Open questions
Ten things this archive cannot answer yet, in the order they are worth attacking
An archive is worth what its unanswered questions are worth. These are written so that anyone — a cousin, a stranger, an archivist — can pick one up and work it without asking permission.
1. What were Ivone's parents' given names?
Their surnames are known — the 1948 divorce file has her born MOTA FIGUEIREDO — but the given names are still blank, and every paper route has been blocked. A surname sweep on 14 September 2026 seemed to open a new front door — 27 Figueiredo matches, 13 Mota — and it was withdrawn the same evening: the Figueiredo tag pairs her with a woman born before 1713, and MyHeritage states that the Mota matches share no ancestral surname with Derrick at all.
Next: Her Porto death record, which names both parents outright, and the 1924 Lourenço Marques registration. On the DNA side the useful matches remain the two already worked — 108.7 cM at second cousin's son, and 133.2 cM — whose families carry the surnames Jorge, Silvestre, Conde, Gaspar and Matos.
2. Who was Derrick's biological father?
The DNA excludes Kurt Israel Luwinski and points to an English family with a South African connection. The Y-DNA was run on 14 September 2026 and agreed: R-S11477, R1b branch U106/Z381, the North Sea lineage — whose largest European population is England. Two systems, one direction. The exclusion is settled; the name is not.
Next: GRANDPARENTS NAMED, 15 September 2026 (evening). George Castle, b. Baldock, Hertfordshire 1863, and Caroline Walls, b. Weston 1863, married 1883. Two of Derrick's closest matches descend from that one couple through two different daughters and share 297.5 and 292.7 cM with him — five centimorgans apart down separate branches, which puts him inside the household rather than beside it. The centimorgans also move him UP a generation: his biological FATHER was a son of that house, not a grandson. Known sons and their age in June 1948: George W b.1885 (63), Frederick b.1890 (58), Ernest b.1904 (44). SUPERSEDED THE SAME DAY: His biological grandparent was a sibling of Walter George Brown or of Agnes Kate Castle, and both sets are now named from the match's own tree of 10,715 people: Archibald Alfred Brown 1879-1959, Frank Henry Brown b.1880, Alice Brown b.1884, Ernest H Brown 1897-1972; George W Castle b.1886, Ada Castle b.1887, Frederick Castle b.1890, Martha M Castle b.1896. WRONG on two counts — the Castles are HERTFORDSHIRE (Baldock and Norton; Caroline from Weston), only the Browns are Norfolk; and the Brown siblings are not in his descent at all, Brown entering only as the man Agnes Kate Castle married. Three of the eight are daughters, whose sons would carry a husband's surname, and the closest match of all is a HALSEY whose shared ancestral place with Derrick is South Africa. Confirmed in the same tree: a Brown daughter, Decima Audrey Harrison 1928-1997, which is where the Harrison match comes from. Earlier, 14 September: cross-match centimorgans place the cluster as one line read at two depths — the closest match at his grandparents, the 10,715-person tree at his great-grandparents, and those two third cousins to each other exactly as that predicts. Surnames HALSEY (grandparent depth, shared place South Africa) and BROWN/CASTLE/WEBB (great-grandparent depth, all named and dead). His biological father was a first cousin of Geoffrey David Brown b.1926 or Hazel Webb b.1931.
3. When did Auguste divorce Jacob, and why?
The tree records the divorce with no date. In a Berlin Mischehe the date is the whole meaning of the act.
Next: Berlin-Schöneberg divorce files; the 5 January 1924 marriage entry that preceded them.
4. Where does Kurt's "Israel" come from?
He left Germany in 1933, six years before the compulsory-name decree, and as a Mischling would have been outside it anyway.
Next: German expatriation lists in the Reichsanzeiger; South African naturalisation and alien registration papers.
5. Is Georg a brother or a cousin?
Born at Hammerstein two months after Jacob was born at Schubin. Both dates from the Bundesarchiv. They cannot both be sons of one mother.
Next: ASKED, 15 September 2026. Both towns are now in Poland and both civil registries opened in 1874, so an 1884 birth entry names both parents outright. Written to Archiwum Państwowe w Bydgoszczy for Standesamt Schubin, and to Archiwum Państwowe w Koszalinie for Standesamt Hammerstein and any Jewish register covering Sally Leibholz, born there in 1847. If both entries survive, one line of each decides it.
6. What happened to Gertrud Leibke on 27 February 1943?
She died in Berlin, not in a camp, on the day of the Fabrikaktion. The tree also duplicates her across two brothers.
Next: Berlin death register; merge the duplicate and establish which brother she married.
7. When did Ivone actually marry de Witt?
Recorded as 2 February 1948, four and a half months before she married Kurt, with no divorce between.
Next: The Germiston marriage register.
8. Who was the Pinto da Rocha?
Henrique's father, and the tree can only call him "Unknown da Rocha". LOCATED, 14 September 2026: Henrique's South African deceased estate, gazetted three times in 2023 — estate 12294/2023, DA ROCHA, HENRIQUE FIGUEIREDO PINTO. A South African estate file contains the Death Notice, form J294, and that form asks for the full names of the father and the maiden name of the mother.
Next: Order the J294 from the Master of the High Court quoting 12294/2023. Then his 1968 marriage record, which unlike the 1948 form does carry parents. And in parallel a letter to the Arquivo da Defesa Nacional: he turned twenty five weeks after the Colonial War began, and a Portuguese military registration names both parents.
9. Does Jacob have a Stolperstein?
None found in Schöneberg. The Leibholz stones located so far belong to other Leibholz families.
Next: Koordinierungsstelle Stolpersteine Berlin. If there is none, there could be.
10. Do any of the 100 index Luwinskis connect?
Not one has been shown to. They may be entirely unrelated people who share a rare surname.
Next: Allenstein and Kreis Rössel Catholic registers, for Joachim born 1865 and back.
Requests, drafted
Written out in full in requests/ — the Porto one in Portuguese and English, ready to send.
- Conservatória do Registo Civil do Porto — death and burial of Ivone de Figueiredo, b. 4 March 1924 Lourenço Marques.
- Arquivo Histórico de Moçambique, Maputo, and the Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino, Lisbon — Lourenço Marques civil registration, 1924 and c. 1941.
- Landesarchiv Berlin — Schöneberg marriage 5 January 1924; the divorce file; Kurt's 1912 birth entry; Gertrud Leibke's death, 27 February 1943.
- Arolsen Archives — Jacob, Samuel, Georg, Oskar, Elli and Werner Leibholz.
- Master of the Supreme Court, Pretoria — estate file 7584/1969, Kurt Luwinski.
- National Archives of South Africa — the 1948 and 1951 divorce actions, and the Germiston marriage register.