New friendly helper in South Africa?

[Lotte Bjørn Aagesen]

I contacted the friendly helper in south africa listed here: Rhona Behrmann almost a year ago about some relatives of mine apparently gone missing in the beginning of the 20th. century.

She send me a nice e-mail back in Febr. stating that she would love to help, but that her health wasn't that good, so she would ask a friend to help her.

Since then I haven't heard anything.

Now i wonder if her health has gotten worse or what has happened?

I send an e-mail last week with a friendly inquiry. Of course I won't push her if she is sick - I would just like to know if I can expect some information or not. No answer, yet.

So I wonder if anybody knows anybody else in south Africa?

Maybe Rhona Behrmann is not available anymore and should be removed from the list in this forum?

[Lotte Bjørn Aagesen]

Nogen, der kender til nogen, der kan hjælpe med slægtsforskning i Syd Afrika? Jeg har nogle slægtninge, der er forsvundet der ca omkring år 1900.

Den hjælper, der står på listen, er vist ikke tilgængelig længere. Jeg har ikke fået svar fra hende meget længe.

mvh, Lotte

[Mette Lund]

Hi Lotte,

Rhona Behrmann has been removed from the list of Friendly Helpers.

I have been in contact with her recently. Due to bad health she doesn't want to be on the list anymore.

Please remember to write in English in this forum group as most of the users of group are non-Danish speakers.

[Lotte Bjørn Aagesen]

Ok -

I had the feeling, her health was bad. I'm sorry for her.

Any other possibilities when looking for relatives in south Africa?

[Paul Løndahl-Smidt]

Hej Lotte,

The Mormons have a website that might be useful for asking questions.  http://www.facebook.com/SouthAfricaGenealogy

med venlig hilsen
Paul

[Verner Bentsen]

Hej Lotte

Try here http://www.freesurnamesearch.com/search/africa.html

mvh Verner

[Lotte Bjørn Aagesen]

Thanks to both of you - Verner and Paul.

i'll try those sites.

regards, lotte

[Kobus Schoombie]

There are a number of genealogical orginazations in South Africa but online search is not so good. Online information is mostly maintained by individual researchers and can vary a lot in quality. Be careful what you trust. Here is a website of one of the trustworthy societies that provides a long list of useful links:  http://www.eggsa.org/genealogy_publications/gp_websites.htm

Search on the above web page for :
-GISA (institute coupled to University of Stellenbosch) : not much online, but they have the biggest collection of church records on microfilm and they are also the custodian of a set of books that lists the first four or five generations of most South-African families. They have freelance researchers that can be contracted to help.
-eGGSA: this is the online branch of the biggest genealogy club in South Africa, called GGSA. The link on the above web page for eGGSA is wrong. Use http://www.eggsa.org/. They have amongs other information a very good database of graves. Also useful links to regional branches of GGSA.
-NAAIRS: This is the government information system (wills, death notices, etc.) . You have to select a region and can then do an easy online search. Only the summary of the documents are returned. You have to contact the official archives to get copies of the complete documents.

Hope this helps. I am unfortunately not close enough to any of the main archives to offer personal assistance.

[Lotte Bjørn Aagesen]

Thank you very much, Kobus.

I very much appreciate your help - just haven't had the time to seriously searching those adresses, yet.

I want to find traces of what happened to my great-grandfathers sister: Olga Jensen, her husbond and daughter in south africa.

I know they sailed to Cape Town out of Hamburg and stayed in South Africa for 25 years.

Olga returned to Denmark in 1905 and died in Copenhagen - but she would never tell the family what became of her husbond and daughter

That I would really like to find out.

I think they stayed in Cape Town or went to Johannesburg - and I think Olga had a shop selling lingerie, but I'm not sure.

The family story goes that her husbond and daughter were killed or disappeared because of the Boer-war - but the family might have been guessing.

Anyway - I'll try using your adresses to try and search for them when i get the time.

Thank you and greetings,

Lotte

[Kobus Schoombie]

The name Jensen is not often found in SA. For example, Pretoria has a european population of about 500000 and only 4 people named Jensen are listed in the telephone directory. I did a quick search through the Boer War concentration camp records and got no results. The eggsa grave database has quite a few Jensen graves that fits the date profile and some of them even have references to Danmark. The direct link to the search page is http://www.eggsa.org/cgi-bin/library/searchGraves.pl . If you have the names of the husband and child you might get lucky.

Regards
Kobus

[Lotte Bjørn Aagesen]

Thanks so much for your help, Kobus.

I tried to check that webside for 'Jensens' - but none of mine came up.

My facts:

Olga Elvira Bjørn marries Niels Christian Jensen 29.3.1874 in Copenhagen.

their daughter, Agnes Christine Jensen is born 22.1.1876.

1877 they (can't find my note of the exact date!) leave Hamburg on the ship 'Uranus' for Cape Town.

