Varsche Fontein No. 27 Remainder

RE/27 on the cadastre · on record 1925–2013 · show on the map

The farm's own history, the grant, the original survey, sits on that page.

Farm number: No. 27
Portion: Remainder
Also recorded as: Varsche Fonteinthe older documentsVarsfonteinSRC-436, 2023 valuation roll
On the cadastre: RE/27, remainderregistered as VARSCHE FONTEIN
District: Prince Albert
Extent, as the diagram states it: 4498 morgen 166 sq roods (derived)
Modern surveyed area: 3831.8 ha

The historic extent and the modern surveyed area are two separate measurements and are not presented here as confirming each other. The first is what a surveyor wrote on a diagram, usually in morgen. The second is what the modern cadastre draws.

Why this farm is here

Maria Magritha van Rensburg held it, a blood relative of the Oosthuizen, Marincowitz or Van der Merwe lines, 1 step away. 62 km from Klaarstroom.

Maria Magritha van Rensburg
parent of Catharina van der Merwe

Each step is a recorded parentage or marriage in this model, and the shortest one the record supports, follow the names to check it.

story A written history is set on this ground Eight stones on Varsche Fontein
parcel Cut out of Varsche Fontein
parcel The remainder of Varsche Fontein
parcel Related to: Welbedacht (Varsche Fontein No. 27 Ptn 4)
…and 2 more, listed in full further down this page.

Stories

set here Eight stones on Varsche Fontein
Eight marked graves on the Remainder of Varsche Fontein, from 1848 to 1922. Two Storms in consecutive years seven years after the grant, an infant of 1874 buried apart from the rest, three more children, and finally the patriarch under the only bought stone in the cemetery. None of the families in it appears in the farm's title deeds. A second burial ground twenty kilometres away, on Vredendal, carries the same surnames and shows the families are one intermarried community rather than six.

What the record holds, in order

1925 boundary change remainder: from Varsche Fontein
1973 to 1997 ownership Maria Magritha van Rensburg (28 October 1928–3 April 2019)
purchase · confidence high
1997/ boundary change held_together: becomes Welbedacht (Varsche Fontein No. 27 Ptn 4)
6 November 1997 ownership a family trust
trust · transfer · confidence high
27 September 2013 document deeds report
T107406/1997

Also bordered by, as the modern cadastre draws it

Ground that touches this farm on the Surveyor-General's current polygons and that none of the diagrams held here names. Derived from the geometry, not read off a document.

Documents

held as pdf

Deeds report, deed T107406/1997, 27 September 2013
170856736.pdf

Cadastre

Surveyor-General diagram index for this parcel

Research notes

Registered as Portion 0. Deeds-registry extent 3852.9179 ha confirms the Surveyor-General deduction-table arithmetic exactly (4498 mg 166 sr = 3852.92 ha). Diagram deed is still BFQ6-23/1841. Held with Welbedacht by a family trustH.

[FAMILY, 6 Aug 2026] ONE FARM, TWO PARCELS. [FAMILY] Varschefontein 4 and restant go together... for all practical purposes its one farm, though 2 parcels. The Remainder (PAR-000019) and Welbedacht, Portion 4 (PAR-000018), have been held under ONE TITLE since 1997 and are worked as a single unit. The cadastre keeps them apart because title and working reality are different things - the same distinction 5 makes for vernacular names. Anything that counts farms here should count these two as one, and anything that maps them should show them together.

[7 Aug 2026] THE FARM CEMETERY IS ON THIS PORTION, at -32.946097, 22.108272. Four marked graves recorded - GRV-0016 Beukes 1914, GRV-0028 Freysen 1902, GRV-0029 Bukes, GRV-0030 B. STORM 1848 - and several unmarked stone cairns beside them. The 1848 stone is the oldest date on any grave in this project and stands seven years after the farm was granted.

