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Source SRC-390

Death Notice 4836 (43), filed 30 December 1857: Nicolaas Francois van der Merwe, Carel Aaron's son by his second marriage, died on Tigerkloof

death notice (original scan) · consulted 2026-08-11

Type
death notice (original scan)
Repository
[TO VERIFY] Master of the Supreme Court probate records, "Cape Province. Probate Records 1856-1859".
Reference
Death notice no. 4836, numbered (43), filed 30 December 1857; image 825 of 2,166 in the viewer. Supplied as a screenshot on 11 Aug 2026.
Consulted
2026-08-11

The citation as it was given

TRANSCRIPTION. 1. Name of the Deceased: "Nichlaas Francois van der Merwe". 2. Birth-place: "Welbedag". 3. Names of the Parents: "Karel A. van der Merwe" and "[Anna] Maria Boota". 4. Age: "ouderdom 24 jaar". 5. Condition in life: "Boer". 6. "Getrouwd". 7. The Day of the decease: "de 10 December". 8. At what House, or where the Person died: "TIGERKLOOF OP DEN PLAATS VAN HENDREK BOTA". 9. Names of the Children: "Karel Aaron van der Merwe", "Hendrek G[ideon?] van der Merwe", "minderjarig". WHOSE FARM HE DIED ON. The surname in field 8 is BOTHA, not Butler, and the sheet proves it against itself: THE SAME CLERK WRITES THE DECEASED'S OWN MOTHER AS "BOOTA" IN FIELD 3, and she is Anna Wilhelmina BOTHA. One hand, one spelling habit, two fields. A man of 24 dying on the farm of a Hendrik Botha is dying among his mother's people, which is what a young married Boer would be doing. Butler would need a different first letter and has nothing else on the page to support it. IT ALSO ESTABLISHES A SECOND MARRIAGE FOR CAREL AARON VAN DER MERWE (PER-001639) that this model did not hold. Elsje Johanna van Heerden died in 1828 and he married Anna Wilhelmina Botha (1798-1845, FamilySearch LC7C-F38) on 16 NOVEMBER 1828, the same year. Two children: Elizabeth Maria 1830-1920 (GHRS-9R9) and this Nicolaas Francois 1833-1857 (968Q-DMQ). So the six children recorded on his first marriage are not all of them, and the man this whole Calvinia record turns on had a second family. WHERE TIGERKLOOF IS, IS NOT SETTLED. The CSG name index, asked on 11 Aug 2026, holds TIGERKLOOF No. 163 in the PIKETBERG division and TYGER KLOOF No. 227 in TULBAGH, and NO farm of that name in Calvinia. Piketberg is where this family came from - Schalk Willem was born on Elsenbosch in that division in 1794 - so a second household still in the old country in 1857 is a real possibility and would say something about how the family split. It is not asserted: the index records TITLE and the notice records where a man died, and a vernacular Tigerkloof in the Hantam would not appear in either. Welbedag is no better: WELBEDACHT No. 537 and No. 139 in Clanwilliam, WELBEDAGT No. 555 and WELBEDACHTE No. 611 in Calvinia. LEAD-0162.

Kept verbatim. This project contradicts published genealogies and corrects a family's own oral tradition, so every claim has to be checkable by someone who was not in the room.

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