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Source SRC-594

Kennisgeving van een Sterfgeval, entry 17 of 1922: Frans Stefanus Bothma dies of fever at WILGERFONTEIN, 9 December 1921

death notice · an original record · consulted 2026-08-26

Type
death notice
Repository
Cape 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 West
Reference
No. of entry 17; magistrate's stamp PRINCE ALBERT 27 JAN 1922
Consulted
2026-08-26

The citation as it was given

Transcribed as read: '1. Doopnamen en Familienaam: FRANS[?ie] STEFANUS BOTHMA. 2. Mannelik. 3. Gewone Woonplaats: WILGERFONTEIN, Dist. [Merweville struck through and corrected to] PRINS ALBERT, Kaap Provincie. 4. Ouderdom: VEERTIG JAAR 7 MAANDE. 5. Blanke Afrikaner; geboorteplaats Kaap Provincie. 6. GETROUWD. 7. Beroep: VEE BOER. 8. Datum van Overlijden: NEGENDE DECEMBER 1921. 9. Plaats waar Overleden: Wilgerfontein, Dist. Prins Albert. 10. Plaats bepaald voor de begrafenis: WILGERFONTEIN. 11. Oorzaken van Dood: KOORTS SIEKTE. 11A. Duur van laatste Ziekte: VEERTIEN DAGEN. 12. Naam van Dokter: [blank]. 13. Berichtgever: A. M. BOTHMA, HER MARK X. 14. Kwalifikatie: ECHTGENOOTE VAN DE OVERLEDENE, tegenwoordig. 15. Woonplaats: Wilgerfontein.' A pencilled figure at the foot against the printed line asking for the total number of children reads [?9 kinderen]. | *** THIS IS THE DOCUMENT THAT PUTS THIS FAMILY ON WILGERFONTEIN. *** Until it arrived, the ONLY thing tying them to Wilger Fontein No. 59 was the caption of an unmarked photograph found in a second-hand shop, and RES-000041 had just been downgraded to 'attribution' on exactly that ground. The notice states Wilgerfontein three separate times - where he usually lived, where he died, and where he was to be buried - and the finder's attribution turns out to have been right all along. | THE AGE FIXES THE BIRTH: forty years seven months at 9 December 1921 puts it about MAY 1881. | THE INFORMANT IS HIS WIFE, and she SIGNS WITH A MARK - Aletta Magdalena de Koker (PER-001928), 'echtgenoote van de overledene', present at the death, living at Wilgerfontein. She was thirty and had four children under five. | A DISTRICT WAS CORRECTED ON THE FORM: Merweville struck out and Prins Albert written in, twice, on 27 January 1922. The family straddled that line - his father would die at Merweville in 1936 - and the clerk reached for the wrong one first. | WHAT IT DOES NOT DO IS NAME THE CHILDREN. This form is the 1894 Cape short form and has no children's schedule, only a count, so LEAD-0311's question about a possible eldest daughter is NOT settled by it. *** THE [?9] IS CONFIRMED AS NINE AND IT IS NINE LIVING, NOT NINE BORN, AND IT CLOSES EXACTLY. *** Thirteen born, less the 1903 son whose name was reused, less the 1904 son who died in 1921, less HESTER MARIA b.1914 and NEELTJE CATHARINA b.1915 - who are also precisely the two children ABSENT FROM THE CIRCA-1918 FAMILY PHOTOGRAPH, which has no toddler in it anywhere. A portrait and a death notice, three years and two purposes apart, agreeing on the same two deaths. It also removes the room for an unrecorded fourteenth child, so the young woman standing in that photograph is very probably NOT a daughter. | The surname is written BOTHMA here where his own marriage registers write BOTMA.

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.

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