Jacobus Johannes Gideon van der Merwe (b.1939)

24 October 1939 – 9 October 2007 · van der Merwe line

Names

Baptismal name: Jacobus Johannes Gideon
Given: Jacobus Johannes Gideon
Surname: van der Merwe

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

Ten grown brothers and sisters crowded together in the sun against a wire fence, the eldest at the back. FRANS... — Ten grown brothers and sisters crowded together in the sun against a wire fence, the eldest at the back. FRANS JACOBUS WILHELMUS VAN DER MERWE (1924-1968) is among them - the children of Kola van der Merwe and Kittie Bruijn. Three of the ten are men. The women are in sleeveless summer dresses, two of them in wide headbands, one in cropped trousers; the man at the front stands with his arms folded in a white knitted shirt. — Family collection

The same photograph of the ten van der Merwe brothers and sisters, 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

Frans Jacobus Wilhelmus van der Merwe 1863 Christina Elisabeth Nel 1867

Jacobus Johannes Gideon van der Merwe 1888

Hubertus Bruijn 1855 Sibella Aletta Sophia Mostert 1863

Catharina Isabella Bruijn 1894

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: Jacobus Johannes Gideon van der Merwe
Mother: Catharina Isabella Bruijn
Brothers and sisters: 1921Sybilla Aletta Sophia van der Merwe

1924Frans Jacobus Wilhelmus van der Merwe

1925Christina Elizabeth van der Merwe

1927Catharina Isabella van der Merwe (b.1927)

1927Hester Maria Josina van der Merwe

1929Hendrieka Gertruida van der Merwe

1932Hubertus Bruyn van der Merwe

1935Elsje Johanna van der Merwe

A life in the record

24 October 1939 born Born
9 October 2007 died Died

Others of the same name

Afrikaans naming repeats hard, and the Cape Dutch naming pattern reuses a name on purpose, a child who died young has the name given again to a later sibling. These are different people. Never match on a name alone.

Jacobus Johannes Gideon van der Merwe

What we don't know

No dated record ties this person to a specific piece of ground.
1 other person in this model carry the same name. Never match on a name alone.

A sourced gap beats an unsourced fill. These are the open questions on this person, stated rather than papered over.

Research notes

[SRC-074] Youngest of the eleven, named for his father.

[31 Jul 2026] MERGED PER-000654 into this row. PROVEN DUPLICATE, resolved on the FamilySearch id. Both rows carry GZ4Z-Q59; an FS id names one person, so these are one person recorded twice. Created by the 31 Jul 2026 one-degree tree pull, which matched on tree id alone - and 255 model people carry no tree id, so any of them one hop from a tree-linked person was added again. Survivor is the pre-existing row; it carries the prose, sources and land links. Moved across: tree id=. Dates sharpened from the merged row: birth_edtf 1939 -> 1939-10-24; death_edtf 2007 -> 2007-10-09. DISAGREEMENTS, kept rather than resolved - the FamilySearch id settles these in one click: display_name: kept 'Jacobus Johannes Gideon van der MerweL (b.1939)', PER-000654 said 'Jacobus Johannes Gideon van der MerweL'.

[16 Aug 2026, MED-000105] CALLED "KOLA", cut on the plaque at the foot of his parents' grave: "JACOBUS JOHANNES GIDEON VD MERWE 'KOLA'", with his dates to the day as this row already had them, and "PAPPA, ONS SAL JOU VIR EWIG LIEFHE - VLOOI EN KINDERS".

HIS FATHER CARRIED IT FIRST. Frans confirms Kola as his grandfather's father, PER-000219, so the noemnaam travelled with the three names rather than belonging to one of them. Both rows keep it. LEAD-0211 closed on this point.

[16 Aug 2026, FAMILY] AND KOLA IS A RECURRING FAMILY NICKNAME, so it identifies nobody on its own. [FAMILY] Kola is also a family nickname, so there may be others. Two men are already known to have carried it, father and son, and there will be more.

That puts it under the same rule 9 gives for names: NEVER MATCH ON IT ALONE, always name plus date plus place. It also sits with the Kootjie/Kolie forms 5b already records for a Jacobus Johannes Gerrit, which is the same everyday name for the same formal one in a different branch.

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

Duplicate candidates from the one-degree pull, settled on FamilySearch ids priority 2 · LEAD-0035
38 people added on 31 Jul 2026 share a name AND a birth YEAR with somebody already in the model, and 32 share a name with no date at all. Are they the same people?

What would settle it A full birth or baptism date on either side of a pair. Name plus YEAR is not enough here and must not be treated as enough.

Elders

FamilySearch profile GZ4Z-Q59