104 queries · 50 returned nothing · 35 found something

What has been searched

A search that returns nothing is only worth anything if the search itself is written down. Every query below was actually run, on the date given, and its result is recorded whether or not it helped.

Why a page of failures. Most family history records only what was found. That makes it impossible to tell the difference between “there is nothing there” and “nobody has looked” — and those are completely different statements about an ancestor. Everything below was actually run, and the wording of each query is given so it can be run again and checked.

National Archives · ALL repositories (RSA) — the search this archive should have been running all along

the gap · searched 10 Sep 2026 · where it is used →

Query	Result
BOOYZEN — Cape depot only (KAB)	39 documents Partly	What this archive searched, every time, for the whole project.
BOOYZEN — all repositories (RSA)	184 documents Found	What it should have searched. 145 documents unseen. This family left the Cape about 1907 and the entire last generation died in Johannesburg, so their estates are in the TRANSVAAL depot — and NAAIRS offers an “All Archives Repositories” database on the same selection page used every time.
TAB MHG — the direct line	5 estate files Found	BOOYZEN, JOHANNA MARIA born PRETORIUS (2945/44); BOOYZEN, GEORGE DOWNING MOUNTJOY (1095/48); BOOYZEN, JOHN BARRY (769/52) — the son who signed the 1905 form; BOOYZEN, HENRY JAMES (10/57); and DASCHNER, CATHERINE MARY SOPHIA born BOOYZEN (3734/46).
TAB MHG — two of the 1863 children	2 estate files Found	BOOYZEN, JAN GERHARDUS LODEWIKUS (O/2899, 1885), the seventh child; and BOOYZEN, JACOBUS NICHOLS (52653, 1923), the eldest and the only “Major” on that list.
TAB MHG — both sons of the second marriage	2 estate files Found	BOOYZEN, STEPHANUS FRANCOIS (2428/40) and BOOYZEN, GERT JACOBUS (5155/51). Both filed with a z.
BOOYZEN + KATHLEEN · BOOYZEN + CATHERINE	nothing for her Nothing	Still no estate for Catherine Mary Sophia Booyzen née Barry, who died at Mayfair in 1940. Her “Military Pensioner” entry remains unexplained.
TAB CJC — Claims for Compensation, Burghers	7 Booyzen claims Partly	The post-war compensation series Open Question 11 has been asking for. It exists. But all seven claims are MARICO, Transvaal — the same district as the Booyzen children who died in the camps — and that is NOT this family, who were Cape. The series is now named correctly; the Cape equivalent is still untouched.

National Archives · all repositories — three questions answered by absence

RSA database · searched 10 Sep 2026 · where it is used →

Query	Result
BOOYSEN + WILLEM + HERMANUS	0, everywhere Nothing	There is NO estate file for Willem Hermanus Booyzen — the man at the centre of the family story — in any archives repository in South Africa. He died at Indwe in 1905 leaving nothing to administer. Set that beside his father's estate of 1884, which recorded "moveables only, such as wearing apparel": two generations, and between them not one estate worth opening.
BOOYZEN + MINE / MINER / MYN	0 each Nothing	The testimony ends "the boys initially all got jobs on the mines". No Booyzen mining record appears anywhere in the national archives index. That index covers GOVERNMENT files, not private mining company employment registers, so the negative is a weak one — but every occupation this archive has actually read for these men points elsewhere: boer then mason, tree nurseryman, clerk on the South African Railways. Not one miner among them.
BOOYZEN + FOREST HILL / MAYFAIR	0 each Nothing	The Johannesburg addresses appear on certificates but nowhere in the archival index.
BARRY + BARKLY (all repositories)	2 documents Partly	SAB VWR B645/8/38 (1937): an application by a FARM OWNER AT BARKLY-OOS, R.P.K. BARRY, with his son of the same initials as bywoner. Given this family's Barry–Kolbe naming — Henry James Kolbe Barry, Anthon Rector Kolbe Barry — R.P.K. is very likely Richard Peter Kolbe Barry. That ties the Cape Rebel of Jerpoint, the R. P. Barry who signed the 1915 notice at Manorowen, and five mortgage bonds of 1895–1903 into one landholding man at Barkly East. Tighter, still not proof.
BOOYSEN + CATHERINE / KATHLEEN (all repositories)	33 documents, none hers Nothing	Still no estate anywhere for Catherine Mary Sophia Booyzen née Barry, who died at Mayfair in 1940. Her “Military Pensioner” entry is now the longest-standing unexplained thing in the archive.

