Marriage 157 of 9 April 1907, Vredefort, Orange River Colony: Johannes Diederik Klue, 28, bachelor and farmer of Roodewal, and Hester Petronella Pretorius, 18, of Welgemoed

marriage register · an original record · consulted 2026-09-02

Type: marriage register
Repository: Celebration of Marriage register, District of Vredefort, Orange River Colony, under Law No. 6 of 1899
Reference: Page 162, Book A.34, entry no. 157
Consulted: 2026-09-02

The citation as it was given

Supplied by 'Celebration of Marriage at VREDEFORT in the District of VREDEFORT, Orange River Colony', Law No. 6 of 1899, page 162, Book A.34. Transcribed as read: No. 157, when married 9 APRIL 1907 JOHANNES DIEDERIK KLUE, age 28, BACHELOR, FARMER, residence ROODEWAL, DIST KROONSTAD, consent: 'Of age' HESTER PETRONELLA PRETORIUS, age 18, SPINSTER, no occupation, residence WELGEMOED, DIST VREDEFORT, consent: 'Parents' After BANNS. Celebrated in the D.R. church at Vredefort by J. A. JOUBERT, Marriage Officer. Entered into by J. D. KLUE and H. P. KLUE. Witnesses: M. H. LE ROUX and JOSEPH KLUE. *** IT WAS FETCHED TO CLOSE A QUESTION AND IT OPENS IT. *** SRC-611 named the test in these words: if the 1907 register gives his age as about twenty-eight, the 1879 has a document behind it after all and the possibility of two men of one name reopens. It gives TWENTY-EIGHT. The birth implied is about 1878 or 1879, which is what FamilySearch G3XX-HMJ carries. *** AND THE 1889 MEMBERSHIP ROLL NOW CANNOT BE THIS MAN. *** SRC-608 admits a JOHANNES DIEDERIK KLEU aged TWENTY at Oudtshoorn on 19 April 1889. A man born in 1879 was TEN in 1889 and does not join a church as a member. So the Oudtshoorn confirmand and the Vredefort bridegroom cannot be one person on the ages. *** WHICH LEAVES A CONFLICT THIS PROJECT CANNOT SETTLE FROM WHAT IT HOLDS, AND WILL NOT PRETEND TO. *** The DE RUST bridegroom of December 1929 is 60 (SRC-609) and the man who dies in February 1940 is 70 (SRC-610). Both fit a birth about 1869. But that same De Rust bridegroom is the WIDOWER of HESTER PETRONELLA nee PRETORIUS, who is this register's bride: the affidavit of 7 December 1929 (SRC-611) says so, gives Nooitgedacht in the Vredefort district, and is sworn at KOPJES, which is the residence the De Rust register gives seventeen days later. So his marital history points at the 1879 man and his stated ages point at the 1869 man, and ten years are unaccounted for. THREE READINGS, NONE CHOSEN. Either the 1907 clerk wrote 28 for a man of 38; or two clerks in 1929 and 1940 each wrote an age ten years too high; or there were TWO Johannes Diederik Klues and the De Rust marriage belongs to the older one while the affidavit belongs to the younger, both of them at Kopjes in December 1929. The third is the least comfortable and it is not impossible: Joseph Klue signs as a witness here, so Klues were about in that district. TWO DETAILS WORTH KEEPING. The other witness is M. H. LE ROUX, and twenty-two years later this bridegroom or his namesake marries a LE ROUX at De Rust. And he signs J. D. KLUE, as he does on every other document here. *** [2 Sep 2026] FRANS'S JUDGEMENT: TWO MEN, NOT ONE. 'i think these are indeed 2 individuals'. *** THE EVIDENCE SEPARATES INTO TWO CLEAN COLUMNS AND ONLY ONE THING EVER CROSSED BETWEEN THEM. MAN A, born 1869. Buffelsklip, Uniondale, 23 December 1869; son of Joseph Klue and Jacoba Ferreira (MTP1-F92); admitted to membership at OUDTSHOORN on 19 April 1889 aged TWENTY (SRC-608); married at DE RUST on 24 December 1929 aged SIXTY, a widower (SRC-609); died at Oudtshoorn on 15 February 1940 aged SEVENTY (SRC-610); and the headstone in the De Rust main cemetery reads 1869-1940. MAN B, born about 1879. Married HESTER PETRONELLA PRETORIUS at VREDEFORT on 9 April 1907 aged TWENTY-EIGHT and