Michael Scogings has now completed his indexes of BMDs from the Natal Witness for 1846-1885 inclusive, which are the issues he has access to.
He will now turn his hand to the early issues of the Natal Mercury, to further fill in the gaps until the start of civil registration in Natal in 1868.
A huge vote of thanks to Michael for this mammoth task.
Following a talk she gave on researching in South Africa, Sue Mackay was contacted by a lady in the UK who had taken possession of two old diaries written in the 1870s by a relative, John Thomas Davis Harcourt (b1851 in Birmingham), who went out to join the Frontier Police. The diaries were acquired from a South African who no longer wished to be responsible for them, and they found their way to Jane Milne in the UK, who was known to be “the family historian”. With them were several WW1 diaries written by the son, William Douglas Harcourt, and these have drawn the interest of the Imperial War Museum, but Jane was keen that the two older diaries should also have a wider audience.
I suggested that the diaries themselves might be offered to the National Archives, but Jane was willing for them to be photographed and published on eGGSA, so that historians at the Cape could access them. I offered to transcribe the diaries, as I have experience of reading old handwriting following my transcriptions of the 1820 settler correspondence, and I enlisted the help of Geoff Chew in London, a retired South African academic, who has a greater knowledge than I have of South African history, and who was also familiar with most of the places mentioned in the diary.
It soon became apparent that Harcourt was present at many important meetings with tribal chiefs and that the diaries were very interesting historical documents, so thanks are due to Jane Milne for ensuring that they were not lost.
The Diary images can be seen HERE
Lunette Lourens has added a further part to her interesting and useful article, discussing Packaging requirements and options for your family archives. This article is intended to provide simple and practical guidance to anyone who is looking after their family heritage.
1 What are family archives?
2 What to keep
3 Taking care of the physical condition of the archives
4 Packaging requirements and options for your family archives
5 Storage environment for your family archive
6 Arrangement of your family archives
Genealogy Books: Alta Griffiths has made a list of books now available on the FamilySearch web site - please see Books online in the Links to useful websites section of this web site.
Cemetery registers On FamilySearch have been added to Graves and Cemeteries in South Africa
Images from the City of Cape Town, Cape Metro Cemetery Records,
to search: https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/2790463
includes:
Maitland cemetery in Cape Town 1886-2007
and
Plumstead Cemetery - Record of Interments - May 1959 to Jan 1977