Aug 2026 and this row was not, so the site argued both readings at once until HIS display_name has lost the parenthetical Almero for the same reason.

29 Jul 2026 [SRC-086, SRC-087] CITRUSDAL CONFIRMED FROM TWO DIRECTIONS. Family memory has it that the first Almero or his parents lived at Citrusdal, and Frans has been to the property, WHICH STILL STANDS. The family-tree independently gives his death place as Citrusdal, about April 1809. Two sources that have never met, agreeing on a place field this project normally distrusts. AND IT SETTLES THE 1786 BAPTISM: there was no congregation in the Olifants River valley until Clanwilliam in 1826 - until then it "formed part of the town Tulbagh", with a predikant riding out annually to baptise. So a family at Citrusdal in 1786 belonged to TULBAGH (ROODEZAND). The same answer arrives from the other side too: Swellendam, where he married in 1783, had no congregation of its own until 1798, so its people also went to Tulbagh or Cape Town. Both hypotheses converge on Tulbagh - which is where his own parents married in 1749.

29 Jul 2026 [SRC-091] BAPTISM REGISTER READ, 1755: "t kint OCKER, vader Jacobus Oosthuijsen, moeder Diena Carola Brits, getuigen OCKER BRITS en Johanna BothaM." HE WAS BAPTISED SIMPLY OCKER - NO ALMERO. The second son takes the mother's father's name, and Ocker BritsM is standing at the font. The Almero only arrives with his own son in 1786. His son's 1859 death notice calls him "Okker Almero", which is a later back-formation, not what the register says.

[SRC-092] MOOC8/28.63, 23 April 1809: he died INTESTATE at DE MODDER FONTEYN on the OLIFANTS RIVER (PAR-000065) - the Citrusdal place, now documented. Eleven heirs named with their ages. The inventory speaks of "het afsterven van zijne ouders" in the plural, so SUSANNA CATHARINA VAN TONDER HAD ALSO DIED BY APRIL 1809.

*** [4 Aug 2026, SRC-092 / INV-0005] HY WAS 'N SMID, EN DIE WERF HET DIT NOOIT GESÊ NIE. *** His 1809 inventory, taken at de Modder Fonteyn on the Olifants River, lists a complete forge among the household goods: EEN OUDE BLAASBALK (bellows), een ballast yzer, TWEE VOORHAMERS, een handhamer, een tang, een schroef, and an yzere balans met kopere schaalen. The clerk's own room-by-room walk names the room they stood in - voorhuis, the two side rooms, the combuis, and THE WINKEL. Winkel here is the smithy, not a shop. AND HE WORKED WOOD AS WELL AS IRON: twaalf stukken hout, vier geelhoute planken, EENIGE STUKKEN WAGEMAKERSHOUT - wagonmaker's timber - beside an ox-wagon and 'een chais, DEFECT'. A broken chaise in a house with a forge and wagon timber is a job in progress, not a possession. WHY IT MATTERS BEYOND THE MAN. This project has described the generation before the Karoo as trekboers moving east. A forge is the opposite of that: it is fixed capital, it needs charcoal and a water supply, and it makes its owner the man a whole district depends on for a wagon tyre, a share, a hinge. It also travels well as a SKILL - the family that took up ground in the Koup a generation later carried a trade with it, not only stock. WHAT IS NOT CLAIMED: no document calls him a smith. The occupation is read off the tools, the wood and the name of the room, which is inference and is marked as such. The estate was wound up ab intestato and the farm sold to his eldest son Jacobus Johannes for 1 000 rixdollars, so no will states a trade either. [TO VERIFY] - the opgaafrol would give an occupation directly, and LEAD-0078/0079 are already open on which roll to read.

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 LHLG-S2Z