Martha du Plessis

[TREE] Added 2026-07-31 by kin_sweep.py under the one-degree rule: parent of Jan Louis VenterL. Thin record, name, dates and the family link only. NO PLACE IMPORTED: the tree's place strings are systematically wrong and are not evidence.

*** [23 Aug 2026] DU PLESSIS IS IN THE DIRECT LINE, ONE STEP ABOVE THE VENTER SIBSHIP. *** Martha du PlessisH (PER-000750, 1730-1796) married Petrus VenterH on 14 October 1753; their son JAN LOUIS VENTER (PER-000120, b.1754) fathered the sixteen Venter children of STO-0046 - among them Adriana Cecilia, who married the root Oosthuizen, and Maria Catharina, who held Rondabel by 1829. So Martha is the grandmother of the root matriarch, and a du Plessis reaching Rondabel is not merely a coincidence of a common surname.

Superseded: answered below TWO OTHER DU PLESSIS TOUCH THAT FARM AND NEITHER IS JOINED TO HER HERE: Ignatius Michael (PER-000050, d.1818), whose Rondabel the inventory places ON THE TARKA, 380 km east and probably a different farm; and Cecilia Maria (PER-001346), who died on the Koup Rondabel in 1895 and has no parents recorded at all. LEAD-0272.

Superseded: answered below *** [23 Aug 2026] A NEAR-TWIN APPEARS. *** DANIEL DU PLESSIS (PER-001895, 1732-1795) enters the model as the second great-grandfather of Cecilia Maria du Plessis, who is buried on Rondabel. Martha was born 1730 and died 1796; Daniel 1732 and 1795. If they are brother and sister, this surname runs through both the family that held Rondabel in 1829 and the woman buried there in 1895. Neither has a recorded parent here, so it is a question and not a finding. LEAD-0272.

Superseded: answered below *** [23 Aug 2026] TESTED AND THE ANSWER IS NO. *** FamilySearch gives Daniel du PlessisM (LC5W-J51) the parents CHARL PRIEUR DU PLESSIS (1688-1736) and CECILIA VAN MAARSEVEEN (1692-1762), married at Stellenbosch on 12 June 1712, and lists their THIRTEEN children in full: Charl 1716, Pieter 1716, Elizabeth 1716, Magdalena 1717, Johannes Jean 1720, Elisabeth 1722, Catharina 1723, Charel 1724, Philippus 1727, Jacob 1730, DANIEL 1732, Jacobus 1734, Anna Magdalena 1736. *** THERE IS NO MARTHA. *** The 1730 place in that sequence is Jacob, and the list runs to its end rather than being truncated. So Daniel and Martha du PlessisH are NOT brother and sister on this evidence, and the near-identical dates were the coincidence LEAD-0272 warned they might be. A well-populated sibship with a date and an id on every child is not absolute proof of an absence, but it is close, and the burden now sits the other way.

*** [23 Aug 2026, CORRECTING THE SAME DAY'S OWN CONCLUSION] MARTHA DU PLESSIS AND DANIEL DU PLESSIS ARE FIRST COUSINS. *** Martha's father is JEAN LOUIS DU PLESSIS (PER-001909, 1691-1768) and Daniel's is CHARL PRIEUR DU PLESSIS (PER-001903, 1688-1736), and both are sons of JEAN PRIEUR DU PLESSIS (PER-001905, 1638-1708) and MARIE MADELEINE MENANTEAU (PER-001906).

SO THE SHARED ANCESTOR IS REAL AND THE COINCIDENCE DID NOT DISSOLVE. Jean Prieur du PlessisM is the 4x-great-grandfather of CECILIA MARIA DU PLESSIS, who died on Rondabel in 1895, and the 2x-great-grandfather of ADRIANA CECILIA VENTER, the root matriarch, and of MARIA CATHARINA VENTER, who held Rondabel by 1829.

Superseded: answered below WHAT WENT WRONG IN THE TEST: LEAD-0272 asked whether Martha and Daniel were SIBLINGS, FamilySearch's sibling list for Charl Prieur's children correctly contained no Martha, and that correct answer was read as closing the question. It closed one relationship and left the obvious next one untested. A negative result is only as wide as the question asked of it.

[23 Aug 2026] The same chart gives her death as 1789; this row has carried 1796 since it was created. Not changed on a fan chart alone - the discrepancy is recorded and wants a register. [TO VERIFY]

*** [23 Aug 2026] AND THE SHARED-ANCESTOR CLAIM IS WEAKER THAN IT LOOKS. *** JEAN PRIEUR DU PLESSIS IS THE DU PLESSIS STAMVADER AT THE CAPE, so nearly every du Plessis here descends from him and 'they share Jean Prieur' says little more than 'they are both du Plessis'. What survives is the narrow fact: MARTHA AND DANIEL ARE FIRST COUSINS, their fathers being brothers. Four to six generations back is background, not connection. LEAD-0272.

[24 Aug 2026] Named as widow in MOOC8/50.47a (SRC-581), 9 April 1789, and signs it 'Martha Duplesie weduwe Pieter Venter'. Eight children named, Jan Louis first. She lived until 1796.

[24 Aug 2026] HER DEATH YEAR IS NOW CONTESTED: this row carries 1796 [TREE], FS N5FY-PMG shows 1730-1789. She was certainly alive on 9 April 1789 - she signs her husband's inventory as widow (SRC-581) - so FS's 1789 would mean she followed him within months, in the same year their son Charel Daniel also died. NOT changed; neither year has an original behind it. [TO VERIFY]. FS also dates her Paarl marriage 14 Oct 1753, which UNI-000233 already carries - the Venter-Paarl tie a generation older than the baptisms.