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Persoon PER-000762

Frans Jacobus Wilhelmus van der Merwe

24 Maart 1863 – 15 Mei 1956 · van der Merwe line

Name

Baptismal name
Frans Jacobus Wilhelmus
Given
Frans
Surname
van der Merwe

The formal baptismal name and the name a person was actually called are both kept, and neither is derived from the other. Spelling drift between records is evidence, not noise.

Naaste familie

Father
Schalk Willem van der Merwe (1833-1904)
Mother
Elsje Johanna van der Merwe (1835-1882)
Married
Christina Elisabeth Nel 15 Junie 1885, Maria M. E. Zandberg (1878-1963)
Children

'n Lewe in die rekord

  1. 1863 geleentheid Doop te Calvinia
  2. 24 Maart 1863 gebore Born
  3. 15 Junie 1885 getroud Married Christina Elisabeth Nel
  4. 15 Junie 1885 geleentheid Huwelik te Brandvlei
  5. 22 Mei 1887 geleentheid Baptism of their child, Elsje Johanna van der Merwe (1887-1938) at Calvinia
  6. 15 Mei 1956 oorlede Died
  7. undated begrawe Buried, Brandvlei main cemetery

Wie by hulle gestaan het

Who signed at a baptism, a will or a survey is not incidental. It is the clearest surviving record of which families stood close to which.

Stories

Ander van dieselfde naam

Afrikaans naming repeats hard, and the Cape Dutch naming pattern reuses a name on purpose, a child who died young has the name given again to a later sibling. These are different people. Never match on a name alone.

Wat ons nie weet nie

A sourced gap beats an unsourced fill. These are the open questions on this person, stated rather than papered over.

Bronne

  1. Baptism register entry 62, 1863: Frans Jacobus Wilhelmus, born 24 March 1863, child of Schalk Willem Burger van der Merwe and Elsje Johanna van der Merwe[TO VERIFY] Dutch Reformed Church baptism register, pages 359-360. This model places the baptism at Calvinia on 7 May 1863; the page carries "Idem" for the date, which refers to an entry above and is not captured in the photograph.Pages 359 and 360, entry 62. Supplied as a photograph of the register opening in conversation on 11 Aug 2026. [TO VERIFY] the collection, film, DGS and image number: none is visible on the photograph and per 5a-ii the reading and the citation are two separate claims. The transcription below is read off the image and is not in doubt.
  2. Marriage 17 of 15 June 1885, Brandvlei: Frans Jacobus Wilhelmus van der Merwe S.W.B. zoon and Christina Elizabeth Nel[TO VERIFY] Dutch Reformed Church marriage register, division of Calvinia.Entry 17, 15 June 1885. Supplied as a photograph of the register opening in conversation on 11 Aug 2026. [TO VERIFY] the collection, film, DGS and image number: none is visible on the photograph and per 5a-ii the reading and the citation are two separate claims. The transcription below is read off the image and is not in doubt.

Navorsingsnotas

[TREE] Added 2026-07-31 by kin_sweep.py under the one-degree rule: parent of Jacobus Johannes Gideon van der MerweL. Thin record, name, dates and the family link only. NO PLACE IMPORTED: the tree's place strings are systematically wrong and are not evidence.

[9 Aug 2026, SRC-348] THE PLACES, WHICH THIS ROW HAD NONE OF. Born 24 March 1863 at MATJIESFONTEIN in the CALVINIA district, not the Matjiesfontein on the main line in Laingsburg. Baptised at Calvinia 7 May 1863. Recorded resident in 1897 at 'Farm Oude Muur', the farm his father was born and died on. Died 15 May 1956 in the BRANDVLEI district and buried in the Brandvlei cemetery. Brandvlei is a district, per Frans, and not a town under Calvinia as the compiled tree files it. His FamilySearch page also carries a birth name of plain 'Frans van der Merwe' and three probate events, one of them dated 'from 1908 to 2607', which is a typing error in the tree and is recorded here so nobody reads it as a date.