Anglo-Boer War Museum · Cape Rebel register

12,792 names · searched 9 Sep 2026 · where it is used →

Query	Result
BOOYSEN	26 found Nothing	Every one from the Northern Cape or Griqualand West — Kenhardt, Campbell, Koopmansfontein, Daniel's Kuil, Aberdeen. None from Barkly East, Dordrecht, Wodehouse, Indwe, Lady Grey or Elliot.
BOOYZEN	0 Nothing	Nothing, in any of the fifteen registers.
BARRY	4 found Found	And two of them are in this family's district: FRED J. BARRY of Ivanhoe, Barkly East / Wodehouse, tried June 1901; and RICHARD PETER BARRY of Jerpoint. Identity unproven.
SCHOEMAN, D. W.	1 found Found	DANIEL WILLEM SCHOEMAN, plaasboer of CAERLAVEROCK, tried June 1901 — the month before the family married in his house.

Anglo-Boer War Museum · Joiners register

952 names · searched 9 Sep 2026 · where it is used →

Query	Result
BOOYSEN	1 found Partly	J. J. BOOYSEN of HEILBRON, Orange Free State — four hundred miles away, in a different country at the time.
BOOYZEN	0 Nothing	Nothing.

University of Cape Town · British Concentration Camps of the South African War

the camp database · searched 9 Sep 2026 · where it is used →

Query	Result
BOOYZEN	5 found Nothing	All Transvaal: Gert Jacobus, aged 2, died Johannesburg camp, farm Rietvallei, Marico; Gertruida Magdalena, aged 19, died Vereeniging camp, farm Rietvlei, Heidelberg; Jan Gerhardus Lodewicus, aged 2. None from the Cape.
BARRY	0 Nothing	Nothing in the entire database.
BOOYSEN + Catherine / Kathleen / John Barry / Willem Hermanus	0 each Nothing	None of this family's given names appears.
BOOYZEN + Catharina	0 Nothing	Nothing.

National Archives · Cape Town Archives Repository — the searches this archive got wrong first time

a correction · searched 9 Sep 2026 · where it is used →

Query	Result
MOUNTJOY (re-run, no date filter)	18 documents ≤1930 Found	The archive previously reported MOUNTJOY as 42 documents of which “all 22 dated 1930 or later were read”. Twenty earlier documents were never opened. They include JAMES MOUNTJOY'S OWN WILLS of 1818 and 1827 and an 1834 Colonial Office memorial from his widow. A filter applied for convenience was written up as if it were the whole search.
MOUNTJOY, wills	2 references Found	KAB MOOC 7/1/104: 42 — MOUNTJOY, JAMES. WILL (1818), joint with SLIER, ANNA CATHARINA, WIFE OF JAMES MOUNTJOY; and MOOC 7/1/104: 43 — the same pair again in 1827, the year he died. Made a year after their 1817 marriage and again at his death.
MOUNTJOY, Colonial Office	1 reference Found	KAB CO 3972: 17 — “MEMORIALS RECEIVED. THE WIDOW OF J MOUNTJOY. REQUESTING REMISSION OF A FINE”, 1834. A petition in her own voice, seven years after his death.
BARRY + RICHARD + PETER	7 documents Partly	Five of them mortgage bonds in the name RICHARD PETER BARRY — 1895, 1897 twice, and 1903 twice. A property-holding farmer of that name in the Cape across the war years. Corroboration for the Cape Rebel of Jerpoint, not proof.
JERPOINT	0 Nothing	The farm name does not appear anywhere in the Cape Town Archives index.
BARRY + JERPOINT / BARRY + IVANHOE	0 each Nothing	Nothing.
BOOYSEN + CONSTABLE · BOOYSEN + MIDDELBURG	9 documents Found	One police constable at Middelburg, 1904–07, filed four times as BOOYSEN and three times as BOOYZEN — twice both ways inside 1905. The best evidence on this site for what the two spellings meant to the people writing them, and it narrows the archive's own reading of the 1905 death form.