1905 is Olga back in Copenhagen. She is now a widow. She dies 2.11.1938 'widow after draper, Niels Christian Jensen'

So the family lived in South Africa for 28 years!
If they had a shop, like the family history says - they would need a permit or something, I suppose?
Would there be any files about gaining citizenship of South Africa? 

The daughter might have married there?

Why wouldn't Olga tell about her husbond's and daughter's fate? I sence some kind of scandal involved.

Well - I'll take a closer look when I get the time. 

thanks again for your interest, Kobus and best wishes.

Lotte

[Inger Toudal]

Info from the Danish Emigration Database http://www.emiarch.dk/search.php3?l=en ;
http://www.emiarch.dk/info.php3?l=en

Date for registering emigration with the Copenhagen Police is 14 Sept. 1877. The couple also has a son named Carl:

Name:    Jensen, Niels Christian   Occupation:    Bygningssnedker
Age:    32   Destination:    Cap.
Contract no.:    139700   Registration date:    9/14/1877
Last res. parish:    København   Last res. county:    København
Last residence:    Kbhn.   Destination country:    Syd Afrika
Destination city:    Cape Town   Destination state:    Cape of Good Hope
Name of ship:    Indirekte
IDcode:    I7477J6607

Name:    Jensen, Olga Elvira   Occupation:    Hustru
Age:    24   Destination:    Cap.
Contract no.:    139700   Registration date:    9/14/1877
Last res. parish:    København   Last res. county:    København
Last residence:    Kbhn.   Destination country:    Syd Afrika
Destination city:    Cape Town   Destination state:    Cape of Good Hope
Name of ship:    Indirekte
IDcode:    I7477J6608

Name:    Jensen, Agnes Christine   Occupation:    Barn
Age:    01   Destination:    Cap.
Contract no.:    139700   Registration date:    9/14/1877
Last res. parish:    København   Last res. county:    København
Last residence:    Kbhn.   Destination country:    Syd Afrika
Destination city:    Cape Town   Destination state:    Cape of Good Hope
Name of ship:    Indirekte
IDcode:    I7477J6609

Name:    Jensen, Carl   Occupation:    Barn
Age:    02   Destination:    Cap.
Contract no.:    139700   Registration date:    9/14/1877
Last res. parish:    København   Last res. county:    København
Last residence:    Kbhn.   Destination country:    Syd Afrika
Destination city:    Cape Town   Destination state:    Cape of Good Hope
Name of ship:    Indirekte
IDcode:    I7477J6610

Best regards,
Inger Toudal

[Lotte Bjørn Aagesen]

Thank you so much, Inger.

I didn't know they had a son as well.

I haven't been able to find him in the churchfiles, and he wasn't with them onboard the ship.

I have seen the passengerlist onboard the Uranus, which left out of Hamburg 25.9.1877.

So he must have died between sept. 14. and 25. Haven't been able to find that either.

i did try to search:  http://www.emiarch.dk/search.php3?l=en - just using their names and the dates - but no files came up. Do i have to fill in  ALL the spaces?

regards, Lotte

[Lotte Bjørn Aagesen]

I just came across this website:

http://www.sagenealogy.co.za/Links.htm

Put myself on the mailing list and send an e-mail.

So i'll see, what happens.

[Kobus Schoombie]

The government database (NAAIRS) was offline for a while, but now it is active again. I found the following reference in the Cape Town archive (KAB):
Jensen, Niels Christian, Mortgage Bond, 1882
This fits your dates and means that they lived in the Cape Colony for a while. Getting more information from the archive is a tough job. I have tried to email them but there is no response. I need some documents for myself from the KAB archive and will try and get the information for you at the same time.

Kobus

[Kobus Schoombie]

Another document in the NAAIRS database:

APPLICATION FOR LETTERS OF NATURALIZATION. NIELS CHRISTIAN JENSEN, 1904

This was just before the date that Olga returned to Danmark

Regards
Kobus

[Lotte Bjørn Aagesen]

Thanks very much, Kobus.

i really appreciate your help!

It sounds strange that Niels Chr. applied for citizenship in 1904.

Maybe Olga lied about him being dead upon her return 1905?
Nobody in Danmark would ever doubt her or research the matter. Easier to call yourself a widow than divorced in those days.
And maybe they weren't even divorced - maybe she just left?

Lots of questions here......?

But i feel i'm getting a little closer.

Thanks again - have a nice weekend.

Lotte

[Inger Toudal]

I did try to search:  http://www.emiarch.dk/search.php3?l=en - just using their names and the dates - but no files came up. Do i have to fill in  ALL the spaces?

