The marriages
Every marriage in this archive that a document places, in order. A marriage is where two lines join — and it is also the moment a family chooses a town, a church and a witness, which is why the column that matters most here is not the date.
What the places say
17 of the 18 rest on a record this archive has read. Read the right-hand column down and the family's whole movement is in it: three marriages at Graaff-Reinet and Cradock before 1850, then the north-eastern Cape for fifty years — Lady Grey, Dordrecht, Caerlaverock, Indwe — then, once and finally, Vereeniging and Johannesburg.
Two of them are the hinges of this archive. Cradock, 4 November 1838 joins Booysen to Mountjoy. Mayfair, 15 January 1949 is where this archive stops and the Lerena one begins.
Cradock
24 March 1838 · 4 November 1838 · 20 August 1848
Graaff-Reinet
1805 · 9 March 1817
Dordrecht
8 October 1888 · bef. 1890
Indwe
21 September 1908 · bef. 1921
London
1819
Cape Colony
1850
Lady Grey
22 December 1879
Middelburg, Cape
23 March 1896
Caerlaverock, Barkly Oost
8 July 1901
| When | Where | Who | What the record says |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1805 | Graaff-Reinet | Petrus Jacobus Booysen & Anna Maria van der Merwe family tree | He was about seventeen. She died before March 1825, and at least one child came after that — so there was a second marriage nobody had recorded until 2026. The line → |
| 9 March 1817 | Graaff-Reinet | James Montjoy & Anna Catharina Sleer a record read here | She was a widow; his origin is left blank on a page where the clerk filled everyone else's in. The blank predates the 1840 death notice by twenty-three years. The 1817 register → |
| 1819 | London | George Augustus Kolbe & Margaret Downing a record read here | Both were sixteen. The Nautilus passenger roll the following year makes them twenty — a second age overstatement in the same twelve months. The Kolbes → |
| bef. 1828 | not recorded | Petrus Jacobus Booysen & Elizabetha van der Merwe a record read here | A second van der Merwe, named only on her son's 1908 death notice. No place and no date: the marriage is known because a child of it was born about June 1828. The 1908 notice → |
| 24 March 1838 | Cradock | David Schalk van der Merwe & Jacoba Catharina Mountjoy a record read here | Eight months before her sister married in the same town. The women → |
| 4 November 1838 | Cradock | Petrus Jacobus Booysen & Johanna Catharina Mountjoy a record read here | THE JUNCTION. Booysen meets Mountjoy, and the two surnames that carry this archive are joined. He signed her death notice twenty-five years later. The 1863 notice → |
| 20 August 1848 | Cradock | George Mountjoy & Maria Sophia Botha a record read here | Certificate 735. Thirteen children — and their forenames run out through three more surnames. The namesakes → |
| 1850 | Cape Colony | John Augustus Barry I & Margaretha Wilhelmina Elizabeth Mary Kolbe a record read here | An Irish carpenter and a Settler's daughter. Both their death notices survive, filed on the same day in 1915, and the two disagree about when he died. The Barrys → |
| bef. 1863 | not recorded | Petrus Jacobus Booysen & Johanna Margaritha Pretorius a record read here | The second marriage his own death notice refuses to name. A christening named her in the end — the oldest open question on this site, answered by a baptism rather than a death. The second wife, named → |
| 22 December 1879 | Lady Grey | Willem Hermanus “William Henry” Booyzen & Catherine Maria Sophia “Kathleen” Barry a record read here | He signs as a BOER. The signature on this register is the one this archive has spent most of its time arguing about: is the letter a z or an s? The name → |
| 8 October 1888 | Dordrecht | Hercules Johannes Mountjoy & Maria Sophia van Niekerk a record read here | Twenty-two and twenty. Five of their eight children are named for a parent or a grandparent, and one dead daughter's name was given again four years later. The namesakes → |
| bef. 1890 | Dordrecht | James Jonathan Mountjoy & Maria Louisa Bertha Kumm a record read here | In community of property. Their two death notices were typed on the same afternoon in February 1938, hers three and a half years late — “death not reported”. Barkly East, 1938 → |
| 23 March 1896 | Middelburg, Cape | Gerrit Jacobus Booÿsen & Isabella Frederika Coetsee a record read here | In community of property. She died in 1930 and he did not report it until 1943. The 1943 notice → |
| 8 July 1901 | Caerlaverock, Barkly Oost | Petrus Jacobus Pretorius & Margarietha Wilhelmina Elizabeth Barry a record read here | “In woonhuis D. Schoeman” — in the house of a man tried as a Cape Rebel the month before, under martial law, witnessed by him. The rebels → |
| 21 September 1908 | Indwe | Willem Hermanus Booyzen of Indwe & Susanna Adriana Roodt a record read here | Certificate 13. He is 22 and a MIJNWERKER of Dugmore Mijn; she is 16 and her parents had to consent. Their son had been born four months earlier. Indwe, 1907–1910 → |
| bef. 1921 | Indwe | Joseph Heinrich Daschner & Catharina Maria Sophia Booysen a record read here | The same village where her father had died in 1905. His 1942 notice enters her as “born Booyzen”, with a z, from her own dictation. The 1942 notice → |
| 30 December 1924 | Vereeniging | George Downing Mountjoy Booyzen & Anna Johanna Maria Pretorius a record read here | A tree nurseryman and a girl of eighteen who were first cousins once removed — the Barry line closing on itself sixty-five years after it left. The cousin marriage → |
| 15 January 1949 | St Joseph's, Mayfair | Nuno Fernando Lerena & Catherine Mary Sophia Booyzen a record read here | Where this archive stops and the Lerena one begins. The line → |
Three of them are not ordinary
A wedding under martial law
Pretorius and Barry married "in woonhuis D. Schoeman" at Caerlaverock — in the house of a man tried as a Cape Rebel the month before, and witnessed by him. The rebels →
Four months after the child
A miner of twenty-two and a girl of sixteen whose parents had to consent, at Indwe. Their son had been born on 31 May and was baptised onecht in December, because the register records status at birth. Indwe →
The line closing on itself
First cousins once removed, sixty-five years after the Barry surname left this family. The names had never left. The cousin marriage →