National Archives · Cape Town Archives Repository (NAAIRS)

the KAB database · searched 9 Sep 2026 · where it is used →

Query	Result
MOUNTJOY	42 documents Partly	All 22 dated 1930 or later were retrieved and read.
MONTJOY	4 documents Found	The spelling nobody had tried — and two of the four are the Mountjoy–Booysen junction itself, including the 1840 and 1863 death notices.
MOUNTJOY + HERKLAAS / HERCULES / WODEHOUSE / BARKLY	0 each Nothing	There is no estate file for Hercules Johannes Mountjoy under any spelling. The estates around him run 1938, 1939, 1943, 1946, 1948 unbroken, so this is an absence, not a gap in the index.
BOOYZEN	39 documents Found	Earliest 1779 — KAB CJ 2633: 29, the testament of Christina Booyzen. The z is a hundred and twenty years older than the war.
BOOIJZEN	3 documents Found	Earliest 1792.
DE BEER + MAGDELENA	0 Nothing	No estate for Magdelena Elisabeth de Beer, d. 1843.
BEER + MAGDELENA + ELISABETH	0 Nothing	Nothing.
BOOYSEN + MAGDELENA	0 Nothing	Nothing.
BOOIJSEN + MAGDELENA	0 Nothing	Nothing.
BOOYSEN + GERTHARDUS	0 Nothing	No estate for the man at the top of the male line.
BOOYSEN + GERHARDUS	15 documents Nothing	None of them his.
BOOYZEN + GERHARDUS	0 Nothing	Nothing.
BOOYSEN + LODEWIKUS / LODEWICUS	7 documents Nothing	All one later man, Willem Johannes Lodewicus.
BOOYSEN + BEER	3 documents Nothing	One near-miss deliberately NOT adopted: KAB NCD 2/1: 49, a notarial will of 1793 for “Jan Booysen, married to the late Magdalena de Beer”. Wrong husband's name, and a wife dead fifty years before ours.

FamilySearch

records and full text · searched 9 Sep 2026 · where it is used →

Query	Result
Full-text search: “Johannes Mountjoy”	0 Nothing	The full-text collection does not cover Cape probate.
Probate collection, MONTJOY / MOUNTJOY	2 indexed Partly	Only the 1863 pair. The 1840 death notice is NOT name-indexed and had to be found by interpolating reference numbers across 2,223 images.
Marriage, MONTJOY 1817	3 indexings Found	Two carried no image. The third, under the spelling MONTYOY, did.

Anglo-Boer War Museum · Farm List

10,282 records · searched 9 Sep 2026 · where it is used →

Query	Result
Caerlaverock / Manorowen / Wolwekloof	0 Void	VOID, not informative. This register turns out to be an ORANGE FREE STATE land roll — farm number, morgen, square roods, owners — covering only Winburg, Fauresmith, Vrede, Rouxville, Bethlehem, Bloemfontein, Hoopstad, Kroonstad and Philippolis. A control search on “Dordrecht” returns 670 Cape Rebels and 0 farms.

First World War service records

for Kathleen Barry's sons · searched 9 Sep 2026 · where it is used →

Query	Result
Sons of Kathleen Barry, killed in service	0 Nothing	The archive's own hypothesis — that a son died in the war and that is why she is recorded a “Military Pensioner” — was searched and DISPROVED. The claim was reframed on the page rather than quietly dropped.
Commonwealth War Graves Commission	not searched Blocked	Behind a bot check. This archive did not attempt to circumvent it, and records that as the reason.
SANDF Documentation Centre, written to	half delivered Blocked	The enquiry was sent 9 September 2026 to both published addresses. archive@dod.mil.za delivered and has not replied; sandfdoc@mweb.co.za bounced — 550 relay access denied — and that is the address published almost everywhere for the Centre. Recorded because an unanswered letter and an undelivered one are different things.

