South Africa - Cape Colony

[steiner]

I recently discovered that an ancestor who I found in all the censuses for England/Scotland from 1841 - 1871 was actually in South Africa in 1885 - and probably even from before 1881.

He was born in 1805 and probably died in South Africa before 1900. Anyone have knowledge about tracking down a possible death record in SA from 1885 - 1900?

thanks

Andy

[Currie]

Hello Andy,

If he died in South Africa the family or others may have reported the fact to the British Consul as a form of registration of death, however that was entirely voluntary. That info should have been sent on to the UK and ended up with the appropriate GRO. SP only appears to have those records in their Minor Records from 1914. I don’t know why no earlier ones but maybe there’s something in the English ones elsewhere.

If he happened to die on the way to or from SA on board ship, especially a British ship, a report should eventually have ended up with the GRO in England, Ireland or Scotland. Unfortunately the report didn’t always get that far or even to the correct GRO.

A death notice may have appeared in the UK newspapers, put there by UK relatives. Or the news may have been in an SA newspaper and copied into a UK newspaper. Sometimes Colonial newspapers asked UK newspapers to copy the notice. Try here if necessary viewtopic.php?f=1&t=15443&hilit=demo

There’s the Gravestones in South Africa site which may be worth a look. http://www.eggsa.org/library/main.php?g2_itemId=43

I hope you can see the preview to this book. “Worldwide Family history”, published in the 1980s, from about page 199. It says that the first uniform registration of BMD for the whole of SA was introduced 1923. Cape Colony had a compulsory BD registration system from 1894.
http://books.google.com.au/books?id=mJg ... 22&f=false

It doesn’t look like the easiest thing to chase up a death certificate or anything relating to an estate in SA. You could check out the SA resources listed immediately above your thread and also the links on this page may be useful. http://www.genealogylinks.net/country/s ... index.html

Hope that’s of some use,
All the best,
Alan

[steiner]

Hi Alan

Thanks for your suggestions. I'll give them a try. I since found out that his daughter and sonin law where both missionaries in South Africa so he may well have lived with them.

Andy

[WilmaM]

You could try http://www.mundus.ac.uk for info on his daughter.
Or do you know what Missionary Society/Church they were out with? [if any]
They may well be in archives or books related to any organisation.