NC Brummer

Ancestors

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NC Brummer is genealogies verbind aan Suid Afrika /is genealogically connected to South Africa

NC Brummer is gerelateerd aan Nederland.

Biography

I am a 'white' African, whose parents emigrated 'back' to the Netherlands. My ancestors are from South Africa, back no less than 6 generations, some 12, except 2 indigenous Khoi/San women, who go back to the beginning of homo sapiens in Africa. There are also slave women from Angola, 'Guinea', Bengal/India, and Indonesian/Malay islands to further diversify the mix.

A family tree is more than male of female lines, or a headcount of origins, it is also the web of stories and the connections to history. Most of my ancestors from Europe are Dutch, French, Belgian, German, English, Danish, Norwegian, Swiss. Some well recorded family lines go back far. Some were adventurers with unknown parantage.

Many of the south african elite were slave holders, some even after themselves having been slaves. In the early British period, slave registers help document this, though unpacking them is not easy: Slave Owners and Slaves in South Africa. Earlier, the estate inventories sometimes list slaves.

I have Heatlie family roots at the farm Zeekoegat along the Hexrivier, who intermarried with the large Hugo and de Vos families of the Hex River Valley, who had many slaves. The 'first' Heatlie went to Mauritius to semi-legally acquire two slaves, one of whom, Moia van Mosambique (abt.1806-1906), survived to know three generations of his descendants. Otherwise, the Slave Registers show that he 'transitioned out of slavery' early on.

On the other side, my surname is Brümmer (picture collection), from Menslage (church books) in Germany.

Among my early Cape ancestors, up to about 1720, are 9-20 slave women (depending how you count):

• Angela van Bengale (abt.1644-1720)' (11º, 3 times), via daughter born in bondage, Anna (de Koningh) Bergh (1661-1733) (2 times)
• Koddo van Guinea (abt.1640-) (10º, 2 times)
• Elizabeth van de Caab (abt.1662-bef.1727) (8º, 2 times), likely daughter of Regina van Rapenberg (abt.1650-) van Guinea.
• Henrijetta van Soloor (bef.1673-bef.1724), (10º) daughter of Johan Wittebol and Sara Seloor (abt.1650-aft.1712) (11º)
• Catharina (van Palicatte) van Bengale (abt.1631-abt.1683) (11º)
• Catharina (van Bengal) Vermeulen (bef.1669-aft.1695) (10º)
• Cecilia (Swerisse) Vliet (1675-abt.1713) (10º), daughter of Dorothe van Angola (abt.1655-) (11º)
• Adriaentje Gabrielsz van de Kaap (bef.1667-) (10º), daughter of Catharina van Malabar (abt.1637-abt.1709) (11º), Gabriel van Samboua (abt.1650-1688) (11º, possibly another?)
• Johanna van Madras (abt.1680-) (10º)

From their names one can see that two/three of these slave women came from Guinea and Angola, while most others have origins in modern India and Indonesia.

Two early women were from the local Khoi:

• Krotoa (Goringhaikona) Meerhoff (abt.1642-1674)(12º), mother of Pieternella (van Meerhoff) Zaaijman (bef.1663-abt.1714) (11º)
• Elizabeth Catharina (van den Kaap) Voogd (abt.1687-) (8º), husband trampled by an elephant at Klaas Voogds rivier

The edges of the unknown are now mostly around when people arrived at the Cape, with origins hidden in a mist of confusion. One women at the Cape, Catharina (Hermansz) Kervel (abt.1676-) (9º), is still a brick-wall with unknown Cape parents, although her father would likely have been a Harmen/Herman. In those early years, we may expect a significant probability of some slave or Khoi ancestry, for a local born women who'se parents were forgotten.

I'm keeping myself, parents, grandparents mostly anonymous, for privacy. I'm communicating in english, but also know afrikaans, dutch, german, and french.

PS: furthermore, I'm of the opinion that Wikitree should formally join the creative commons, subscribing to the wikipedia model, and join wikimedia, as the best way to ensure the results of the collective wikitree efforts. Commercial ownership of the labour on the commons is simply not sustainable, as it will at some point be inherited, sold, appropriated and exploited by a bilionaire like Elon Musk.