Master of the Supreme Court · the office's own index of death notices, 1834–1912

film 007844477, 612 images · searched 9 Sep 2026 · where it is used →

Query	Result
“Beer, de” — the whole run	read on film Nothing	Particles are indexed separately in this book, so de Beer files under B. The Magdalena entries are Magda Catha du Plessis (1872), Magda de Beer (1865), Magda Vermeulen (1883), Magda Eliz Troskie (1863), Magda Jacomina Nel (1850) and Magda Greef (1839/40). There is NO Magdelena Elisabeth, and nothing dated 1843.
BOOYSEN — the whole run	read on film Partly	Page 436 onward, alphabetical by christian name with a death-notice number and year against each. A working index of every Booysen death notice reported to the Master between 1834 and 1912.

FindMyPast · world records

for James Montjoy's origin · searched 9 Sep 2026 · where it is used →

Query	Result
MOUNTJOY, born about 1782 ±5	12,984 results Nothing	Not tractable. The archive has no discriminator beyond a trade and a date — “a saddler, in the Cape by March 1817” — and thirteen thousand results cannot be narrowed by that. Recorded so the next person does not repeat it: the way in is a Cape arrival record, not an English birth record.

FamilySearch · Transvaal estate films

reading the nine located estates, one film at a time · searched 10 Sep 2026 · where it is used →

Query	Result
TAB MHG 2945/44 — Anna Johanna Maria Booyzen, born Pretorius	Read in full Found	Indexed under her husband George Downing Mountjoy Booyzen as “Spouse”, which is why it was first mistaken for his estate. Sterfkennis, both parents named with a street address, six children with birth dates, all minors. One correction to the archive.
TAB MHG 1095/48, 5155/51, 769/52, 10/57, 3734/46, 52653, O/2899	Located, not yet read Partly	Seven of the nine still to open. References banked on the Sources page so this resumes rather than restarts.

FamilySearch · Transvaal probate index, by collection

searching the index instead of guessing the film · searched 10 Sep 2026 · where it is used →

Query	Result
Surname BOOYZEN, exact, collection 2520237 (Transvaal probate, 1869–1961)	150 personas Partly	The whole indexed surname in one Transvaal collection, read in two pages of a hundred and fifty. Confirms the Stephanus Francois file (1940) and the Jan Gerhardus Lodewikus file, and shows that the 1946–1957 estates this archive is chasing are NOT name-indexed — they will have to be found by browsing film.
Surname DASCHNER, exact, same collection	16 personas, 12 on one page Found	TAB MHG 1928/42 in full: Joseph Heinrich Daschner, his parents, his wife “born Booyzen”, and eleven children. Read from the image, not the index — the index gives one child's birth year as 1923 where the document says 1922.
Given name MOUNTJOY, same collection	15,558 results, first 40 read Nothing	Useless as run: the engine treats Mountjoy as fuzzy and returns every Montgomery, Montjoy and Montmorency in the Transvaal. Recorded because the failure is instructive — an exact-match toggle exists for surnames in this API and not for given names.
Surname DASCHNER — Minnie Bertha Sophia	One notice, unrelated Nothing	Charles Bruce Rennie, miner, of Booysens, Johannesburg, died 1936; his pre-deceased wife was a Minnie Bertha Sophia Daschner. No Booyzen connection. Kept as the archive's cleanest example of the Booysens-suburb trap.

FamilySearch · Transvaal probate, reading the whole surname

what happens when you stop searching for a person and search for a name · searched 10 Sep 2026 · where it is used →

Query	Result
BOOYSEN + PETRUS JACOBUS, exact surname, collection 2520237	Two personas, one document Found	Sterfkennis No. 678 of 1876 — Petrus Jacobus Booijsen, b. Graaffreinet, d. 1 Sep 1876 district Rustenburg, aged 88, parents NAMED. The oldest document this archive has read, and it was sitting in a name index the whole time. Found only because the search stopped asking for the nine references NAAIRS had given and started reading the surname.
BOOYZEN, exact surname, same collection, second page of results	Two more notices read in full Partly	Magdalena Susanna Maria van den Berg, born Booyzen (d. 1920, Vaalbank, district Lichtenburg), whose father is entered as Jan Gerhardus Lodewicus Booyzen; and Anna Johanna Booijzen, born Cradock about 1823, died 1891 on a farm in the district of Rustenburg, with children called Petrus Jacobus, Magdalena Johanna and Hendrik Stephanus Nicolaas. Right names, right districts, right decades. NEITHER WAS PROVED TO BE KIN when this was written — and the second of them SINCE HAS BEEN. The farm is BRAKFONTEIN, not Boekfontein, and the maiden name is OLIEFIER, not Alberts: she is Anna Catharina Johanna Olivier, the first wife of Hendrik Stefanus Booijsen, and she died on the family's own farm.
TAB MHG O/2899 — Jan Gerhardus Lodewikus Booyzen, 1885	Not this document Nothing	The persona indexed under that name in the Transvaal probate collection turned out to be a FATHER named on somebody else’s 1920 death notice, not the 1885 estate. The NAAIRS reference stands and is still unread. Recorded because the two were briefly conflated here.

