N. Hitge

active 1841 · Hitge line

Connection to the Koup

Held ground in this district: Wit Plaats (Vrolikheid No. 177 Ptn 1) (1841-04-15).

event Five Karoo farms granted on perpetual quitrent on one day1841-04-15

Names

Baptismal name: N.
Given: N.
Surname: Hitge

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.

A life in the record

15 April 1841 land Held it, Wit Plaats (Vrolikheid No. 177 Ptn 1)
15 April 1841 event Five Karoo farms granted on perpetual quitrent on one day
Varsche Fontein to Charl du Toit (folio 1348), Spreeuw Fontein to C.F.J. Meyer (folio 973), Rondabel to David Jan Strydom (folio 989), Vrolykheid to Jacobus Johannes Oosthuisen, and Wit Plaats to N. Hitge. Five loan farms converted to perpetual quitrent title in a single administrative act.

Ground they are on record on

Wit Plaats (Vrolikheid No. 177 Ptn 1) held it · 15 April 1841 to 1922

Stories

subject Vrolykheid No. 177: a farm history
mentioned The fifteenth of April, 1841

What we don't know

No birth date is recorded.
No death date is recorded.
Neither parent is recorded, so this person is not attached to the tree above them.

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

Sources

Rondabel No.124 diagram 502/1867Surveyor-GeneralSG Dgm 502/1867

Research notes

Granted Wit Plaats, a portion of Vrolykheid, on 15 Apr 1841. Hitge marries into both the Oosthuizen and Marincowitz lines.

29 Jul 2026, verification pass [TREE][TO VERIFY]: STRONG CANDIDATE for "N. HitgeH" is NICOLAUS HITGE (PER-000328,, b. 5 Feb 1785 Palatinate, d. 3 Aug 1848 Cape) - the only adult male N. HitgeH of the right generation in the full tree, father of Hester Carolina Adriana HitgeM (PER-000178, m. Gerolm Marincowitz 1844) and grandfather of Aletta Catharina Maria Helena HitgeM (PER-000139) via Charles Frederick HitgeL (PER-000327), who died at Oorlogs Kloof - the farm on Vrolykheid's east boundary - on 29 Jul 1846. Identification NOT asserted (per the PER-000043/PER-000208 precedent): kept as separate rows until a register or the deed names him in full. See LEAD-0009.

[5 Aug 2026, SRC-290/289] THE QUESTION IS NOW SHARPER, NOT ANSWERED. Nicolaus HitgeM's own death notice (SRC-289) shows he was a SHOPKEEPER living in Baird Street, UITENHAGE - roughly 500 km from Prince Albert - and that is not the profile of a man farming Wit Plaats. It does NOT rule him out: the notice also says he left IMMOVEABLE property and died TESTATE, so he held land somewhere and there is a will that lists it. So the identification of this 1841 grantee with PER-000328 stays [TO VERIFY], and the record that would settle it is no longer a guess - it is NICOLAUS HITGE'S WILL AND ESTATE ACCOUNT, 1848, MOOC. If Wit Plaats is in the estate, this row is him. See LEAD-0097.

[5 Aug 2026, SRC-291/292] NOW VERY STRONG. Two documents supplied 5 Aug 2026 place this family on this ground either side of the grant: the 1843 marriage register (SRC-291) has CHARLES FREDERICK HITGE living at VROLYKHEID and describes him as a LANDBOUWER, and his daughter's death notice (SRC-292) gives her birthplace as WITPLAATS in 1846. So a Hitge was farming the very portion within five years of the grant. What is still not documented is WHICH Hitge holds the TITLE. The pattern that fits everything known is the ordinary one - the father Nicolaus, a shopkeeper in Uitenhage who left immoveable property and died testate, holding the ground while his eldest son farmed it - but that is a reading, not a deed. LEAD-0097 and the 1848 will still settle it.

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.

Open questions

Twelve NAAIRS index entries for the Prince Albert division, 1841-1890 - Colonial Office memorials, circuit court cases and Lands files priority 1 · LEAD-0189
Two were already held (CSC 2/6/1/208 and 2/6/1/269). THESE TWELVE ARE NEW. Which of them are this family's, and which of the four unmatched surnames belong in this record?

What would settle it The files themselves. Each entry is an INDEX LINE - it gives a name, a year and a subject, and nothing about what the paper says.
N. Hitge's true footprint on Vrolykheid - and his relationship to Frans's own Hitge ancestors priority 2 · LEAD-0009
Did N. HitgeH's 1841 title (B.W.Q.5.18) actually cover more of Vrolykheid than the ~2,177-morgen Wit Plaats portion recorded for him - and how is N. HitgeH (PER-000044) related to Aletta Catharina Maria Helena HitgeM (PER-000139, Frans's own direct 2x-great-grandmother) and to Hester Carolina Adriana HitgeM (PER-000178, who married into the Marincowitz line)?

What would settle it A record giving N. HitgeH's full given name and naming his children, matched against Aletta Catharina Maria Helena HitgeM (b.1846) and Hester Carolina Adriana HitgeM (b.1826) - if both are his daughters, or one his daughter and the other a niece or cousin, that settles the family relationship and gives a documented reason one 1841 title could legitimately be cited across multiple later Vrolykheid portions, subdivided within the Hitge family before ever reaching Marincowitz hands
Which A.F. Hitge took Spitskop in 1939? priority 3 · LEAD-0055
Who is the A.F. HitgeM named in Deed of Partition No. 3399 of 5 April 1939 over Karee Rivier No. 143 Portion 11?

What would settle it Reading Deed of Partition 3399, which names every party to it in full. The diagram recites only one of them.

What the record is missing

The record stops in 1922 and never resumes second order · B2 trail-ends
Wit Plaats (Vrolikheid No. 177 Ptn 1) was worked as far as 1922, with N. HitgeH the last owner on record. 104 years follow with nothing. Who held it after that, and is it still one farm?

What would settle it The current title deed traced backwards, each transfer names the one before it, or the Surveyor-General's subdivision diagrams, which are what usually explain a farm going quiet.
81 years, and the ground changes hands to nobody we can follow second order · B1 succession
On Wit Plaats (Vrolikheid No. 177 Ptn 1), N. HitgeH is the last owner recorded from 1841-04-15, and the next entry is Vincent Charles MarincowitzL from 1922-09-30, 81 years later, with no person in common. DOC-0029 records the later arrival but not the 81 years before it.

What would settle it The Deeds Office transfer register for this farm between 1841 and 1922. 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.