Genealogy

Following the article on the visual history of the Pretoria Railway station (click here to view), I received an email from Germany-based Enno Schlechter (co-author) which contained a photograph of his great-great-grandparents, Theodor and Mary Fiebiger.

The information available to the family, resulted in an initial link made that the Fiebiger couple ran the Pretoria railway station restaurant. What probably contributed to this initial view was the photograph in their possession of the Fiebiger couple by the Pretoria-based photographer, Munro.

A German and an English woman - Cabinet format photograph by Pretoria-based photographer Munro of Theodor Fiebiger and his wife Mary Alice. The couple got married in Krugersdorp in 1897. This photograph shows Mary with a wedding ring. She passed away in 1899. The photograph, therefore, dates from circa 1898, whilst the couple were based in Vereeniging.

Further research, however, indicated that the couple was not Pretoria-based, but rather Krugersdorp,  Vereeniging and Johannesburg based – either involved in mining, or managing a railway station restaurant at one station and a bar at another.

Later, Enno forwarded me another incredible image of Theodor and Mary with the restaurant staff in front of the Vereeniging railway station restaurant. This photograph, proudly displayed in the family home in Germany, assisted in stitching together...

A dusty old shoebox in a charity shop in Pinetown. No-one knows how long it had been lying there and no-one knows who brought it in. A staff member working there found it whilst tidying up and opened the box to see what was inside. “Look at this”, she said to the ladies managing the shop, “this box is full of old photographs with names on the back”.

Neither of the ladies were much interested in genealogy, but both agreed that the contents of this box looked quite special and should, if possible, be reunited with its family, or, failing that, go intact to a collector who would appreciate it. But how to go about it?

They posted a few of the photographs on the shop’s Facebook page, which was shared to several Genealogy groups. Although causing a fair number of comments, no-one among the large groups of members seemed to have any connection to the family. Passing through Pinetown and having an interest in genealogy and old photographs, my husband and I stopped at the charity shop on the off-chance that the photographs might still be there. We were hoping, at best, to find a few nice old photographs as seen on the Facebook post, but were completely taken aback at what we found - a whole box of the most beautiful Cabinet Cards and Cartes de Visite, most of which were identified by name, as well as some handwritten notes and a diary.

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It was the well-preserved slate headstone - arranged like a spreadsheet of family history - that first got my attention: its organisation of facts stand in contrast to the just-contained chaos of nature in the green and secluded churchyard of St Gluvias in Penryn. But it was a chance glimpse of the surname in a book about Cornish minerals that intrigued me, and prompted me to look deeper. Pioneers in South Africa, New Zealand and Australia are all part of the family’s story - and the instigator of one of the most bizarre buildings in Cornwall…

The well-preserved slate headstone (Louise Hollick)

The Medieval church of Merther – a tiny hamlet on the east side of the Tresillian River, now a picturesque ruin – was the setting for the marriage of Edward Haweis Lavin, a carpenter, to Sarah (nee Poat) on 4th October 1781. At least four sons were born to the couple in Merther, and sometime around 1810, the family relocated towards Penryn, a busy port town since medieval times, further down the river. When their eldest son, Michael, married Mary Bennett in 1814, it was at St Gluvias church, a beautiful setting just near to the Penryn River (see main image).

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This article is dedicated to Rosa Swanepoel, a Pretoria historian, who donated the images contained in this article to the author during October 2021. She sadly passed away shortly thereafter.

The primary theme of this article is based on the Paarl based photographer James (Jimmy) Gribble, his first wife and their 4 children – roughly spanning a 25 year period (between 1890 and 1915).

Occasionally the Hardijzer Photographic Research Collection (HPRC), a privately curated collection, receives donations of early South African photographs. The recent donation to the HPRC by Swanepoel contained 71 photographs, 70 of which related to the Gribble family.

Finding a collection of images as it relates to an early South African photographer’s own life  narrative, some 100 years after they were initially captured, is exceptionally rare which therefore makes these images even more unique.

On the same day the images were received the vigorious research started as to who all the individuals were as portrayed on the 70 photographs. It became a surreal, almost voyoristic experience in studying each individual as portrayed on the photographs. The odd photograph out in the donated batch is of an armored vehicle, also photographed by Gribble around 1915.

In analysing and researching each individual, a fascinating storyline unfolded – a human story – something probably not captured before and therefore crucial to record, mainly for the benefit of South African photographic history but not to the exclusion of family or genealogical history.

Two key themes stand out strongly, namely that of...

What are the chances of two unrelated strangers living on different continents discovering that they have some identical photographs of common ancestors in their old family albums?

Annie Goodhead, Kitty and friend - ie The Lady in Black (Margaret Addis)

This photograph of a mature lady dressed in black, which was taken over 100 years ago, was the key to two people with a common interest in genealogy finding each other, not only enabling both of them to fill in missing bits of their respective family trees, but also to give to one the gift of photographs of her great-grandmother she would otherwise never have seen.

If you are researching ancestors who emigrated from Europe to settle in one of the new colonies, take inspiration from this story of how family documents, letters and beautiful portraits can turn up in the most unlikely places.

In 1890, two brothers, John and Frederick Goodhead from Manchester, England, set sail aboard the Duart Castle for the new colony of South Africa, a move instigated by their father because John had TB and had been advised, on medical grounds, to move to a drier and less polluted climate. On arrival, the brothers initially stayed together, first going to Pietermaritzburg and then to Barberton, where they ran a general store. Then, for...

We as a family are very proud of what Magdalene Morse-Jones has achieved with this work. Thanks to her research we now know about our family roots. The first part of the story looks at our ancestral home, Hohenzollern Castle in Germany (then Prussia) while the second reveals some of our early family history. The third and fourth parts trace the beginnings of the South African wool industry and highlight the contributions of the Shuman Family. Click here to read the original pdf article. (William Shuman)

The wild men are mythical figures that appear in the art and literature of medieval Europe. The image of wild men survived to appear as part of heraldic coat-of-arms, especially in Germany, well into the 16th century.

The Kingdom of Prussia was a German kingdom that constituted the state of Prussia between 1701 and 1918. It was the driving force behind the unification of Germany in 1871 and was the leading state of the German Empire until its dissolution in 1918.

Kingdom of Prussia Coat of Arms 1871–1918

Hohenzollern Castle is the ancestral seat of the imperial House of Hohenzollern. The third of three hilltop castles built on the site, it is located atop Mount Hohenzollern, above the edge of the Swabian Jura of central Baden-Württemberg, Germany.

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A few years ago, I needed to write my memoir to understand myself but as my mother had had a great effect on my childhood and the person I became, I realised that that was where I should start. However, it soon became apparent that her childhood was the reason for who she became. So perhaps I needed to start with my grandmother, who died when my mother was eleven years old. But I didn't even know my grandmother’s name!

‘My Mother’ I came to realise was the only name I had ever heard for my grandmother, when mentioned by my late mother. Grandmother had died giving birth to twin boys and they and another boy of 2 years-old, my mother’s half-brothers, were the only family she had. There was a step-father who died not long after that. As an English-speaking South African, this was how my journey to the ‘other side’ of the Anglo Boer War began.

Something I have come across quite often in my recent reading of South African history, is mention of racial-conflict and I am always surprised to discover that this means between the Boers and the British. It explains now why I always felt, growing up in Pretoria in the 1940s, that the Afrikaans speaking children seemed to hate me. It might also explain why my mother did not tell her children that her mother had been from a Boer family, withholding her name and any information she might have had, on what her mother experienced during the war...