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Person PER-001928

Aletta Magdalena de Koker

1891 – ?

Connection to the Koup

Married into a household on this ground: Frans Stephanus Botma (1881-1921) (1916-12-18).

Names

Surname
de Koker

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

The Botma family of Wilger Fontein, Prince Albert, about 1918: Frans Stephanus Botma (1881-1921) seated with his...
The Botma family of Wilger Fontein, Prince Albert, about 1918: Frans Stephanus Botma (1881-1921) seated with his second wife Aletta Magdalena de Koker and eight children, four standing behind, three seated on the mat and an infant in her lap. — Print found and posted by Renè Berry, who bought it in a second-hand shop in Oudtshoorn; identified with Andre Franken. Photograph itself circa 1918 and out of copyright.

Immediate family

Married
Frans Stephanus Botma (1881-1921) 18 December 1916

A life in the record

  1. 1891 born Born
  2. 18 December 1916 married Married Frans Stephanus Botma (1881-1921)
  3. 9 December 1921 event Frans Stephanus Botma the younger dies of fever at Wilgerfontein
    Forty years and seven months old, a veeboer, after a fortnight of fever, with no doctor named on the form. His widow Aletta Magdalena reported it with her mark and he was buried on the farm. Twelve or more children outlived him, the youngest not yet three.

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. Kennisgeving van een Sterfgeval, entry 17 of 1922: Frans Stefanus Bothma dies of fever at WILGERFONTEIN, 9 December 1921Cape of Good Hope, Vorm van Kennisgeving van een Sterfgeval, Wet No. 7 van 1894; sworn before C. J. Lok, Vrederegter, 12 December 1921; registered Prince Albert 27-28 January 1922, district Beaufort WestNo. of entry 17; magistrate's stamp PRINCE ALBERT 27 JAN 1922

Research notes

[FS L2BH-4F4] Born 1891. Married FRANS STEPHANUS BOTMA THE YOUNGER (PER-001931) at MERWEVILLE on 18 December 1916, and had four children by 1919: Sybrandt Lourens 1917-1994, Andries Stephanus 1918, Andreas Stefanus 1919 and Elsie Jacoba 1919. She is the 'second wife' of the circa-1918 Wilgerfontein photograph, and the caption is exactly right - his first was Neeltje Catharina HoughM. Widowed in 1921, aged thirty. No death date.

*** CORRECTED 26 AUG 2026. THIS ROW WAS FIRST ATTACHED TO THE FATHER (PER-001925, 1860-1936), on the photograph's caption alone, and it was wrong by a generation. *** Two men of one name and the same farm, which is the trap 9 exists for: a woman born 1891 was never the wife of a man born 1860, and the arithmetic said so before the FamilySearch card did.

[SRC-594] ALIVE AND AT WILGERFONTEIN IN DECEMBER 1921, and the record is hers: she is the informant on her husband's death notice, 'echtgenoote van de overledene', present at the death, and SHE SIGNED WITH A MARK rather than a signature. Thirty years old, widowed, with four children under five.

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.

Elders

FamilySearch profile GDQP-V3L