Schalk Willem van der Merwe (1673-1740)
14 July 1673 – 21 March 1740 · van der Merwe line
Names
- Given
- Schalk Willem
- 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.
Immediate family
- Brothers and sisters
- Aeltie van der Merwe (1684-1729)
- Married
- Anne Prevost (1681-) 26 February 1696
A life in the record
- 14 July 1673 born Born
- 26 February 1696 married Married Anne Prevost (1681-)
- 21 March 1740 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.
- Schalk Willem van der Merwe (1833-1904)
- Schalk Willem van der Merwe (1794-1866)
- Schalk Willem van der Merwe (1735-1778)
What we don't know
- No dated record ties this person to a specific piece of ground.
- 3 other people 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
[20 Aug 2026, SRC-533 + the private tree] DIRECT ANCESTOR, admitted under scope rule R3 which takes direct ancestry back unbounded. TWO SOURCES THAT HAVE NEVER MET AGREE: Laura Mitchell's 'Belongings' (Columbia UP, 2008) ch. 5 tells this family's story in prose, and the private tree carries the dates. Neither cites the other. Eldest son of the stamvader. With Anne PrevostH he had SEVENTEEN children, sixteen of whom married - Mitchell counts nineteen marriages into only ten families, three already related. Three of his sons married van Rensburg first cousins and three of his children married van Heerden first cousins, which is where two of this project's own lines cross.
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.