FamilySearch · Cape probate, the whole surname at once

the same method, turned on the Cape · searched 10 Sep 2026 · where it is used →

Query	Result
MOUNTJOY, exact, collection 2517051 (Cape probate, 1822–1990)	61 personas — the complete indexed surname Found	Everything this archive was still chasing in the Cape, on one screen. Estate 58379 and 58380 read in full; the 1840 James Montjoy notice re-identified in the same list; and Hercules Johannes’s single hit opened and found to be his mother-in-law’s.
MOUNTJOY + Hercules Johannes	One hit, and it is not his Nothing	His name is on his mother-in-law’s 1902 notice, in her list of children. The index keys every name on the page. Confirms rather than overturns this archive’s finding that he has no estate file.
Film 007735716, images 766–771, read directly	Four documents Found	Not a name search at all. Once the film and image number were known, the pages either side of a death notice could be read in sequence — which is how the liquidation and distribution accounts were found. This is the route to the six Transvaal estates that are not name-indexed.

The register, used as a search tool for the first time

one word typed into the filter · searched 10 Sep 2026 · where it is used →

Query	Result
Filter the register for INDWE	68 entries, four of them new Found	A Willem Hermanus Booijzen taking church membership at Indwe in 1907, and two Booyzen children baptised there in 1908 and 1910 — two and five years after the Willem Hermanus this archive had dying at Indwe in 1905. All four read from the register images. The register was built to hold leads; this is the first one it handed over.
FamilySearch, South Africa, Civil Marriage Records — BOOYZEN + ROODT	One certificate Found	Indwe, 21 September 1908, certificate 13. The document that carries the word MIJNWERKER.
Booyzen + Roodt, any later marriage or death	Nothing further Nothing	No death record and no second marriage found for Willem Hermanus Booyzen of Indwe, and nothing yet for either Roodt woman after 1910. The Indwe registers past 1910 have not been read forward.

The Transvaal probate index, read against itself

no new document — an index line and two already read · searched 13 Sep 2026 · where it is used →

Query	Result
TAB MHG O/2899 — who is actually the deceased?	Jan Gerardus Lodewicus Booijzen, 67, b. district Graaff-Reinet, d. 25 May 1885 Vaalbank Found	Two index passes over the same estate (arks 1:1:QPTJ-R6KB and 1:1:Q2DG-52P9) agree, and one of them states the relationship: Deceased. Born about 1818, so not the nephew born in 1855 this archive had attached it to for months.
An image for estate O/2899	None offered Nothing	The FamilySearch record page says “Check Image Availability” where every other estate in this archive says “View original document”. The file is at the Transvaal Archives in Pretoria and has not been seen. The correction above rests on the index, checked against the 1876 and 1920 Sterfkennisse, both read from the image.
Any death record for Jan Gerhardus Lodewicus Booysen, b. 4 Dec 1855	Nothing Nothing	With the estate taken off him there is no date and no place. Recorded as an open name rather than a closed life.

