Shame on me to discover this great project only now!

Welcome! Enjoy!

Ooh - praise from fellow curators is always the best kind!

Sincerely, I hadn't seen it. I like the way the projects are cascading. Great overview! I hope I can contribute with my digging in ancestors in the Dutch golden age!

We did think when we started the project to change the name to get it higher up on those link lists.. Options seem to be to add a space .. or ' at the front of the project name or maybe we should 'Cuzzin Country it'... What do you think Sharon, should we give it another thought...

Mau - I'm okay with the SA first - just as the most likely keyword way to search for it for new South African Geni users.

My difficulty is distinguishing between the specific project options when you want to add them to a profile, and Geni's drop down options only show you the first couple of letters - which can make it impossible to tell the difference between projects that start the same.

Thanks for doing the rugby players - I'm good if you think you should only link the really famous ones onto the Famous SA page. (No - don't ask me which they are, tho :-)

A link on the Welkom Cuzzins page might fit under the 2000 heading on the chronology too.

George - i look forward to it!

Top of your head, do you know of any family lines that lead into the Low Countries but that may require more digging? No, don't ask me for Charlemagne links LOL. There may be lots of names that 'start' when the ships got to the Cape, without known ancestors. Do you have anything like a 'lost traces' page, or a list of names that people want help on?

George, I'll bear that in mind while working on the Huguenots. Mau might know quickly from the Progenitors project.

George.. thats easy I think - pick your choice - you can tell them by surname..

http://www.geni.com/projects/South-African-Stamouers-Progenitors

I've been wanting to identify the lines that are linked.. Like the Van Der Merwedes...

Only 547 to pick from? :-)
I think we need a 'hit team' to explore all that. Perhaps we need jMu to approach the Dutch contingent and find volunteers.
Regarding the van Merwede - I'm not sure whether there's a connection between them and the van Merwe. I'm coming across the latter ones, at the moment - so I'll explore that one.

Sharon... I think some 'grand design' might be shaping up.
I've created a new project where I can give 'shelter' to all the people that ran away from Flanders to Holland after the 'Fall of Antwerp'. Basically, whilst some of them were just looking for good fortune when Antwerp was handing its 'golden age' over to Amsterdam, so many of them where staunch calvinists or huguenots that risked being burnt.
Here's the link... http://www.geni.com/projects/Golden-Ages-Migrations-1568-1648-Dutch...
I haven't documented the project, yet. It really is meant to scan the period in which anyone in Flanders clearly moved to Holland - so this includes a LOT of Huguenots.
So, in terms of 'grand design'... I think the Huguenot diaspora through New Amsterdam and the Cape are very closely linked - and it all revolves around the activities of the VOC (and it's 'western' offspring, the WIC).
Antwerp's golden age ended because of the Spanish. Amsterdam's one began mostly because of the Spanish.
My feeling is that the protestant merchants that were already well-off simply stayed in Holland. The ones with less to loose and more to gain went to the Cape or to New Amsterdam.
I think we need some sort of 'gateway project' that helps to frame that. The New Amsterdam projects are 'standalone' - not linked to any particular Holland project. Perhaps the same is true for the Cape.
I know I'm rambling and just speaking out loud :-)
Let's think about how to frame this in a logical manner? Currently, we have almost 2,000 original New Amsterdam immigrants logged. We have a 'lost traces' project there, for arrivals in New Amsterdam without known ancestors. Nothing is done with that, really. I bet the same might be true for a lot of Cape immigrants.
Perhaps we just need to converge, one way or the other, all the emigration flows from Holland within that specific timeframe. I've seen on your pages the mapping of the ships - we have something similar for New Amsterdam. All these ships were controlled by the VOC/WIC.
OK, I'll stop my ramble :-)

indeed..

Willem Schalkz van der Merwe

George keep rambling..

Few thoughts - I'd like to do this with every ship that sailed 1400 to 1700...

http://www.geni.com/projects/South-African-Stamouers-Progenitors-Ma...

Try track who went where how..

Using timelines..

So we need an overarching INdex projet for each Port of call maybe ...to bring the sub projects together..

Let's sleep a night over it :-)

Sleeeeep.. whaaaat.. mmm

Wow. This is so interesting! You guys are great.

Another shame on me... and a great find by Private User
Check this out... http://www.atlasofmutualheritage.nl/
Interactive maps and illustrations on where the VOC and the WIC went. A MUST!

WoW!

This is fantastic George! Thank you
And Ann

Mauritz, George, I have Dr. Jean du Plessis and Charlize Theron amongst others as a link to me. French Hugenots. Does this help?

Ahoy André! I guess that you mean that you have a link to them through very distant ancestors in the big tree? Say, 11th-12th century. If not, correct me? Currently, I'm keen on establishing connections 'closer to home. I think that, late 17th century, only about 500 people where living at the Cape (Mauritz, you correct me now :-) ). That's a very small number. I suspect we'd need to dog about 3-4 generations above each one of those in order to find connections to a large number of people of today. But, I think that would be very worthwhile. I think we need a 'hit team' in the Low Countries to dig amongst South Africa's progenitors. Not sure if we can find such volunteers. In the New Amsterdam project, there hasn't been much feedback (except from the same great 'usual suspects', of course :-) )

George, I am not sure I understand you. The connection I gave you came all the way from Aleidis van Cuijk to dr Jean du Plessis SV/Progenitor and through his decendants to the present day famous film actress Charlize Theron. If you want, I will dig up more of those precious gems. If I did not understand correctly please give me an example of your thinking to that I can understand better what you mean.

We have the link to the top. Do we have the links in the 1500-1700 period?

http://www.geni.com/path/Charlize+Theron+is+related+to+Tor+de+Belvo...

So we are looking for a connection round about here.... Charles du Plessis

None of the tree above seems connected yet. Below is just South Africans...

@ Private
Yeps, sorry (and I didn't mean to say that there was anything wrong with the connection you give!). What I meant is exactly what Mauritz refers to. For instance, did this Charl du Plessis have close family that might have gone to Holland and have direct descendants there? Or, in Germany? etc... Finding these connections might give an even stronger sense of relationship :-)

Hi @Mauritz Preller and all,
I wanted to state this for a while, but did not have time to look for THIS place to state it.(found it)
Cant someone (PRO status) ask Geni how to get This Project on top of the list when you search under project for South Africa?
It does not even look as if there is an Alphabetical order.
And sort of include "Suid Afrika" in that top 1 display order of South Afica project search display.

ASB! vir oukies soos ek in die toekoms wat en dalk nou projekte wil begin.

Dankie