Petrus Jacobus Venter

19 March 1786 – 5 October 1846 · Venter line

Connection to the Koup

Married into a household on this ground: Cornelia Petronella Oosthuizen.

event The estate at de Modder Fonteyn is inventoried1809-04-23

Names

Baptismal name: Petrus Jacobus
Given: Petrus Jacobus
Surname: Venter

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.

Immediate family

Father: Jan Louis Venter
Mother: Johanna Jacomina Smit
Brothers and sisters: 1779Catharina Petronella Venter

1781Martha Jacoba Venter

1782Martha Jacoba Venter

1783Maria Catharina Venter

1786Jacobus Daniel Venter

1787Maria Magdalena Venter

1789Elisabeth Johanna Venter

1790Jan Louis Venter

1792Adriana Cecilia Venter

1793Hester Engela Elizabeth Venter

1795Johanna Jacomina Venter

1796Johannes Henricus Venter

1799Maria Elizabeth Catharina Venter

1801Francois Alwyn Venter

1803Catharina Petronella Venter
Married: Cornelia Petronella Oosthuizen
Children: 1809Petrus Jacobus Stephanus Venter

1811Susanna Catharina Petronella Venter

1813Jan Louis Venter

1816Ockert Jacobus Venter

1817Johanna Jacoba Maria Venter

1819Jacobus Daniël Venter

1820Hermanus Carl Andries Venter

1822Cornelia Petronella Magdalena Venter

1825Catharina Petronella Venter

1827Roelof Venter

1829Hendricus Johannes Venter

1830Johanna Jacomina Susanna Venter

A life in the record

19 March 1786 born Born
23 April 1809 event The estate at de Modder Fonteyn is inventoried
MOOC8/28.63. Ockert Oosthuijzen died intestate on the Olifants River leaving eleven children, the youngest two years old. The inventory walks the house room by room and then out to the yard, where it finds an ox wagon, yellowwood planks, WAGONMAKER'S WOOD and a broken chaise - and in the winkel a be
19 August 1821 event Three Oosthuijzen siblings on one register page
Not an event so much as a shape the page makes, and it is the kind of thing this project exists to find. On 19 August 1821 the Beaufort West register carries two baptisms back to back: ENTRY 381 - Petrus Jacobus Venter and CORNELIA PETRONELLA OOSTHUIJZEN's son. ENTRY 382 - CORNELIS ANDRIES OOSTHUIJZ
19 August 1821 witness Witnessed a baptism of a child · Cornelis Andries Oosthuizen
5 October 1846 died Died

Who stood with them

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.

they stood for Cornelis Andries Oosthuizen baptism of a child · 19 August 1821
on Middelwater

What we don't know

No dated record ties this person to a specific piece of ground.

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

Sources

MOOC8/28.63 - Inventory of the estate of Ockert Oosthuijzen, taken at de Modder Fonteyn on the Olifants River, 23 April 1809 Cape Archives (KAB), Master of the Orphan Chamber; transcription published by TANAP / Globalise (Huygens KNAW)MOOC8/28.63, {18090423}
Beaufort West baptisms, August 1821, entries 377–385 (image S3HY-6573-X8X) FamilySearch, "South Africa, Dutch Reformed Church Records (Stellenbosch Archive), 1690-2011"; citing Genealogiese Instituut van Suid-Afrika, Stellenboschark:/61903/3:1:S3HY-6573-X8X; South Africa > Cape > Beaufort West > Baptisms 1819-1844; register entries 377-385

Research notes

[TREE] Added 2026-07-31 by kin_sweep.py under the one-degree rule: child of Cornelia Petronella OosthuizenH, spouse of Cornelia Petronella OosthuizenH. Thin record, name, dates and the family link only. NO PLACE IMPORTED: the tree's place strings are systematically wrong and are not evidence.

[14 Aug 2026] MERGED PER-000293 into this row. One man, two rows, joined by his wife's age. PER-000293 came off the 1809 estate inventory SRC-092 as 'husband of Cornelia Petronella OosthuizenH, then 17', with no dates at all. PER-000589 came off the private tree as Petrus Jacobus VenterH 1786-1846, whose recorded spouse is PER-000144 Cornelia Petronella OosthuizenH, born 1791 - which makes her 17 going on 18 in 1809, exactly as the inventory says. Same name, same wife, same age at the same date. WHAT THE MERGE IS WORTH: PER-000589's parents are Jan Louis VenterL and Johanna Jacomina SmitM, so this man is ADRIANA CECILIA VENTER'S OWN ELDER BROTHER - and the note on the retired row, that a Venter married an Oosthuizen thirteen years before the root couple's son married Adriana Cecilia, becomes a much stronger statement than it was: it was her brother, not merely someone of her surname. The retired row's claim that he was 'child of Cornelia Petronella OosthuizenH' was a kin_sweep artefact and is wrong; his mother is Johanna Jacomina SmitM. Moved across: given=Petrus Jacobus; doopnaam=Petrus Jacobus; flourished_edtf=1809; living=0.

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

Two Oosthuizen-Venter marriages in eighteen months, on the Olifants River priority 1 · LEAD-0034
Ockert Almero married Adriana Cecilia VenterM in Oct 1807; by April 1809 his sister Cornelia Petronella was married to Petrus Jacobus VenterH. Were the two Venters siblings, and is this a double alliance between two families about to move east together?

What would settle it Petrus Jacobus VenterH's parents. If they are Jan Louis VenterL and Johanna Jacomina SmitM, it is a double alliance and the case is made.
Seven pairs of siblings born too close together for both to be real priority 2 · LEAD-0108
Seven mothers in this model have two children whose exact birth dates fall less than ten months apart, twins excluded. For each: are the two rows one child, is one date wrong, or is one parentage link wrong?

What would settle it One register entry per pair.

Elders

FamilySearch profile L4Q7-841