Verouderd — hieronder beantwoord [10 Aug 2026, SRC-373] HE STANDS AS "FRANCOIS" IN THE CALVINIA BAPTISM REGISTER. Janet Melville reads him there as Francois, son of Schalk Willem Burger van der MerweH and Anna Maria VisagieM. The display name here stays the FamilySearch form, per 5a-i, and the register's form is recorded rather than normalised away. Frans's own note on the pattern, 2013: "Francois (oorlede Frans) Jacobus" - Francois in life, Frans at death. HIS MOTHER IS THE OPEN QUESTION. The register as read names Anna Maria VisagieM, who died in 1853, ten years before his birth; Melville resolves it to the second wife, Elsje Johanna van der MerweL, whom this model already holds as his mother. Both readings stand. LEAD-0152.

[11 Aug 2026, SRC-378, SRC-379, SRC-380, SRC-382] FOUR ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS, AND ONE CORRECTION TO WHAT IS WRITTEN ABOVE. THE BAPTISM REGISTER DOES NOT CALL HIM FRANCOIS. Entry 62 reads "Frans Jacobus Wilhelmus", written out in full, child of Schalk Willem Burger v.d. Merwe and ELSJE JOHANNA V.D. MERWE. The Francois reading and the Anna Maria VisagieM mother both came from Janet Melville's report; the page itself carries neither. LEAD-0152 is closed. HIS MARRIAGE, 15 June 1885 at Brandvlei, enters him as "Frans Jacobus Wilhelmus van der MerweL S.W.B. zoon", aged 22, jongman, BOER, resident on MATJESFONTEIN, marrying Christina Elizabeth Nel of Brandvlei in the school building. His father signed as a witness. The patronymic S.W.B. zoon confirms the filiation a second time and independently. SO HIS PLACES RUN: born on Matjiesfontein 1863, still living on it at his marriage in 1885, on OUDE MUUR by 1897, and dead at Voortrekkerstraat, Brandvlei in 1956. HIS DEATH NOTICE puts the birth farm in the CALVINIA district and repeats the birth date, 24 March 1863, exactly as the register has it 93 years earlier. He was rustende, and died of a carcinoma of the stomach after about six months. A DAUGHTER IS ADDED: Elsje Johanna, born 28 March 1887, named for his mother.

[11 Aug 2026, SRC-408] HE WAS CONFIRMED AT CALVINIA ON 12 JULY 1879, AGED 16, entered in the lidmateregister as "Frans Jacobus Wilhelmus v. d. Merwe - S.W.B./3" and admitted by Ds Scholtz. His elder brother Jacobus Alewyn, 17, was admitted the same day on the line above. The patronymic and the age both fit a birth on 24 March 1863, which is now corroborated four ways. [SRC-406] HE IS PROBABLY THE "JOHANNES JACOBUS WILHELMUS" fourth on his mother's 1882 death notice, which names twelve children. He was nineteen and alive, so he must be on that list, and no other entry can be him.

[11 Aug 2026, SRC-412] HE MARRIED HIS SECOND COUSIN. Christina Elizabeth Nel's maternal grandmother was Anna Jacoba Louisa van der MerweM 1823-1893 (PER-001779), a daughter of his own great-grandparents Schalk Willem van der MerweL 1794-1866 and Anna Jacoba LouwM. Both descend from that couple at the same remove. AND IT EXPLAINS BRASFONTEIN. His wife died in 1895 at Brasfontein, Calvinia, which Her mother was a van Wyk. She died on her mother's family's ground, which is the same shape as his own grandfather dying on Lokenburg, his wife's mother's farm. Twice in three generations the family is on land that came in through a woman.

These are working notes, not finished prose: they carry the reasoning, the corrections and the things still marked to verify. They are kept here so the page itself can read as what is known.

Die werksnotas op hierdie werf word in Engels gehou en word nie vertaal nie. Hulle verander met elke navorsingsessie, en 'n vertaling sou uit pas raak met die oorspronklike. Alles anders — die stories, die getranskribeerde dokumente en die koppelvlak — is in Afrikaans.

Oop vrae

Elders

FamilySearch-profiel LDQC-TC3