[7 Aug 2026, FS] THE BEUKES WERE ON THIS FARM LONGER THAN THE OWNERSHIP ROWS SHOW. Gerhardus Francois Beukes (PER-000029) was buried here in 1914 and his daughter ALETTA SOPHIA JACOBA, by then married to Pieter Jozua OppermanM, DIED AT VARSCH FONTEIN ON 13 JANUARY 1922 - the place is on her death notice. So a Beukes and then an Opperman household was here into the 1920s. THE OWNERSHIP ROWS RUN du Toit 1841, Luttig 1903, van Rensburg 1973, and the Beukes appear in none of them. Whatever their tenure was - bywoners, lessees, an unrecorded transfer inside the 62-year gap between 1841 and 1903 - the burials say they were here and the deeds do not. That gap is worth reading as a question about the ownership record rather than about the family.

[7 Aug 2026, SRC-308] eGGSA record this cemetery as Cemetery ID 6614 at -32.946167, 22.109533, 118 m from this project's coordinate. Their album has TWO images and ONE headstone; this project holds EIGHT marked graves here. Their note reads 'There are many graves, but only one headstone', which is the same observation this project's own page is built on, reached independently.

[13 Aug 2026] Renamed to the one form this model uses for every portion - the portion's own name, then the parent farm, its number and the portion in brackets - so that a name is legible in a list, a search result and a map popup without the reader having to know which farm number is which. It read "Varsche Fontein Remainder" before. Nothing about the ground changed.

[14 Aug 2026, WinDeed Deeds Office property report, searched 20:50] CONFIRMED FROM OUTSIDE. An independent Deeds Office report returns this parcel's extent as 3852.9179 ha, its diagram deed as BFQ6-23/1841 and its position as -32.909487 / 22.116143 - each identical to what this row already held. It adds no fact; it is worth recording that a second source reaches the same three.

The research behind this page, kept separate from it: dated working notes, open questions, and what is not yet settled.

Open questions

Who is buried in the Varsche Fontein cemetery? Five of seven now named priority 1 · LEAD-0122
Four marked graves are now recorded and only one is identified. Who are Mariha Eliesabet Freysen (1901-1902), Jacobes Johanes Bukes, and B. STORM 1848? Frans has undertaken to give names.

What would settle it Names from Frans, or a burial register entry. For the stones themselves: straight-on photographs in raking light, which would probably give the Beukes dates and the Freysen day and surname outright.
Two Storms on Varsche Fontein, 1848 and 1849 - who were they, and what put them there? priority 1 · LEAD-0124
Who is the B. STORM buried on Varsche Fontein in 1848 (GRV-0030), and does the grave connect to either of the two Storm lines this family already touches?

What would settle it THE LIQUIDATION AND DISTRIBUTION ACCOUNT OF MAGDALENA STORM BORN BOTES, died Prince Albert 10 April 1884. Her death notice says she left IMMOVEABLE PROPERTY to be 'all sold immediately and the account filed'. That account names the land. It is now the single most direct route to whether the Storms held ground on or near Varsche Fontein. Failing that, the estate papers of her husband, died Prince Albert 19 August 1855.
Read the graves ACROSS the farms, and against the online grave indexes priority 1 · LEAD-0127
Storm, Botes, Niehaus, Botma, Beukes and Freysen appear on stones on Varsche Fontein and on Vredendal/Spreeufontein, and they intermarry. What does the picture look like when the burial grounds are read as one body of evidence rather than farm by farm, and what do the published grave indexes add?

What would settle it Nothing settles a question this shape. What it produces is a map: which families are buried where, who married whom, and which farms they moved between.
Are the Varsche Fontein Beukes related to Christa's Beukes, or is it only the surname? priority 2 · LEAD-0123
This project has recorded the Varsche Fontein Beukes as 'a cousin line on Frans's wife's side'. Is there an actual path, or was that inferred from the surname?

What would settle it A shared ancestor with both descents documented, or a demonstration that the two Beukes families are separate at the Cape.

What the record is missing

24 years, and the ground changes hands to nobody we can follow second order · B1 succession
On Varsche Fontein No. 27 Remainder, Maria Magritha van RensburgH is the last owner recorded from 1973, and the next entry is a family trustH from 1997-11-06, 24 years later, with no person in common. DOC-0052 records the later arrival but not the 24 years before it.

What would settle it The Deeds Office transfer register for this farm between 1973 and 1997. A transfer names its predecessor in title, so one deed closes the whole gap.

Found by breaks.py reading the model against itself, not written by hand, each one is a shape of missing record, not a fault in the data. The whole set is on the questions page.