Otto familie van Suid Afrika

The History of the Otto family of South Africa.

THE OTTO FAMILY BRANCHES

Many of our Otto ancestors originally came from Pomerania, located in the north east of
present day Germany. I have found 31 Otto individuals who immigrated to South Africa during the last 300 years. About 69% of all Ottos are descended from Michiel Otto, who arrived at the Cape in 1714. About 19% of all Ottos are descended from Johann Friedrich Otto. The rest belong to the other 29 small Otto families. The Native American Lakota tribe have a saying, which really applies to us. After a pipe-smoking ceremony, they say: “Mi taku oyasin”, meaning, “We are all related!”

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There were 1400 people with Otto surnames recorded on Death Notices, as of the year 2005.

Generally the most recent Otto Death Notices, those from the previous 25 years, are housed in the Supreme Court and those Death Notices dating further back are housed in the Archives of the four “old” provinces: Cape, KwaZulu Natal, Free State and Transvaal.

A few generalizations may be made about where and when certain Otto families lived. The Otto families left Germany to find opportunities in a new land. Michiel Otto and Johann Friedrich Otto are the only Otto families who were established in South Africa prior to the Great Trek. Some remained in the Western Cape, but most moved inland, to escape British colonial rule. Generally, once they made the move over land, these Otto families remained in their new farming communities. The twentieth century industrialization caused many to trek, for economic reasons, to the cities. Pretoria became the city of choice for many Otto families, since most were Afrikaners.

In 2005, Otto families distribution by province were:

• Gauteng 33%,
• Western Cape 34%
• Free State 7%,
• North-West 6%
• and the remaining 20% equally distributed in the remaining provinces.

The mobility of the twenty-first century has allowed many South Africans to trek throughout the global village. About 14% of our Otto families are among the more than one million South Africans living abroad.

• Australia
• Canada
• England
• New Zealand
• United States

are popular emigration destinations.

The following are the genealogical codes, branch patriarchs, branch sizes as a percentage of all Ottos and where the descendant branches of Michiel Otto initially settled.

• C3D2E1 Michiel Johannes 6.6% George, Western Cape
• C3D2E2 Johannes 0.9% Uniondale, Western Cape
• C3D2E4 Johannes Gerhardus 3.4% Oudtshoorn, Western Cape
• C3D2E9 Johannes Daniel Jacobus 2.3% Oudtshoorn, Western Cape
• C9D1E3 Michiel Daniel 3.3% Caledon, Western Cape
• C9D1E5 Michiel Bernardus Jacobus 7.7% Free State
• C9D1E6 Andries 5.7% Heidelberg, Western Cape
• C9D1E7 Diederik Jacobus Johannes 3.3% Heidelberg/Heilbron, Free State
• C9D1E9 Matthys Gerhardus 12.4% Gansbaai/ Hermanus/Stanford
• C9D1E10 Cornelis Johannes 4.1% Pietersburg, Limpopo/North-West
• C9D7,8 Johannes C. R., Petrus A.R. 2.6% KwaZulu Natal

GENEALOGIES OF OTTO FAMILIES

• C16D3E2 Hendrik Johannes 9.7% Dewetsdorp/Limpopo/Mpumalanga
• C16D3E4 Josias Hendrik 1.3% Dewetsdorp, Free State
• C16D3E5 Jacobus J.P., E7 Johannes J.P. 1.4% Free State/Western Cape
• C16D7,11 Johannes J., Johannes P. 1.4% Limpopo/Mpumalanga/North-West
• C16D12 Cornelis Jacobus Bredenkamp 2.6% Zeerust, North-West

The following are the genealogical codes, branch patriarchs, branch sizes as a percentage of all Ottos and where the descendant branches of Johan Frederik Otto initially settled.

• B5C1 Johan Frederik 4.2% Hoopstad, Free State
• B5C2 Johannes Lodewicus 2.0% Rustenburg, North-West
• B5C3 Philip Matthys 3.5% Boshof, Free State*
• 5C4 Hendrik Tobias 1.8% Ottosdal, North-West
• B5C5 Gerhardus Petrus 4.6% Ottosdal, North-West
• B5C6 Willem Sternberg 2.8% Boshof, Free State

There are 15 of the 29 small Otto families that have left no male descendants to carry on the family name and another 9 families are in danger of dying out. In 1999 there were 814 Otto households listed in all the South African telephone directories. In the general population Otto families were more concentrated in the province North-West, Limpopo, Pretoria area, Mpumalanga, Free State and Western Cape. Conversely, Otto families were few and far between in places like Northern Cape, Eastern Cape and KwaZulu Natal.

Statistics of the Otto Family Groups in the book

• Family Groupings
• Descendants
• Direct descendants
• Otto spouses included %
• Michiel 2931 4784 69.4%
• Johann Friedrich 811 1319 19.0%

The 29 small Otto families 528 802 11.6%

The Otto family is a midsize South African family. In comparisons, according to the 1964 Population Register of the Republic of South Africa the largest families were:

• Jacobs = 82500;
• Botha = 79500;
• Smith = 76500;
• Williams = 64500;
• van Wyk = 63000;
• van der Merwe = 60000;
• Nel = 49500; du Plessis and
• Venter = 48000; Pretorius = 46500;
• Coetsee / Coetzee = 46500;
• Fourie = 46500; Louw = 46500;
• van Rensburg = 46500;
• Smit = 45000;
• van Zyl = 43500;
• Adams= 42000;
• Hendricks = 40500;
• du Toit = 39000;
• Kruger = 39000;
• van Niekerk = 39000;
• Meyer = 34500;
• Abrahams = 34500;
• le Roux = 31500

Source: South African Surnames by Eric Rosenthal, 1965