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Source SRC-629

Calvinia baptism register, 1888: the baptism of Jacobus Johannes Gilliam van der Merwe, 2 December 1888

church register · an original record · consulted 2026-09-07

Type
church_register
Repository
Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk, gemeente CALVINIA, doopregister
Reference
Entries of November and December 1888; the van der Merwe entry is the last on the left-hand leaf
Consulted
2026-09-07

The citation as it was given

Supplied by [FAMILY] Gedoopt te Calvinia 2 December 1888. Het Kind: JACOBUS JOHANNES GILLIAM. Geboren 23 Nov: 1888. Ouders: FRANS JACOBUS WILHELMUS VAN DER MERWE / CHRISTINA ELIZABETH NEL. Getuigen: JAC[OBU]S JOH[ANNE]S GILLIAM NEL / ANNA JACOBA VAN WYK / JACOBUS [?] V[AN] D[ER] MERWE / HENDRIKA GERTRUIDA VISSER. The third witness's given names are NOT LEGIBLE in this photograph beyond the first, and no confident reading is offered. The surname is plainly van der Merwe. *** THIS IS KOLA'S OWN BAPTISM, AND IT SETTLES TWO THINGS THIS PROJECT HAS CARRIED AS OPEN SINCE 4 AUGUST. *** PER-000219 is Frans's great-grandfather. Janet Melville's compiled report (SRC-263, SRC-374) gave his birth as 23 NOVEMBER 1888, his baptism as Calvinia 2 December 1888, and his third name as GILLIAM; this model held 23 OCTOBER 1888 from the family-tree and FamilySearch (SRC-348), and GIDEON. THE REGISTER AGREES WITH MELVILLE ON ALL THREE. A baptism entry written nine days after the birth, from the parents, outranks a compiled tree, and the compiled tree in this instance is a FamilySearch copy of the same family-tree, so it was one source agreeing with itself. *** AND THE WITNESS LIST NAMES THE MAN THE CHILD WAS NAMED FOR. *** The first witness, JACOBUS JOHANNES GILLIAM NEL, is the child's MOTHER'S FATHER - PER-001816 here, already held on original documents (SRC-399, SRC-400) as the father of Christina Elizabeth Nel. The second witness, ANNA JACOBA VAN WYK, is his wife and the child's maternal grandmother, PER-001817. Note what the register does to the grandfather's own name: this project calls him Jacobus Johannes GIDEON Nel, and the clerk who wrote his grandson's baptism wrote GILLIAM for both of them on one line. Gideon looks like a later regularisation of Gilliam in this family, and it is now attested against on a register for two men rather than one. OTHER ENTRIES ON THE SAME OPENING, none of which reaches this project: Barger and Louw Hendrikse; van Wyk and Augustyn; Nel Louw and de Kock, with Ds. H. Robertson standing; van Zyl and Volgraaff; Steenkamp and Louw; Strauss and Loubser. The surnames recur in this model - Louw nine times, Burger eight, van Wyk seven, Visser ten - and NOT ONE of the individuals named on this page matches a person here on name and date together. 9: a surname identifies nobody. They are recorded here and nowhere else. [TO VERIFY] the congregation is read off the entries' own heading, 'Gedoopt te Calvinia'. No film, DGS or ark number came with the image, so the citation is the page.

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.

What has been transcribed from this source

4 occasions.

What rests on this source

People