email: Richard Ball

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Geertjen Gerrits 1 born Hardenberg 2 died 7 March 1692 3 Notes: She and her children were granted a passage to the Cape, departing on the ship Malacca from Vlie on 3rd October 1661 and arriving at the Cape on 4th February 1662. (information from Letters and Documents Received 1649-1662, by HCV Leibbrandt, page 183 and Van Riebeeck's Diary. References supplied by Lorna Newcomb) So far as I have been able to establish, there are no surviving church records of baptism or marriage from the 1600s for Ommen and Hardenberg which are small towns a few miles apart in the province of Overijssel. So we have only the Cape Archives documents to rely on, but no children brought over from the Netherlands are named in these records, nor how many children there were. In the Commander’s diary, 18 December 1662 are mentioned ‘the wife and 5 small children’ of Jan Coenraadsz Visser. In the muster roll of 1664, the earliest to list numbers of children, we find Jan Coenraet Visser, of Ommen, and Geertje Gerrits of Hardenburg listed with 3 children. Since the daughter, Maria Jansz Visser was already married by the time of that muster roll (we do not know its exact date, but she appears with her husband at that muster), the three children mentioned would presumably have been Gerrit Jansz, Geesje and Coenraad. If there were originally five children it would seem that by 1664 two of them had died, but the number of children given may simply have been a mistake. At all events we know of only three children born other than at the Cape who must, therefore, have accompanied Geertje Gerrits from Vlie to the Cape. Interestingly enough, in the muster rolls from 1662 to 1665 she is named as Geertjen Gerrits, but from the baptism of Zacharia, Aug 1665, she is known, in the church registers and the muster rolls as Grietje Gerrits. I would have thought that Geertjen and Grietje were two different names, but the muster roll of 1665 lists the couple with four children, which must mean it has overlapped the birth of Zacharia at whose baptism entry she appears as Grietje. Presumably, then we are talking about the same person all through from 1662 until 1692 when she died. On the 7th March 1692 Grietje was murdered. She came home in the evening from visiting one of her daughters to find that the slave, Claas van Malabar, was behind with his duties. She scolded him, was not satisfied with his answer and took up a stick to beat him when he let fly with the axe he was using to chop firewood, gave her several blows and decapitated her. In the accounts of the murdere she is said to have been 82 years old. In the Commander's Diary this age appears twice, once in words and once in figures and there can be no mistake about. It must, however, surely have been a mistake on someone's part as this would mean that her last three children were all born during her sixties. Someone, I feel, must have misheard or exaggerated the age of the victim.

married Jan Coenraadsz Visser alias Jan Groff died circa 1696

Maria Jansz c1649 - c1718 children Gerrit Jansz d.1713 children Geesje Jans d. c1713 children Coenraad Jansz 1663 - c1743 children Zacharia Jansz 1665 - c1721 children Jan Jansz b.1667 children

children of Geertjen and Jan Coenraadsz Visser Maria Jansz Visser circa 1649-circa 1718 born circa 1649, Ommen died circa June 1718, (assumed from date of inventory)  married (1) circa 1664 at the Cape Willem Willemsz de Lierman 4 died circa 1696  (2) 1674 extramarital relationship Okker Cornelisz: Olivier 5 died circa 1696  married (3) circa June 1690 Mauritius Lambert Simonsz Stam 6 died circa 1696 Gerrit Jansz Visser died 1713 born Ommen died between February and September 1713  married 4 August 1675 Cape Town Jannetie Thielemans circa 1659-1717 Geesje Jans Vissers died circa 1713 born Hardenberg died circa June 1713, (during the smallpox epidemic)  married (1) 12 July 1671 Cape Town Hendrik Gysbertsz Verschuur 7 died circa 1709 of a farm on the Liesbeeck River  married (2) 26 December 1694 Cape Town Dirck Gijsbertsz Verwey 8 died circa 1709 farmer of a farm situated on the Paardeberg Coenraad Jansz Visser 1663-circa 1743 born 1663, at the Cape baptized 8 April 1663, Cape Town died circa December 1743  married 5 August 1685 Cape Town Catharina Everts Van Der Zee 9 died circa 1713 Zacharia Jansz Visser 1665-circa 1721 born 1665, at the Cape baptized 23 August 1665, Cape Town died circa 1721  married (1) 29 October 1679 Cape Town Diederik Putter 10 1673-circa 1722  married (2) Johannes Basson 11 1673-circa 1722  married (3) 5 July 1706 Stellenbosch Andries Krugel 12 1673-circa 1722 farmer (1713) of the farm, 't Blomkooltje, Paarl and by 1734 Weltevreden, Joostenberg Jan Jansz Visser born 1667 born 1667, at the Cape baptized 16 January 1667, Cape Town  married 8 May 1689 Cape Town Catrina Janse Van Der Zee 13 circa 1675-1734

click on names in blue to move around the family tree small blue numbers provide the source of the fact to which they are attached all material on this page copyright Richard Ball 2011

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