FamilySearch · can the last six Transvaal estates be read at all?

a negative with its scope written down · searched 13 Sep 2026 · where it is used →

Query	Result
Film access across the whole collection, 762 films, 007805260 to 007831001	Open to 007830062. Closed from 007830063. Nothing	Twenty-eight films from 007830063 onward were requested and twenty-eight returned HTTP 403. Those are the films whose indexed records reach 1946 and later. Film 007830062, the one immediately before the line, serves its images normally. This is an access boundary, not a gap in the index.
TAB MHG 3734/46, 1095/48, 5155/51, 769/52, 10/57	All five behind the line Nothing	Nothing to be done from here. The originals are at the Transvaal Archives Depot in Pretoria.
TAB MHG 52653 (1923) — in the open half	Cannot be located Nothing	Not name-indexed under any spelling of Booyzen, Booysen or Booijzen. And the films are NOT ordered by estate number: image 100 of three films in the same numeric neighbourhood produced a 1920 Sterfkennis, a 1938 death notice, and a Chinese clan genealogy. The interpolation trick that found the 1840 Montjoy notice has nothing to interpolate along here.
q.filmNumber as a search term	Works alone; silently ignored with a surname Nothing	Recorded because it nearly produced a false negative. q.filmNumber=007830063 alone returns 211 personas. Add q.surname=Booyzen and the result is 150 — which is the count for the surname across the WHOLE collection. The film filter is dropped without a word. Any search combining the two is a search of the whole collection wearing a disguise.

FamilySearch · the whole BOOYZEN surname in the CAPE probate collection

twenty-nine people, and the z spelling is the Master's own · searched 13 Sep 2026 · where it is used →

Query	Result
BOOYZEN, exact, collection 2517051 (Cape probate, 1822–1990)	29 personas — small enough to read entire Found	The Transvaal collection holds 150 under this spelling; the Cape holds 29. Two of them are estate 84992 of 1943 — Isabella Fredrika Booyzen born Coetzee, and her husband and son — and the file is spelled with a z by the Master's office throughout.
Estate 84992, read from the image	A death in 1930, filed in 1943 Found	Corrected a date this archive had taken off the reference number. Also gave her parents, her three children, and the death of a son it had been carrying as living.
The oldest Booyzen in the Cape probate series	1843, and not this family Partly	Johanna Booyzen, born about 20 March 1754, died 16 June 1843 at Cape Town. Read because her dates match the only two this archive has for Magdelena Elisabeth de Beer. They match to the year and she is somebody else entirely.
MOOC 7/1/268: 87 (the 1845 will) and MOOC 13/1/221: 6 (the 1866 account)	Still not located Nothing	Neither is name-indexed. The Cape films carry readable target boards — DEATH NOTICES, or DECEASED ESTATES with a year and a starting estate number — and every 19th-century board read so far says DEATH NOTICES. The separate wills and liquidation-account volumes are not evidently in this collection at all. The catalogue, which would settle it, is blocked to this archive: every catalog API path returns 403 from FamilySearch's security service.

The Marico question, tested on names

no new search — the data this archive already holds, put against itself · searched 13 Sep 2026 · where it is used →

Query	Result
The seven TAB CJC compensation claims, by initials, against the eight children on the 1876 Sterfkennis	Three fit, four do not Nothing	JPJ, PJ, GL, JPJ, L, JC, HE against David Schalk, Magdalena Johanna, Petrus Jacobus, Anna Eliezabet, Jan Gerthardus Lodewikus, Eliezabet Cornelia, Hendrik Stefanus, Anna Maria. PJ, GL and L fit; JPJ, JC and HE do not. With a family this repetitive about forenames that is roughly what chance gives you, and by 1903 the 1876 children were dead or in their eighties — a real claimant would be a grandson, a generation beyond what this archive can name.
Where the Marico JPJ was born	Pietermaritzburg, Natal, 1841 Nothing	The index gives the man behind two of the seven claims as born at Pietermaritzburg and dead at Rhenosterfontein, district Marico, in November 1900. This family is Graaff-Reinet. It is the one hard fact in the comparison and it points away.

NAAIRS · the Cape compensation series, found and then tested

the burned-farm question, taken as far as a keyboard can take it · searched 13 Sep 2026 · where it is used →

