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Source SRC-076

Baptism, 11 May 1786: Occert Almaro Oosthuijzen, child of Ocert Oosthuijsen and Susanna Catharina van Tonder

church register · an original record · consulted 2026-07-29

Type
church register
Repository
FamilySearch, "South Africa, Dutch Reformed Church Registers (Cape Town Archives), 1660-1994"
Reference
index entry ark 1:1:624P-3Y54; register page 34; born 25 April 1786, baptised 11 May 1786; image 3Q9M-CSV8-W9W5-D | *** THE PAGE ITSELF SEEN 20 Aug 2026, supplied by | *** CONGREGATION IDENTIFIED 20 Aug 2026: PAARL, register G3/3/4, BAPTISM 1786-1799. From the film's own DETAIL OF ITEM NUMBERS sheet, ITEM 9. Roll 79, project S-AF 00532, DRC Centre Cape, filmed 14 Aug 2000, operator Tinus Berry 6179, reduction 16. The same sheet lists items 4-8 as earlier Paarl baptism registers and items 1-3 as Stellenbosch marriages. ***
Consulted
2026-07-29

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The citation as it was given

FULL CITATION supplied by [FAMILY] South Africa, Dutch Reformed Church Registers (Cape Town Archives), 1660-1994., FamilySearch (ark:/61903/1:1:624P-3Y54 : Thu Sep 26 21:01:19 UTC 2024), Entry for Occert Almaro Oosthuijzen and Susanna Catharina Van Tonder, 11 May 1786. The 1:1 ark is the INDEX entry; the page image is 3Q9M-CSV8-W9W5-D, filed as DOC-0057. THE COLLECTION IS HELD AT THE CAPE TOWN ARCHIVES - which confirms this is a Cape register, and stands in useful contrast to SRC-077, whose film FamilySearch attributes to Pietermaritzburg. A third spelling of the name appears here: the index reads OCCERT ALMARO OOSTHUIJZEN, against the register's "Ocert Almaro" and the 1859 death notice's "Okker Almero". STILL OPEN: the citation names the collection but not the CONGREGATION. Swellendam's congregation was only founded in 1798, so a Swellendam-district family baptising in 1786 would have gone to Roodezand (Tulbagh) or to Cape Town - and the Oosthuizens had married at Tulbagh in 1749 and would marry at Swellendam in 1783 and 1807. Tulbagh is the likely answer [TO VERIFY]. Settling it would place the family geographically thirty-five years before the first record of them in the Koup. | *** [20 Aug 2026] THE PAGE IS SEEN AT LAST, AND IT RAISES A DATE PROBLEM BEFORE IT ANSWERS ANYTHING. *** | THE ENTRY IS CONFIRMED WORD FOR WORD: 'Den 11 Maij | OCERT ALMARO | Gebooren den 25 April Ao 1786 | v OCERT OOSTHUIJSEN | m SUSANNA CATHARINA VAN TONDER | g WEIJNANT BRETENBACH, CORNELIA VAN TONDER, LOUIS PISAAN, JOHANNA MAGDALENA OOSTHUIJSEN, LOUIJ ALMARO PISANIE BARON DE FELION VAN VENESIA IN ITALIA, ALVIESE ALMARO PESANIE GIEONDAN, ALMARO [?g] CELIDATOR DE FELION DE VENESIE'. | *** THE PROBLEM: A CHILD ON THE SAME PAGE WAS BORN IN JANUARY 1787. *** The fourth entry on page 34 reads 'Den 17 dito | CLAAS | Gebooren den 25 Januarij Ao 1787 | v Hermanus Grobbelaar, m Judick Maria Strijdom'. The month is carried by 'dito' from our own entry's MAIJ. A child born in January 1787 CANNOT BE BAPTISED IN MAY 1786. So either that birth year is misread, or THE BAPTISMS ON THIS OPENING ARE 1787 AND OURS IS 11 MAY 1787, NOT 1786 - a baptism at twelve and a half months rather than sixteen days. | THE OTHER BIRTHS ON THE OPENING POINT THE SAME WAY: 12 Nov 1786, 9 Jan 1787, 22 March 1787, 9 Nov 1786. Ours at 25 April 1786 would be the oldest child on the page by seven months, which is exactly what a delayed baptism looks like - and delay is the pattern this project established today across six of this family's baptisms, from nine months to five years. | NOTHING IS CHANGED ON THIS READING. The model, Pottas, FamilySearch and the 1859 death notice all give 1786, and the death notice's 'aged 72 years 10 months and 2 days' fixes the BIRTH, not the baptism, so it does not settle this. WHAT SETTLES IT is the year written at the head of the register's section, or the entry before ours on page 33. ONE GLANCE BACKWARDS. [TO VERIFY] | *** THE SURNAME PROFILE OF THE OPENING, which is the evidence for the congregation LEAD-0257 has been