Elsje Dorothea Gouws (1775-1833)
1775 – 1833 · Botes line
Names
- Given
- Elsje Dorothea
- Surname
- Gouws
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
- Children
-
- 1792Catharina Botes (1792-1827)
- 1793Jacobus Abraham Botes (b.1793)
- 1794Engela Susanna Botes (b.1794)
- 1797Andries Stephanus Botes (1797-1872)
- 1797~Magdalena Frederica Botes
- 1801Elsje Dorothea Botes (1801-1841)
- 1802Anthonie Johannes Lourens Botes (1802-1874)
- 1805Anna Johanna Maria Botes (1805-1878)
- 1807Petrus Johannes Botes
- 1808Aletta Catharina Johanna Jacoba Botes (1808-1847)
- 1809Johanna Petronella Botes (b.1809)
- 1811Abraham Adriaan Botes (1811-1892)
- 1812Hester Botes (1812-1884)
- 1816Sybrand Lourens Botes (1816-1877)
A life in the record
- 1775 born Born
- 1833 died Died
What we don't know
- Neither parent is recorded, so this person is not attached to the tree above them.
- No dated record ties this person to a specific piece of ground.
A sourced gap beats an unsourced fill. These are the open questions on this person, stated rather than papered over.
Research notes
A child of Jacobus Abraham BotesL [LB6D-WKC] and Elsje Dorothea GouwsH [LC3S-HTS], fifteen children in all. Brought in because their daughter Magdalena Frederica married into the Storms of this district. Per 9a the Botes are a tool for stitching stones on this ground, not a family to follow outward. [FS] His wife, and a GOUWS - the surname on 39 unidentified stones in this project, more than any other after Botes. Her daughter Elsje Dorothea BotesH carries her names.
[14 Aug 2026] MERGED PER-001534 into this row. The wife of the pair merged immediately above, and duplicated for the same reason: PER-001534 came off the 1884 death notice as a name with no dates, PER-001579 from FamilySearch [LC3S-HTS] as Elsje Dorothea GouwsH 1775-1833 with the same husband and children. Merging the husbands and leaving the wives apart would have left the household half joined. Moved across: line=Botes. DISAGREEMENTS, kept rather than resolved - the FamilySearch id settles these in one click: display_name: kept 'Elsje Dorothea GouwsH (1775-1833)', PER-001534 said 'Elsje Dorothea GouwsH'.
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
-
The Botes hold no ground here - are they a district family this project can write about at all?
priority 2 · LEAD-0194
The Botes turn up constantly in these records and hold NOTHING. Zero ownership rows, zero residences, no grant, no diagram, no farm. What the model does hold is 255 eGGSA captions naming Botes, 78 curated Botes gravestones, 50 stones in the Prince Albert NG Kerk cemetery alone, and a striking run of marriages into this district: Storm twice in two generations, two Botes brothers marrying two Niehaus sisters four months apart in 1880, plus Kruger, Combrink, Theron, Swanepoel and Oosthuizen. So: were the Botes ever ON this ground as occupiers, or are they a Beaufort West and Prince Albert town family that this district married?
What would settle it One Botes name on a deed, a valuation roll or an opgaafrol for ground in this district - or a documented absence across those three, which would settle it the other way.
Elders
FamilySearch profile LC3S-HTS