They came by ship mostly from Europe but also from all ports on the VOC's trade routes and made the wild, abundant and beautiful southern point of Africa the Cape of Good Hope their home. Their descendants populated the Cape and 'trekked' northwards by ox wagon spreading across the region. Today they are the whitish tribe of South Africa and continuing their adventures, they have spread in small numbers to all over the world. This project is a tribute to them and all their descendants.

Project Objectives

• Provide a list of South African Progenitors in Geni and make them readily identifiable in tree view.
• Establish a standard for how we structure their profiles and work towards sharing our collective information to get our Geni tree in this area as accurate as possible.
• Assist to inform and guide our South African Geni community so as to achieve a uniform approach across our tree.
• Have some fun doing it...

Project Objectives under review. These are the latest additions:

• This is about solving the puzzle of our genealogy.
• Not so much about the history as it is about the practical issues of tree building and solving the practical issues in our Genealogy and Geni Tree. (More on this aspect to follow in February 2013)
• Analysing the differences in our different genealogical publications and provide a multidimensional view of the data from websites such as Stamouers www.stamouers.com (Special mention)
• Analyse the status of completion of our Geni tree and provide project reports.
• Guidance iro Method to build your tree.

Project Collaborators are requested to:

• Link/register progenitors to the project - (How? From their profile page select "More Actions" => "Add to project". To add a collaborator to the project you would do the same.)
• Work together to set progenitor profiles as defined by the recommended profile structure below (up for and open to discussion and 'collaborative' agreement)
• Participate in pruning and managing our collective tree to obtain some uniformity.
• Assist to maintain and take responsibility to keep progenitors clear of matches, merge issues and tree conflicts.

Stamvader/Progenitor List by Surname

SV/PROG

Stammoeder/Progenitor List by Surname

SM/PROG

Profile Examples:

Willem Schalk (Schalkzoon) van der Merwe and Elsje Cloete

"About me" is the information that will likely ensure a profile will be set correctly in the future. So the most important field to have as accurate as possible is "About me".

Use SUFFIX like this

Apply de Villiers Pama numbering as follows:

• Place “SV/PROG” (not a1) in the SUFFIX field to allow a list progenitors to be displayed using GENI Search.
• Differentiate more than one progenitor of the same surname by numbers 1,2,3.. SV/PROG 1,SV/PROG 2,SV/PROG 3...
• Identify twins or children with same names by placing " i, ii, iii " in the SUFFIX field.
  • Example: Jacob Adam Enslin
• Identify generational namesakes by placing I, II, III in SUFFIX field.
  • Example David Grootschel/Griessel
• To avoid errors and conflicts and to synchronise with South African genealogy use the De Villiers Pama for at least the generations up to year 1820. Place the b1, b2, b1c1, b1c2 as may be relevant in the SUFFIX and also display field. Lets NOT use brackets or any other additions and keep them as simple as possible:
  • [b1.c1] vs b1c1.
• Set levels B,C&D (b4c3d12) as complete but from E only e1, e2, e3 etc.. NOT b1c2d4e3

Tip: You are able to turn off the display so you don't see the Suffix.

Benefit

• Click here to see the list SV/PROG
• Tip 1: Search for a specific progenitor by using SV/PROG + "LAST NAME"
• Click to test SV/PROG van der Merwe
  • How do we deal with surname variants in order to isolate the Progenitor of that surname?
  • Tip 2 Click on "last name" to sort the list alphabetically by surname.

Interesting Sources and Suggested Reading

• GISA - Genealogical Institute of South Africa
• The Genealogical Society of South Africa
• Stamouers www.stamouers.com (Special mention)
• 50 Years Project
• First Fifty Years Project
• Passenger List
• TANAP
• VOC
• Wikipedia

Jump Back to:

• WELKOM CUZZINS: Geni SA Projects' Main Site Index & Help Page

See Also Related Geni Project Pages:

• SA Progenitors on Geni
• South African Genealogical Reference Centre is there to help with SA genealogical nitty gritty; naming conventions and language usages.

_____________________________________________________________