Query	Result
What IS the Cape equivalent of the Transvaal CJC?	THE WAR LOSSES COMPENSATION COMMISSION, 1902 Found	Named at last. KAB, source NA, volume 564, reference A1068: “War Losses Compensation Commission, Sub-Commissioners Captain E. J. Whindus and Mr H. H. Bunn”, 1902. This archive has been asking for “Cape Colony compensation claims” for weeks without knowing what they were called.
KAB · BOOYZEN and BOOYSEN against COMPENSATION and LOSSES	Nothing, except one 1947 workmen's claim Nothing	BOOYZEN returns 39 documents in the Cape depot and none of them mention compensation or losses. BOOYSEN returns 2,370 and exactly one in combination: a Workmen's Compensation Act 1941 claim at King William's Town, 1947–49, naming D. B. Booysen. Nothing to do with the war.
The control — is the Commission indexed by claimant at all?	NO, AND THE ZERO ABOVE IS THEREFORE WEAK Nothing	SMIT, SCHOEMAN and BARRY also return nothing under LOSSES in the Cape depot. The two BOTHA hits are a 1935 locust and arsenical-poisoning stock claim from a magistrate's series. The Commission's records are catalogued by sub-commissioner and volume, not by the people who claimed. A name search cannot reach them, so a name search finding nothing means very little.
NAAIRS wildcards	THE ASTERISK RETURNS ZERO Nothing	Recorded because it silently manufactures false negatives. BOOY* in the Cape depot returns 0 documents. BOOYZEN, spelled out, returns 39. Four searches run here with an asterisk were discarded and re-run. Anyone using NAAIRS should assume the wildcard does not expand.
The NAAIRS address	The bare hostname no longer resolves Found	national.archsrch.gov.za does not resolve at all. www.national.archsrch.gov.za does, and is the address the National Archives' own help page links to. Noted because the database on which much of this archive rests appears dead if you type it from memory.

The Cape Master's Index of Estates, 1834–1912 — read at Barry

film 007844477, pages 232 to 234, located by bisection · searched 13 Sep 2026 · where it is used →

Query	Result
BARRY, every entry, 1834–1912	Three pages, and this family on none of them Nothing	The index is alphabetical with the death-notice number beside each name. Barry runs 232–234. Not Richard Peter, not Frederick Fortunatus, not Dorothea Regina, not Hendrik Nicholaas, not Kathleen Mary, not Catherine Maria Sophia — and not John Augustus, who died in 1903, or Margaretha, who died in 1912.
Why the absence is not an absence	Both notices are dated 29 March 1915 Partly	This archive has already read them. The index closes in 1912 and they were filed in 1915 — twelve years after John Augustus died. The estate route to identifying the Cape Rebel Richard Peter Barry is therefore closed for this period, not merely empty.
Locating the pages	Eleven probes Found	Film 007844477 runs to 612 images and carries no name index of its own. Its length was found by bisection, then page numbers were read off the top of a sample — about 1.9 pages per image — and Barry was reached in four rounds: images 20, 35, 50, 65, then 85, 95, 105, then 112, 117, 122, then 125. Recorded because it is the technique that will be needed again.

FamilySearch · the Indwe congregation, and Barkly East by place

items 5, 10 and 11 of the standing list · searched 13 Sep 2026 · where it is used →

Query	Result
Johanna Catharina Mountjoy, membership Indwe 23 July 1907	Read from the register Found	Lidmaten register page 336: arrived FROM BARKLY OOST on 23 July 1907, and the remarks column records her dead at Indwe in June 1911.
Willem Hermanus Booyzen of Indwe, after September 1910	Nothing Nothing	No third baptism, no later marriage, no death in the Dutch Reformed index. He is twenty-four at his daughter's baptism and then gone from anything this archive can reach.
BARRY ranked by place — Barkly East	Six people worth keeping Found	q.anyPlace does not filter but it does rank, and the right Barrys come to the top. Richard Pieter Kolbe Barry (b. 1899), James Henry (c.1847–1939), Harriet Louisa of Manorowen (d. 1912), Cornelia Herculena Petronella of Cherryville (d. 1909), John Gerson Eliazer (1893–1941), Theunis Christoffel (1895–1963). All index entries, none read from an image, and every person page says so.
Where John Barry's 1915 estate was administered	GRAHAMSTOWN, not Cape Town Found	A second and independent reason why no member of this family appears in the Cape Master's Index of Estates 1834–1912.

