Petrus Gideon van Rensburg

DIRECT ANCESTOR - Frans's great-grandfather on his mother's side, and missing from the model until now. Born at Van Wyksvlei. Married Maria Margaretha WaltersH 10 Nov 1919; eight children. [SRC-074]

[9 Aug 2026] HE WAS ORPHANED BEFORE HE WAS SEVEN, AND THAT IS WHY HE WAS RAISED BY STRANGERS. This model already held all three dates and had never put them together. He was born 7 MAY 1891. His mother, MARTHA GERTRUIDA OLIVIER (PER-000761), died 8 SEPTEMBER 1896, when he was five. His father, ALBERTUS GERHARDUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG (PER-000760), died 1 JANUARY 1898, when he was six. SIXTEEN MONTHS APART.

[FAMILY] Frans's account: Ria's father was adopted and raised by a VOS family, which one is not known, and he DROPPED THE JANSE from his parents' surname. Ria never knew who her grandparents were; they were found only recently. The two facts now explain each other. A boy taken into another household at six keeps the name he is called by and not the one on his dead father's papers, and that is how JANSE VAN RENSBURG becomes VAN RENSBURG in one generation. The `surname` column keeps what each document writes; `line` groups them as the one family they are.

WHICH VOS FAMILY IS THE OPEN QUESTION, and it is worth asking now that the death dates give it a date and a district: an orphan placed in the Van Wyksvlei or Calvinia area between September 1896 and January 1898. LEAD-0142.

[11 Aug 2026, SRC-392] HIS DAUGHTER WROTE HIM DOWN IN 1987 and it is the only account of his childhood this record has. Orphaned at five and given with his sister Martha to a family called VOS, who schooled him a few years, worked him on their farm and gave him black coffee without sugar and bread without jam while their own children ate otherwise. At 25 he left; for all those years' work they gave him A HORSE. He bought a boring machine, then held agencies - Steward & Lloyds windpumps, Wellstood stoves, Venetian blinds - and ran his own mill at Williston, and about 1940 they sold the business and the Landbou Ko-op began there. He sent money to orphanages all his life and his daughter remembered his love of sweet things. SHE GIVES HIS BIRTH AS 7 APRIL 1890 AT VOSBURG, against the 7 May 1891 this row holds from FamilySearch. The place is new and there is nothing against it; the date disagrees and neither side is a register. THREE SIBLINGS she names - Hester, Koos and Martha - are not in this model. LEAD-0163.

[11 Aug 2026, SRC-393] THE BIRTH YEAR IS SETTLED IN FAVOUR OF THIS ROW. The 1919 marriage register gives his age at last birthday as 28 on 10 November 1919, which fits 1891 and not the 1890 his daughter's memoir gives. He is entered there as a JONKMAN and a WERKMAN of Williston, which is the memoir's account of him exactly at that point: three years out of the Vos household and not yet in business for himself.