South Afrcia enquiry

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Permalink Reply by Margaret Frood on October 26, 2013 at 2:39am

This reply relates to your problem in locating South African information online.

Ken, you are correct in that there's relatively little compared with what is available for some countries, but there is hope of a little more, as Ancestry has recently confirmed its purchase of Ancestry 24, the South African site for genealogy.  Subscribers were aware near the beginning of 2013, when it closed for business, that there were negotiations with an unknown party.  The site is now offline and you'll only see the Ancestry announcement.  There's no indication how long it will be before the site goes up. Fingers crossed we don't have to wait another nine months.

There is a caveat!  Ancestry 24 had fairly patchy coverage of baptisms and I don't think there were any links to births and deaths though the latter could be discovered if there was a 'deceased estate'.  Obtaining copies of certificates can be quite tricky.

Having said that, in the two years that I subscribed, I found the baptisms of two great-uncles, (thitherto unknown to any of their siblings' children) in a Methodist Church in Beaufort West.  I found the site extremely useful for my research on South African war graves in the United Kingdom, including research into those commemorated on the South African War Memorial in the Richmond upon Thames Cemetery, I was able to improve considerably on the information provided on the CWGC site, in matching individuals to parents and grandparents,  and enough to be able to reunite the occasional photo I came across of someone killed on active service in WW1 with their living relatives. 

There are minor typing errors for the two towns you mentioned; they are Barberton (in the Mpumalanga province) and Potchefstroom (in the North West Province).  I had a quick look on Family Search for South African records with the surname Wormald, as it's a relatively lower frequency surname than Stewart) and found just five civil marriages in Natal (six, but one was a duplicate).  In one the name is Wormell-Wormald. (A variation that we haven't considered?) You might like to ask your painter friend whether she recognises any of these as aunts or uncles or cousins.  (I searched for Wormald and nothing else, then as soon as the list appeared, I filtered it by location using 'South Africa' as the place.)

Something which may help you with your generous pursuit:  the Genealogical Society of Southern Africa has some useful links on their links page.  I don't know whether one can include websites in a post, but you will certainly find it if you google its name.  Then go to the Links page.  There's a genealogical primer in pdf format, which is useful BUT from the date given some of the information could be out of date.

There are fifteen Wormalds in the online telephone directory for South Africa.  One of them (born 1927) is on the list I found for you on Family Search.  Your friend might recognise some of them, and might like to contact them in case one of them has more information.  Even one small piece of information about family origins might take you back to a location for which there are earlier records.

Good luck!

Margie

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Permalink Reply by Kenneth James Stanger on October 26, 2013 at 10:10pm

Hello Margie ,

                     Thanks for your surprise contact and I will give all that information to Rosemary when I see her at painting next Friday.     Hope she can find something there. Also printed out all the telephone numbers..

 

  I believe the town Stanger north of Durban has now reverted to its original name KwaDukuza. 

 

Regards  Ken

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Permalink Reply by Gillian Mapp on April 4, 2016 at 12:36am

Hi Margie,

I have just joined Genealogy Wise hoping to find some information on my South African ancestors and found your answers to Ken really useful.  I am a member of Ancestry.co.uk but cannot find the Ancestry 24 so have emailed them.  My ancestors emigrated to South Africa, I believe in the early 1900's.  Not sure if my grandmother's father served in the Boar War, then returned to the UK only to return to SA with some of his family (they left my grandmother in the UK with her grandmother).  I have found a marriage certificate of her elder sister May Rose Potter to George Meldrum in Pietermaritzburg, Natal so presuming that was the area the family lived.  The story my nan told me was that they had a business in Ostrich farming, but never seen any evidence to support this.  My great Grandfathers name was George Marshall (both my nan and her sister Rose had their mother's maiden name 'Potter' stating 'father unknown' on both their birth certificates).  I wont go into further details at this stage, I just wanted to know if accessing records for SA is easier now? and if so, if you could give me some ideas of how to access the information?  Thank you.  Gillian Mapp (Norwich, United Kingdom) 

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Permalink Reply by Margaret Frood on April 4, 2016 at 1:35pm

Hi Gillian

My reply to Ken was written in 2013, so there have been quite a few changes since then.  Ancestry did eventually add the Ancestry 24 records to its data.  I note that they also have added some image sets that were originally available on Family Search and there is free access to those on Family Search.  I have a worldwide subscription with Ancestry.co.uk and I wonder whether yours is perhaps a "UK and Ireland only" subscription?  

Family Search have a number of South African records, such as Dutch Reformed Church records (with images available for download) though I think you will find most records available online will pre-date the arrival of your grandmother's father in South Africa.  Records for soldiers in the British Army before 1914 can be viewed at The National Archives.

Just over a year ago, I posted on one of my blogs some advice on how to find South African records on Ancestry. Their Card Catalogue is so vast that it isn't the easiest way to find out what's available.  I've made a bitlink to the page: http://bit.ly/1RUBATi  I suggest you see whether the steps work for you, and if not, do post a comment on the blog to let me know and I'll do my best to help you.

If the problem is that you have a UK subscription, then you have several options, and the easiest is to look out for the free access offers on Ancestry, sometimes over a weekend, and to harvest what you can then. Do the same with Find my Past when they have short-term offers of free access. With any of these offers from a provider that you don't have a subscription with, you might want to avoid signing up for short-term reduced rates.  I have had quite a few calls from people asking for help in locating and then cancelling FMP's Automatic Renewal.

In a quick search of FMP (A-Z of record sets) shows that their coverage is limited.  They have the SA Roll of Honour, but that seems to be about it.

The Family History Centre of the LDS (in London it is currently hosted by The National Archives) has free access to the records of a variety of providers, including Ancestry and FMP..  There is also a Family History Centre in Norwich (I've just checked).  Also, they offer free online (watch on demand) 'classes' to help people researching South African ancestry such as this one which explains what records they have online: https://familysearch.org/learningcenter/lesson/south-africa-familys...

It was not uncommon for servicemen to return to South Africa with their families after the Boer War. Oudsthoorn was a centre of the ostrich farming industry.

Hope this is helpful!

Margie

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Permalink Reply by Gillian Mapp on April 5, 2016 at 8:23am

Thank you so much Margie.. you have been so helpful.

I will follow up all your suggestions and let you know when I start putting the pieces together.

Yes, you are right, I do only subscribe to the UK Ancestry as the Worldwide seemed to have all the countries except South Africa, so didn't bother at the time, but that was a few years back, but will look into extending my subscription or doing as you say and perhaps just taking an offer as and when they become available.  But you know what it's like, once you start looking again, you don't want any delays, you just want to keep looking and researching!!!

Thanks again, I can't believe you went to all this trouble to help me.  Anyway, take care.

Best Regards,

Gillian Mapp

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