chasing: *** Oosthuijsen, van Tonder, Breytenbach, Pisani, van Zijl, van Harde, Jensen, Coetsee, VAN DER MERWE, DU PLESSIS, BURGER, GROBBELAAR, Strijdom, KLOPPER, Schepers, Gerber, van Dijk, THERON, Vogel, DU PRE, Botha, Wolvaart, BEUKMAN, NIEUWOUDT, Louwens. | BURGER, NIEUWOUDT, GROBBELAAR, KLOPPER, DU PLESSIS, VAN DER MERWE, THERON, DU PRE and BEUKMAN together read as ROODEZAND AND THE COUNTRY NORTH OF IT - the Land van Waveren, the Twenty-four Rivers, the Bokkeveld and the Olifants valley. Mitchell's own Cedarberg book (SRC-533) gives a whole chapter to the BURGERS and has van der Merwe daughters marrying Burger cousins onto loan farms at the Twenty-four Rivers. THAT IS SUGGESTIVE AND IT IS NOT PROOF: these are common Cape surnames and a profile is not a title page. | *** AND THE STRONGEST SINGLE THING ON THE OPENING IS A SECOND OOSTHUIZEN-VAN TONDER MARRIAGE. *** The last entry, six weeks after ours, is 'CORNELIS VAN TONDER CORNELISZ x PETRONELLA OOSTHUIJSEN', with MARIA ELISABETH OOSTHUIJSEN and CORNELIA MARGRETA OOSTHUIJSEN among the witnesses. Our couple is an Oosthuizen married to a van Tonder; this is a van Tonder married to an Oosthuizen, in the same church, in the same season. TWO OOSTHUIZEN-VAN TONDER MARRIAGES IN ONE SMALL CONGREGATION. Whatever its name, this was the family's own church and not a place they were passing through - which is a different kind of fact from where they lived, and the one the six 1790s baptisms could not give. | *** [20 Aug 2026] THE CONGREGATION IS ANSWERED, AND IT IS PAARL. *** ITEM 9 IS 'PAARL G3/3/4, BAPTISM, 1786-1799' - the register this page sits in. 5a's note 3 has stood against this row since it was written: 'a citation that names the collection may still not name the congregation... that gap is itself a research question'. IT IS CLOSED. | *** AND IT IS THE SAME REGISTER AS SRC-519. *** That row is the Paarl baptism of Gert Adriaan in October 1799, cited as 'PAARL G3/3/4 (from page 188), BAPTISM, 1786-1799'. So the family's FIRST and LAST Boland baptisms in this project's hands are thirteen years apart IN ONE BOOK. | *** THE SURNAME READING OF THIS OPENING IS WITHDRAWN. *** Burger, Nieuwoudt, Grobbelaar, Klopper and du Plessis were read as pointing to ROODEZAND and the country north of it. They are Drakenstein names as much as Waveren ones. A profile is not a title page, which the note said - and then leaned on the profile anyway. | *** WHAT PAARL MEANS, AND IT IS NOT WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE. *** It does NOT put this household in the Boland. SWELLENDAM HAD NO CONGREGATION UNTIL 1798, so a Swellendam-district family in 1786 had to travel to Cape Town, Stellenbosch, Drakenstein, Roodezand or Zwartland. PAARL IS THE ORDINARY CHOICE FOR THIS FAMILY BECAUSE IT IS THEIR ANCESTRAL CHURCH: Jacobus d'oude was baptised at DRAKENSTEIN in 1722 (SRC-094), and his son brought children back to the same font in 1786 and again in 1799. That is a family tie, not an address - the distinction 20 August was built on. | SO IT NEITHER PROVES NOR REFUTES THE TULBAGH-CITRUSDAL ORIGIN READING (LEAD-0260). It removes the Roodezand anchor that had been put under it and replaces it with an older and simpler explanation of where these people went to church. | *** THE DATE PROBLEM IS NOW WORSE, NOT BETTER, AND IT NEEDS FRANS. *** The register BEGINS in 1786 and SRC-519 sits at PAGE 188 in OCTOBER 1799. Our entry is on PAGE 34. At anything like a steady rate, page 34 is 1788 or so - not the opening weeks of 1786. Together with the child on the same page born 25 January 1787, the reading '11 May 1786' is under real strain and '11 May 1787' or later is the simpler fit. | WHAT IS NOT IN DOUBT is the BIRTH: 25 April 1786 on this page, and the 1859 death notice's 'aged 72 jaar 10 maanden en 2 dagen' computing back to 24 April 1786. THE BAPTISM DATE IS WHAT IS IN QUESTION. Nothing has been changed. The year at the head of the register's section, or the entry on page 33, settles it in one glance.

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