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Person PER-000220

Catharina Isabella Bruijn

12 June 1894 – 17 April 1953 · van der Merwe line

Connection to the Koup

Married into a household on this ground: Jacobus Johannes Gideon van der Merwe (1917-10-01).

Names

Baptismal name
Catharina Isabella
Called
Kittie
Given
Catharina Isabella
Surname
Bruijn

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.

Photographs

Catharina Isabella van der Merwe, born Bruijn (1894-1953), called KITTIE, on a farm stoep with four of her...
Catharina Isabella van der Merwe, born Bruijn (1894-1953), called KITTIE, on a farm stoep with four of her daughters. She sits at the right in a pale blouse with a corsage at the throat. Three of the girls wear the same white shirt and dark braces - a school gymslip - and the youngest, in a white dress with a bow in her hair, sits on her sister's lap. Behind them a shuttered window and the underside of a corrugated roof. — Family collection
The same photograph of Kittie Bruijn and four of her daughters, colourised.
The same photograph of Kittie Bruijn and four of her daughters, colourised. — Family collection
A polished granite headstone in a walled kerb marked VAN DER MERWE, with a small plaque set in brick on the ground...
A polished granite headstone in a walled kerb marked VAN DER MERWE, with a small plaque set in brick on the ground in front of it. The headstone is to CATHARINA ISABELLA, born Bruyn, and to JACOBUS JOHANNES GIDEON van der Merwe; the plaque on the ground is to their son of the same names, called KOLA. — Frans Oosthuizen

Three generations around this person

Adriaan Bruijn Trijntje Hottentot 1833~
Hubertus Bruijn 1855
Hendrik Jacobus Mostert Magdalena Elizabeth Basson
Sibella Aletta Sophia Mostert 1863
Catharina Isabella Bruijn 1894 Jacobus Johannes Gideon van der Merwe m. 1 October 1917
Sybilla Aletta Sophia van der Merwe 1921 Frans Jacobus Wilhelmus van der Merwe 1924 Christina Elizabeth van der Merwe 1925 Catharina Isabella van der Merwe (b.1927) 1927 Hester Maria Josina van der Merwe 1927 Hendrieka Gertruida van der Merwe 1929 Hubertus Bruyn van der Merwe 1932 Elsje Johanna van der Merwe 1935 Jacobus Johannes Gideon van der Merwe (b.1939) 1939

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
Hubertus Bruijn
Mother
Sibella Aletta Sophia Mostert
Married
Jacobus Johannes Gideon van der Merwe 1 October 1917
Children

1 further child is not published, living, or not shown to be deceased. They are counted here rather than left out, so the family does not appear to stop.

A life in the record

  1. 12 June 1894 born Born
  2. 8 September 1894 occasion Baptism at Calvinia
  3. 1 October 1917 married Married Jacobus Johannes Gideon van der Merwe
  4. 1 October 1917 event Jacobus Johannes Gideon van der Merwe marries Catharina Isabella Bruijn
    [SRC-074] At Calvinia. Eleven children. Their second child, Frans Jacobus Wilhelmus (1924-1968), is the grandfather who brought this line south to Vredendal.
  5. 17 April 1953 died Died
  6. undated buried Buried, Williston old town cemetery

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 8 September 1894, Calvinia, entry 321: Catharina Isabella, born 12 June 1894, child of Hubertus Bruyn and Sebella Aletta Sophia MostertDoop Register van de Ned. Ger. Gemeente CALVINIA, pages 733-734.Page 734, no. 321, under the family name BRUYN. Supplied as a screenshot on 11 Aug 2026.

Research notes

DIRECT ANCESTOR - Frans's great-grandmother, also missing until now. BRUIJN/BRUYN is a new surname for the project; her son Hubertus Bruyn van der MerweH carries it forward as a given name. [SRC-074]

[11 Aug 2026, SRC-398] HER BIRTH YEAR IS CORRECTED FROM 1895 TO 1894. The Calvinia baptism register, entry 321, gives "Geb. 12 Junie 1894, Ged. 8 September 1894" and names both parents, who are the parents this row already held. The day and month were always right; the year was one out, and a baptism three months after the birth leaves no room to argue it. The gravestone at Williston reads 1895-1953 and her 1953 estate file estimates 1896; neither is a birth record. SHE WAS BAPTISED AT CALVINIA on 8 September 1894, which is new, and her witnesses were Johannes Paulus Kotze, Maria Magdalena Louw, Jacoba Margaretha Hendrikse and John Gabriel O'Reilly.

[15 Aug 2026, FAMILY] CALLED KITTIE, the everyday form of Catharina, given with the photograph MED-000061.

[16 Aug 2026, MED-000105] HER GRAVESTONE GIVES 1895, THIS ROW GIVES 1894. The stone reads "GEB 12 JUNIE 1895 - OORL 17 APRIL 1953"; the model has 12 June 1894 and the same death date. Same day and month, one year apart, and neither is corrected: a stone is cut by the family and a register is written by a clerk, and both get things wrong. LEAD-0211. [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.

Open questions

Elders

FamilySearch profile LDQC-1QQ