Jacobus Johannes Gideon van der Merwe

DIRECT ANCESTOR - Frans's great-grandfather on his mother's side, and missing from the model until now. Married Catharina Isabella BruijnH at CALVINIA, 1 Oct 1917. ELEVEN children. [SRC-074]

[4 Aug 2026, SRC-263] TWO DATES DISAGREE WITH THIS MODEL AND ARE RECORDED RATHER THAN RESOLVED. Janet Melville's report has him at a1b3c10d2e8f1g1h1i7j2, born 23 NOVEMBER 1888 and baptised Calvinia 2 Dec 1888, died 1950 and buried at WILLISTON. This model holds born 23 OCTOBER 1888 and died 10 OCTOBER 1961. The day of the month agrees; the month and the year of death do not, and 1950 against 1961 is eleven years. NEITHER IS PREFERRED HERE. 10 ranks a compiled genealogy below a register, so a baptism entry or a death notice settles it and nothing else should. The baptism is the cheaper of the two to find - Melville names the date and the congregation. One further detail from the same source, useful when that register is read: he was BAPTISED GILLIAM, NOT GIDEON. That is the kind of drift 5a says to keep rather than tidy away, and it may be why a search on Gideon has not found him. His wife, CATHARINA ISABELLA BRUYN (b. 1895, d. 1947, buried Williston), married him at Calvinia on 1 October 1917 and is NOT YET IN THIS MODEL. [TO VERIFY]

[9 Aug 2026] HE MARRIED FOUR TIMES, and this model already held all four before the fan chart confirmed them: CATHARINA ISABELLA BRUIJN at Calvinia 1 Oct 1917 (PER-000220, eleven children, and the mother of Frans's grandfather), then MARIA MARGARETHA MAGDALENA LOUW (PER-001304, 1905-1957), ANNA ELSABE BESTER (PER-001302, b.1897) and CATHARINA HELENA VAN DEN HEEVER (PER-001303, b.1914), the last two in December 1959 and December 1960 when he was seventy-one and seventy-two. He died in October 1961. The chart adds nothing here; this row's dates are the fuller ones.

[9 Aug 2026, SRC-348] THE FAMILYSEARCH DETAIL PAGE SIDES WITH THIS MODEL AND THAT SETTLES NOTHING. It gives born 23 OCTOBER 1888 at Calvinia and died 10 OCTOBER 1961 at Williston, against Melville's 23 November 1888 and 1950. But the family-tree this model was seeded from is itself a FamilySearch copy, so the two are one source agreeing with itself and Melville is still the only independent voice. What is new and useful: the birth carries TEN attached sources and the death THREE, so the register entry that would end it is reachable. The page also gives a CHRISTENING of JUNE 1898, ten years after the birth, where Melville has 2 December 1888. Both are recorded and neither is preferred.

[10 Aug 2026, SRC-374] A SECOND MELVILLE REPORT, this one built on him. It repeats the two disagreements SRC-263 opened - born 23 November 1888 against the 23 October held here, died 1950 against 1961 - and adds that he married 'as 29 jarige boer van KAREEKOP' and that his bride was the '23 jarige dogter van KLIPFONTEIN'. Two farm names for a couple this model had no ground for at all. It also repeats that he was baptised GILLIAM and not Gideon, at Calvinia on 2 December 1888. Ten children, every one born at Williston between 1922 and 1939.

[15 Aug 2026, FAMILY] CALLED KOLA. Frans gave the name with the photograph MED-000063. It belongs to the same family of everyday forms 5b already records - Kootjie and Kolie for a Jacobus Johannes - and is kept as he wrote it rather than normalised to Kolie.

[16 Aug 2026, FAMILY] "KOLA" IS HIS, CONFIRMED. [FAMILY] Kola was frans, my grandfather.s father." His grandfather is Frans Jacobus Wilhelmus van der MerweL [PER-000030, 1924-1968], and this is that man's father.