entered as a BACHELOR, farming at ROODEWAL in the Kroonstad district (SRC-612); one daughter, MARTHA JACOBA KLUE 1908-1944 (GD7P-PC8); FamilySearch G3XX-HMJ, no parents attached. FOUR RECORDS PUT MAN A IN 1869 AND THEY RUN FROM 1889 TO A HEADSTONE. ONE RECORD PUTS MAN B IN 1879 AND IT IS A MARRIAGE REGISTER TAKEN FROM THE MAN HIMSELF. *** AND THE ONE THING THAT JOINED THEM WAS A READING, NOT A DOCUMENT. *** The affidavit of 7 December 1929 is sworn at KOPJES by the widower of Hester Petronella, and the De Rust marriage register of seventeen days later gives the bridegroom's residence as KOPJES. Those were taken for the same Kopjes, and SRC-609 was corrected on the strength of it. THAT WAS AN INFERENCE. The register writes one word and does not say which district it is in. So the case for one man rests on a word matched here, and the case for two rests on four documents against one. On this record the two men stand apart. WHAT IT COSTS TO SPLIT THEM, STATED PLAINLY: Man A was a WIDOWER in December 1929, so he had a first wife who is now nobody at all, and Man B's later life is unknown. The tidy single life this project had for an hour becomes two half-lives. That is what the documents actually support. WHAT WOULD SETTLE IT. The De Rust HEADSTONE itself, photographed at https://graveswcape.eggsa.org/DE-RUST-Urban/De%20Rust/K%20-%20Surnames%20__%20Vanne%20-%20K/P8180426.JPG , which this project has never read and which gave 'ca 1880' on the last stone it trusted a caption for. HESTER PETRONELLA'S ESTATE FILE, Kroonstad 1929, which names her widower. MARTHA JACOBA KLUE'S death record of 1944, which names her father. And whether there is a Kopjes anywhere near De Rust. *** [2 Sep 2026] FRANS PUTS THE OTHER READING BACK ON THE TABLE, AND IT IS THE STRONGER ONE. *** 'what if those initial 2 klues were in fact one, and the birth data was wrong on wedding paper?' ON ONE-MAN, EXACTLY ONE NUMBER IS WRONG: the 28 on the Vredefort register of April 1907. Everything else lines up without strain, and the KOPJES coincidence stops being a coincidence. An affidavit sworn at Kopjes on 7 December 1929 by the widower of Hester Petronella, and a marriage register seventeen days later giving KOPJES as the bridegroom's residence, is one man moving through one fortnight. Two men of one name, both at Kopjes, both widowed, in the same December, is a great deal to swallow. ON TWO-MEN, TWO THINGS HAVE TO BE TRUE AT ONCE: that coincidence, and an unknown first wife for Man A who appears in no record anywhere. *** AND THE 28 IS NOT A RANDOM ERROR. IT HAS A MOTIVE. *** He was thirty-seven that April and the bride was EIGHTEEN. A gap of nineteen years becomes a gap of ten if a man says twenty-eight. The age column on a civil marriage register is filled from what the parties say and nobody checks it; the 'Of age' in the consent column means only that he needed no parental consent and carries no number. AND 'BACHELOR' AT THIRTY-SEVEN IS NOT A DIFFICULTY, IT IS THE SHAPE OF THE REST OF HIS LIFE. A man who marries late, is widowed at sixty and remarries within a month of closing the estate is the same man throughout. WHAT STILL STANDS AGAINST IT: the 1907 register is the only document in that decade taken from the man himself, and FamilySearch's two profiles mean somebody else also read them as two people. THREE TESTS, ANY ONE OF WHICH SETTLES IT. Hester Petronella's KROONSTAD ESTATE FILE of 1929 names her widower and usually his age and occupation. MARTHA JACOBA KLUE's death record of 1944 names her father. And whether a KOPJES exists anywhere near De Rust: if it does not, the Free State reading holds and the bridge is real. NEITHER READING IS ADOPTED HERE. Both are written down with what each costs.

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.