Geertruida Gouws
active 1838
Names
- Surname
- Gouws
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
- 19 August 1838 witness Witnessed a baptism · Jacobus Petrus Van Zyl
- 25 August 1839 witness Witnessed a baptism
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
Jacobus Petrus Van Zyl baptism · 19 August 1838
dates known, no other trace here
- they stood for Geertruida Gouws baptism · 25 August 1839
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.
- 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
- Beaufort West baptisms 1838. Adriana Cecilia van Zyl (11 Jul) and Jacobus Petrus van Zyl (19 Aug), the two van Zyl x Oosthuizen households FamilySearch, "South Africa, Dutch Reformed Church Records (Stellenbosch Archive), 1690-2011"; citing Genealogiese Instituut van Suid-Afrika, Stellenboschark:/61903/3:1:S3HY-68TW-GLX, cc=1392488; South Africa > Cape > Beaufort West > Baptisms 1819-1844 > image 212 of 302; register pages 210-211
- Beaufort West NG Gemeente, Baptisms 1819-1844 (doopregister) FamilySearch, "South Africa, Dutch Reformed Church Records (Stellenbosch Archive), 1690-2011"; citing Genealogiese Instituut van Suid-Afrika (GISA), StellenboschSouth Africa > Cape > Beaufort West > Baptisms 1819-1844 > 302 images. Waypoint wc=M64H-PNL:13850901,13850902,14731201,14762701; cc=1392488. Last image (302 of 302) is ark:/61903/3:1:S3HY-68TW-GKL. Held here: 91 distinct page images, filed under their ark suffix in sources/registers/beaufort-west-baptisms-1819-1844/
Research notes
[9 Aug 2026] ADDED BY witness_scope_sweep.py UNDER SCOPE RULE R2, THE COMMUNITY. This person stood as a witness in this district and is here because the same name stands at more than one occasion, and the surname is one this project already holds. The register writes the name "Geertruida GouwsH". OCCASIONS: 1838-08-19 baptism at Beaufort West for PER-000626; 1839-08-25 baptism at Beaufort West. SOURCE: SRC-181, SRC-200. flourished_edtf is the earliest of those occasion years and is the only date claimed for this person: the register attests them alive and adult on that day and says nothing else. No birth or death date is guessed. Sex is inferred from the given name where the name is unambiguous, and is left blank otherwise; it is an inference and not a record. THIS ROW IS A NAME IN A REGISTER, NOT A RESEARCHED PERSON. It carries no parentage, no ground and no tree id, and it exists so the witness seam can be walked in both directions. [TO VERIFY] IDENTITY ACROSS OCCASIONS: 2 occasions are linked to this one row on the strength of the name alone, spanning 1838 to 1839. 9 forbids matching a person by name alone and this is that risk, taken deliberately and marked. Two occasions a generation apart may be a man and his namesake nephew.
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.