Surveyor-General cadastre: every farm named MODDER-something in the Little Karoo and southern Cape divisions
cadastre query · a copy, index or transcription · consulted 2026-08-17
- Type
- cadastre query
- Repository
- Western Cape spatial data warehouse, SG_PlanningCadastre MapServer, layers 3 (Farms) and 2 (Farm Portions)
- Reference
- UPPER(P_FARMNAME) LIKE 'MODDER%' AND RD_name IN (OUDTSHOORN, GEORGE, CALITZDORP, LADISMITH, UNIONDALE, MOSSEL BAY, RIVERSDALE, KNYSNA, PRINCE ALBERT, BEAUFORT WEST)
- Consulted
- 2026-08-17
The citation as it was given
QUERIED 17 Aug 2026. The question put to it was "the olifants river is at current day oudtshoorn. we need to look for modderfontein records there." Yesterday's query (SRC-461) matched MODDER%FONTEIN; this one drops the FONTEIN so that Modder Rivier, Modderdrift, Moddergat and the rest come back too, and it names the divisions along the southern Olifants explicitly rather than trusting an "all 27" summary. | *** THERE IS NO MODDERFONTEIN IN OUDTSHOORN, AND NONE IN GEORGE, CALITZDORP, LADISMITH, UNIONDALE, MOSSEL BAY OR KNYSNA. Not one, at farm or portion level. *** | WHAT GEORGE DIVISION DOES HOLD, and it is the wrong side of the mountain: MODDERAAS KLOOF No. 132 (1,419 ha) and No. 133 (2,310 ha) at about -33.86, 22.23-22.30, and MODDER RIVIER No. 209 (828 ha, subdivided into more than a hundred portions) at -33.95, 22.40. Mossel Bay has MODDER-SPRUIT No. 68 at -33.93, 21.97. ALL FOUR SIT SOUTH OF THE OUTENIQUAS, on the seaward side, 30 to 44 km from Oudtshoorn - not in the Olifants valley, which runs at about -33.5 to -33.6. | PRINCE ALBERT still gives only MODDERDRIFT - 106, 125 and 239, a muddy FORD repeatedly and no muddy SPRING. | *** AND ONE THING THE QUERY WAS NOT LOOKING FOR. RIVERSDALE holds a dense MODDERFONTEIN cluster - farms 417 (1,391 ha, cut into some forty portions), 570, 579, 669/670, 685, 569, 367 - all within two kilometres of -34.26, 21.40, which is inland of Still Bay. RIVERSDALE WAS CARVED OUT OF SWELLENDAM IN 1838, AND SRC-451, the 1867 death notice, SAYS JACOBUS JOHANNES WAS BORN IN THE DIVISION OF SWELLENDAM ABOUT 19 NOVEMBER 1784. A heavily subdivided farm of that name is what an old loan place looks like after two centuries. *** | BUT IT IS NOT ON AN OLIFANTS, and that is the discipline this whole question needs: the 1809 inventory says "gelegen aan d'Olifants rivier", the Riversdale farms drain to the Goukou and the Kafferkuils, and no Olifants runs within a hundred kilometres of them. So this is a candidate for where the family WAS, not for the farm the estate was taken at. Recorded as its own lead rather than folded into LEAD-0220. | WHAT THE ABSENCE DOES AND DOES NOT PROVE: a loan place that was never converted to quitrent leaves NO POLYGON. The cadastre cannot see an 1816 Modder fontyn up the Olifants valley if it died as a name before survey. So this eliminates a surviving farm of that name, and it cannot eliminate the place. The paper has to answer it - the loan-farm and quitrent registers, and the landdrostdij column of the opgaafrol itself. | *** [17 Aug 2026] AND THE DE RUST SWEEP, WHICH " *** De Rust stands at the SOUTH mouth of Meiringspoort, on the Olifants, with Klaarstroom at the north mouth - so a Modder Fonteyn there would make the whole migration a ride through a poort. | An envelope query over every parcel within about thirty kilometres of -33.49, 22.54 returns 294 parcels and 203 DISTINCT FARM NAMES. Twenty-two of them carry FONTEIN - Klein Fontein, Groot Fontein, Kraai Fontein, Krabbefontein, Rietfontein, Rheeboksfontein, Vogelstruisfontein, Groenefontyn, Klipfontein, Quarry Fontein, Fonteins Kloof, Ruigte Fontein, Groot Sluitel Fontein, Klein Sleutlefontein and the rest. NOT ONE CARRIES MODDER. Nor does any name in the sweep suggest mud - no Slyk, no Leem, no Klei. | The envelope is right, which matters: it returns Klaarstroom, Middlewater, Vrolykheid, Rondable, Bloemendal, Rhemhoogte, Wilgemond, Klein Valie and Kleyn Sleutlefontein - this project's own ground - so the absence is an absence in a query that demonstrably works. | THE CADASTRE HAS NOW BEEN ASKED EVERY WAY THERE IS: a Modderfontein four kilometres from Citrusdal, none in the Koup, none in Oudtshoorn or George, none within thirty kilometres of De Rust. It cannot answer this question, and that is a statement about the cadastre and not about 1809. | *** [20 Aug 2026] CORRECTION FROM AN ORIGINAL. *** The two George farms recorded above as MODDERAAS KLOOF Nos. 132 and 133 are written MODDENAARS KLOOF B and MODDENAARS KLOOF A on S.G. 2546/1876 (SRC-513), granted to Johannes Mattheus Heyns on 1 August 1879. Moddenaars is Moordenaars, not Modder, so they are not Modder names and should not be counted as near-misses. The rest of this row's negative is confirmed independently by SRC-510.
Kept verbatim. This project contradicts published genealogies and corrects a family's own oral tradition, so every claim has to be checkable by someone who was not in the room.
Nothing in the model cites this source yet.