THE NAME PASSED DOWN WITH THE NAMES. His son, also Jacobus Johannes Gideon [PER-000229, 1939-2007], has KOLA cut on the plaque at the foot of this grave, so both men carried it - which is what the grave looked like it might mean and what the family says it does. That half of LEAD-0211 is closed.

[16 Aug 2026, FAMILY] AND KOLA IS A RECURRING FAMILY NICKNAME, so it identifies nobody on its own. [FAMILY] Kola is also a family nickname, so there may be others. Two men are already known to have carried it, father and son, and there will be more.

That puts it under the same rule 9 gives for names: NEVER MATCH ON IT ALONE, always name plus date plus place. It also sits with the Kootjie/Kolie forms 5b already records for a Jacobus Johannes Gerrit, which is the same everyday name for the same formal one in a different branch.

*** [6 Sep 2026] CONFIRMED BY FRANS: 'yes, it was kola's ground.' *** Biesies is PER-000219's own farm - Jacobus Johannes Gideon van der MerweL, 'Kola' (1888-1961) - and PER-000030 grew up there as a child on his father's land before going on to hold Vredendal himself. This is now [FAMILY], stated directly, not inferred from the coordinate or the generation gap. What remains open is WHEN Kola came to be there, since his 1917 marriage record gives Kareekop - that is what LEAD-0341 still asks.

*** [SRC-629, 7 Sep 2026] HIS OWN BAPTISM ENTRY. THE OCTOBER BIRTH IS WRONG AND MELVILLE WAS RIGHT ON ALL THREE COUNTS. *** 'Gedoopt te Calvinia 2 December 1888. Het Kind: JACOBUS JOHANNES GILLIAM. Geboren 23 Nov: 1888.' birth_edtf moves from 1888-10-23 to 1888-11-23 and doopnaam is set to JACOBUS JOHANNES GILLIAM. This row has carried the October date since it was seeded and has flagged the disagreement since 4 August: 'Melville's report has him born 23 NOVEMBER 1888 and baptised Calvinia 2 Dec 1888 ... NEITHER IS PREFERRED HERE. 10 ranks a compiled genealogy below a register, so a baptism entry or a death notice settles it and nothing else should.' The baptism entry is now read and it settles it. A register written nine days after the birth, from the parents, is the best evidence the period offers. AND IT COLLAPSES WHAT LOOKED LIKE TWO SOURCES INTO ONE. The October date came from the family-tree and was 'confirmed' by FamilySearch (SRC-348) - but the family-tree is itself a FamilySearch copy, so that was one source agreeing with itself, which this row said at the time and is worth having been right about. *** THE NAME: GILLIAM ON THE PAPER, GIDEON EVERYWHERE AFTER. *** display_name stays Jacobus Johannes GIDEON van der Merwe, because that is what he was called, what his headstone reads (GRV-1454), and what his son of the same names carries (PER-000229). doopnaam now holds what the font recorded. That is the doopnaam/noemnaam split 5b exists for, and Gideon against Gilliam is a different name rather than a spelling, so 5a-i's 'FamilySearch wins on spelling' does not reach it. *** HE WAS NAMED FOR HIS MOTHER'S FATHER, AND THAT MAN SIGNED AS A WITNESS. *** The first witness is JACS JOHS GILLIAM NEL - PER-001816, held here since 11 August on original documents as the father of Christina Elizabeth NelM. The second is ANNA JACOBA VAN WYK, PER-001817, his wife. Both grandparents stood at the font. ON THE VERNOEMINGSPATROON, honestly: the names are right and the ORDER is not. 5b puts the mother's father on the SECOND son, and Kola is the first. His brother SCHALK WILLEM BURGER (1890, PER-001825) carries the father's father's name, which the pattern assigns to the first. The two are swapped. The pattern generated the right pair of names and got their order the wrong way round, which is the kind of thing 5b's 'hypotheses, never facts' is there for. PARENTAGE IS NOW ON A REGISTER. The link to PER-000762 and PER-000763 was [TREE] medium; the baptism names both parents outright.