FamilySearch · the Cape civil death registers, Barkly East

the Barry thread, opened by the Grahamstown discovery · searched 13 Sep 2026 · where it is used →

Query	Result
JOHN BARRY, died 1903, Barkly East	Entry 74 — read in full Found	“Irishman born in Ireland.” Carpenter. Manor Owen Ward IV. 25 August 1903. Eleven children. Signed by Richard Barry, son present at death. Answers open question 5 and corrects two things this archive had published.
HARRIET LOUISA BARRY, died 1912	Read in full Found	Of Manorowen, dead of typhoid at Cherryville aged eighteen, buried at Manorowen, her father H. N. Barry signing. Entered as DUTCH. Confirms Cherryville as a third Barry farm and dates the family's assimilation to one generation.
RICHARD PIETER KOLBE BARRY — whose son?	Richard Pieter Barry and Jeannie Maria Catharina Botha Partly	Baptised at Barkly West, 26 April 1898. It does not prove the father is the Richard Peter Barry on the Cape Rebel roll, but it puts a married Richard Peter Barry with children in that district in 1898.
The children of Hendrik Nicholaas Barry and Anna Johanna Maria Schoeman	Four baptisms, 1888–1900 Found	Ruben Jacobus Hosea (Dordrecht, 1888), Dorothea Regina (Slang River, 1892), Henriette Louisa (Barkly West, 1894) and Ellen Hendrika (1900). Two are named for their aunt and uncle, which is why this archive now carries two Dorothea Reginas and two Rubens and keeps them apart.

An audit of this archive's own negatives

checking whether the wildcard fault had contaminated anything already published · searched 13 Sep 2026 · where it is used →

Query	Result
Every search recorded on this site, checked for an asterisk	CLEAN — none Found	The NAAIRS wildcard returns zero rather than expanding, which would silently turn any wildcard search into a false negative. Every row on this page and every query in the working notes was re-read. The only asterisk in the notes is markdown emphasis. No negative published by this archive was built with one.
The estates of the 1876 children	Hendrik Stephanus found; the others not yet Partly	David Schalk, Magdalena Johanna, Anna Eliezabet, Eliezabet Cornelia and Anna Maria remain unsearched or unfound. Their brother's estate turned out to carry their mother's name, so the rest are worth the same effort.
Johanna Catharina Mountjoy, died Indwe June 1911	Not in the Cape civil death index Nothing	The church register records her death; the civil index does not return her under Mountjoy or Montjoy at Indwe or Wodehouse. Recorded as a scoped negative.
The Roodts of Indwe	A large family, and the two mothers not separable yet Partly	The Indwe registers carry Roodt baptisms through 1906–1926 under Jan Gabriel, Hermanus Johannes, Andries Johannes Taylor and Pieter Johannes. A Susanna Adrana Elizabeth Roodt was baptised at Indwe on 19 September 1908 and a Cornelis de Klerk Roodt on 31 May 1907. Which household the two mothers of 1908 and 1909 belong to is not yet established.

Grahamstown, the depot nobody had searched

items 1 to 3 of the standing list · searched 13 Sep 2026 · where it is used →

Query	Result
John Barry's 1915 estate, 925 — the whole page	Read entire Found	Film 007810152, image 228. Eight children named, against eleven on the 1903 registration. Two of this archive's people withdrawn as children and re-placed as grandchildren. Margaretha Kolbe's death dated to 2 August 1912. The marriage placed at “Burghersdorp (probably)”.
The estates either side of it on the same film	Not this family Nothing	Images 229, 230 and 231 are Louw, van der Vyver and van Zyl — the estate numbers 926, 927 and 928 run consecutively and the Barry file is a single page. There is no liquidation account bound with it.
Margaretha Kolbe's own 1915 estate	Not yet located Nothing	Her notice is said to have been filed the same day by another son. It is not on the images either side of 925 and has not been found.

What the zeros are worth

A zero with a stated scope is evidence. There is no estate file for Hercules Johannes Mountjoy in the Cape archives, and because the estates on either side of him run unbroken from 1938 to 1948, that absence means something: an estate too small to report.

A zero without a scope is not. The camp database returns nothing for this family — but it is built largely from camp death lists, so it records who died far better than who was interned and walked out. That claim is unsupported, not disproved, and the page says so.

And a zero from the wrong index is worth less than nothing, because it can mislead for years. The Farm List result above is void: the register is an Orange Free State land roll and was never going to hold a Cape farm. It took a control search to notice.

The searches that found something are on the other pages. These are the ones that make those worth believing.

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