No, you don't have to fill in all the spaces. I looked for Name: Olga Elvira, Date of registration: 1877 (only the year), and found her:

Name:    Jensen, Olga Elvira   Occupation:    Hustru
Age:    24   Destination:    Cap.
Contract no.:    139700   Registration date:    9/14/1877
Last res. parish:    København   Last res. county:    København
Last residence:    Kbhn.   Destination country:    Syd Afrika
Destination city:    Cape Town   Destination state:    Cape of Good Hope
Name of ship:    Indirekte
IDcode:    I7477J6608

Then I returned to the search page and filled in only Contract no. 139700 (as families usually travelled on the same contract/ticket) and Date of reg. 1877 9, and found the whole family. Carl possibly died while the family was travelling from Copenhagen to Hamburg.

If you fill in the whole name, remember to write the surname first, followed by a comma: Jensen, Olga Elvira.

Have you searched for Carl's birth record in the church books of Den Kgl. Fødselsstiftelse?

Best regards,
Inger T.

[Kobus Schoombie]

I found another reference to Niels Cristaan Jensen in the NAIRS KAB database. This time a death notice in 1901. It seems that the naturalization of 1904 is not the same person - mayb a son born in South Africa?  I managed to get reaction from the archive in Cape Town and took the liberty of ordering copies of these two documents for you.

Regards
Kobus

[Lotte Bjørn Aagesen]

Thank you for your help, Inger.

I didn't look for Carl's birth in Den KGl. fødselsstiftelse. Isn't that only women, who were not married, who would end up giving birth there?
I did look after your responce, but didn't find him. Like you said, he probably died on the way to Hamburg.

Haven't had much time lately.

Thanks so much, Kobus! I really appreciate your help. I haven't had so much time lately to search.
It is a strange story. What is true?

Niels Christian still might have applied for citizenship in 1904 - and then died shortly after?

Regards, Lotte

[Lotte Bjørn Aagesen]

I was searching for a ship leaving Cape Town 1905 - possibly to find Olga's ship, when she left for Denmark.

Then I stumbled over this:



   "The 1905 ADDERLEY STREET EXPLOSION

Carpe Diem are two simple words that express so much and encourage us to 'Seize the Day', as written by the ancient Roman poet Horace, because as he rightly says, "the future is unforeseen".

The horse-drawn taxi drivers of Cape Town had seized the moment, back in 1905, to head down to the docks for the arrival of the mail ship and its passengers. This was most fortuitous, because at the very same time Heerengracht (now Adderley Street) – where they normally plied their trade – quite simply blew up!

Heerengracht, when translated from Dutch means Lords' Canals, is where Cape Town's prosperous lived and the canals removed their waste. By 1850, they had been covered over and even the name of the road had been changed to honour British parliamentarian, Charles Adderley. Out of sight was out of mind and the grachts continued to carry storm water under the road. The exits and ventilation holes were sealed, but the furrows were never filled. Some years later, gaslight was introduced along Adderley Street, and slowly but surely, over many years, gas seeped into a great subterranean chamber carved out by the underground water.

At 10.33 am on Tuesday 13 June 1905, a worker was installing tram lines along this busy street and heating up metal until it was white-hot. A stray spark ignited gas leaking from the underground chamber and Adderley Street exploded with the most enormous bang! The ground was ripped open and blue flames burst out of the hissing cracks and fissures. People and horse-drawn carriages disappeared down the holes or were thrown like rag dolls across the street. If only those people who found themselves in Adderley Street that morning had lingered a little longer on their journey, or taken a different route, things would have been very different for them.

Ode 1.11 Horace 23-13BC (translated from Latin by Thomas Hawkins) ~ "Don't ask (it's forbidden to know) what final fate the gods have given to me and you, Leuconoe, and don't consult Babylonian horoscopes. How much better it is to accept whatever shall be, whether Jupiter has given many more winters or whether this is the last one, which now breaks the force of the Tuscan sea against the facing cliffs. Be wise, strain the wine, and trim distant hope within short limits. While we're talking, grudging time will already have fled: seize the day, trusting as little as possible in tomorrow."


I wonder if Olga elvira Jensen, or her daughter Agnes Christine - Niels Christian was apparently dead? - might have been involved in this accident.

Were there any casualties?

[Kobus Schoombie]

At last I received the requested documents from the Cape Town archive. We had a postal strike and it took a long time. Unfortunately the information is useless. It looks like there were at least three persons named Niels Cristian Jensen who immigrated from Denmark to SA at more or less the same time. The death certificate is for a man aged 28 who died in Graaff-Reinet in 1901. His birthplace is Denmark, but parents are listed as unknown. He was much too young to be the object of your search. The application for naturalization was for a person who worked on building the new harbour at East-London in 1904. He came from Copenhagen late in 1897 or early in 1898 and was also too young at 37 years of age.

I am planning to visit the Cape archive early in April and will also try to visit the Pretoria archive soon. If I find anything of value, I will post it here.

Regards
Kobus