The first time we meet Daniel Jan Andries after his 1790 baptism, is on 27 November 1809 in Swellendam, at the time the most easily accessible Dutch Reformed Church from Schilpadbeen, his father Mattheus' farm on the Upper Olifants River at the eastern limit of the Little Karoo. On this day, he is witness to the baptism of the first young man bearing the Booyens name in the next generation: Matthys, son of second eldest brother Barend Matthys.

By 1813, the parish of George, on the South Coast behind the great barrier of Outeniqua Mountains, is the nearest Dutch Reformed Church parish. It is also the newest. On 13 February 1814 he again serves as baptism witness [#1], for two of his brothers in this parish. Their abode is given as Keurfontein, near Schilpadbeen and not far from the hot springs at Towerwater. It is reasonable to conclude that Daniel, as unmarried younger brother, also resides at Keurfontein.

After his marriage, we find him baptising his first child at home on 10 September 1821. The baptism is served by the Beaufort Parish of the Dutch Reformed Curch, but is conducted at home in what the entry refers to as "Winterhoek". We can only assume this refers to the little spot known as Winterhoek, squirreled behind the Groot Winterhoek Mountains near Steytlerville (below, between the two ranges of mountains). It is situated at the foot of the highest mountain in the Southeast Cape, known today as Cockscomb (the peak in the image).

The 1822 Muster Roll of the Beaufort District Shows him in the Traka sub-district, the region behind the Great Swartberg. He is shown with wife Maria Geertruida Catrina Rensburg and one son. His own name is given as Daniel Johannes Andries Booyens Mat: Zoon. He has one horse, 14 draught oxen, 20 head of cattle, and 200 sheep. His abode is given as the farm Klipfonteijn.

In late 1823 he baptises his second child in Graaff-Reinet. We find him in the Beaufort (West) Muster Rolls of 1826 [#3] where he is stil listed in the southern Traka sub-district. He is described as: "Danl. Johs. Ands. Booyens Matthys Son" and his wife as "Maria Janze van Rensburg". The books are actually signed off in February 1826, implying this to effectively be a record of 1825.

The third child is baptised in 1826 in or by the Grahamstown Methodist Church. The baptism entry states that they reside in the George District. However, that district was massive. It is less than clear whether Winterhoek still fell in that district in 1826. As incredible as it may sound, it was indeed part of the Swellendam district in 1800. George, as a district, was split off from that massive earlier district. The nearest Dutch reformed church is in Uitenhage, but Daniel never baptises there, for reasons unknown.

Daniel Jan Andries briefly features in Chapter 9 of the book AmaBhulu.

From this point on, he appears in the Beaufort (West) NG Church baptism books where he baptizes children four to seven until April 1839. The first six children are all boys and this is the reason he is such a key person in the Booyens Genealogy in the country. By 1842 we find him baptizing his last known child in Cradock, though the baptism entry indicates that the actual baptism is conducted at home in the Tarka (image below), to the northeast of Cradock. This is at the time the frontier region of the Cape Colony from which the bulk of the Great Trek has departed six years before. It borders on what is unofficially Thembuland. After this point we never hear about his wife again and no death notice can be found.

Based on the strict Afrikaans naming convention, we believe that a first daughter, potentially named Magdalena Catharina for his wife's mother, dies over this period, likely before being baptized. To date no trace of the actual existence of such a child has been found. However, given the extreme distortions made of Daniel's and his wife's names and surnames in some English church books, the child and her parents may yet be found, their names distorted beyond all recognition, somewhere in a collection of Eastern Cape Church books.

The 1843 Inventory of his mother's estate [#4] states about "D Booyens" (son Daniel Jan Andries) and "M Booyens": "The above individuals have left the district for Natal and are stated to possess nothing".

Tracking the baptisms by Daniel's sons [#5] is a rather revealing exercise: Between 1842 and 1849, his eldest son, Matthys Jacobus, baptizes children in Colesberg in the Cape Colony, after which the baptisms move to Smithfield and Bloemfontein in the Orange Free State (1852), and then to the Potchefstroom District of the Transvaal Republic (1857). It is interesting to note that the move to the Free State follows after the 1852 Sandrivier Convention, granting the Free State independence from Britain. Over the same early 1850s period, second oldest son Jacobus Frederik is baptizing in the southern Free State at Smithfield. By 1857 the third son is baptizing at Aliwal North in the Cape Colony and then moves to Heidelberg in the Transvaal. All of this paints a picture of the father and the senior sons moving gradually to the Boer Republics after the Sandrivier Convention.

This migration background is important, because on 19 May 1855 a mature man named "Daniel Johannes Andries Boijens", listed as being of age "46", marries the 18-year old Judith Reineke in the Hervormde Kerk, in the Potchefstroom district in the Transvaal Republic [#6]. Judith is the daughter of Adam Johannes Reineke and Hendrina Maria Magdalena van der Merwe. We are convinced the husband is none other than Daniel Jan Andries Booyens (DJA*1790), now 64 years old. Daniel's own brother Matthys Stephanus, marries at age 71 a young lady of 17 years at Bloemfontein in the Free State. Why the scribe would swap the digits of the husband's age is not totally clear. In the section below we explain our convictions as to his identity.

When Judith is confirmed in the same church on 20 October 1855 [#7], along with Daniel's own daughter, Anna Maria [#8], both young ladies' entries state that the ceremony is conducted at Suikerbosrand. That is the high ridge at the southern limit of the Transvaal Republic. The Heidelberg Parish of the Hervormde Church will be founded at the eastern limit of the ridge around 1865 and Daniel's children will baptise there. This tells us where the families are located, and it is quite far from Potchefstroom itself. The name entered next to all the confirmations on that day is "D.F. Jacobs". We take it as read that the ceremony is conducted at his farmstead, there not being a town in that area yet. We believe this man to be David Francois Jacobs.

Daniel Jan Andries will father a few more children by Judith in the Potchefstroom District, and he still acts as a witness [#9] at Potchefstroom to the 14 March 1862 baptism of Daniel Jan Andries, son of Barend Matthys, his own youngest son. One of his own second set of children, Adam Johannes, will become a Field-Cornet in the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902, when the family will still be in the Heidelberg region. Daniel and Judith's daughter, Judith Margaretha Susara Booyens, whose baptism eludes us, marries Daniel's younger brother's son, Barend Pieter Booyens. As was the case with his first wife, Daniel also simply disappears without a death notice. As explained below, we place his death around 1863 at the age of 73.

Judith will marry again, this time to David Francois Jacobs, either the man mentioned above, or his son. We cannot find the marriage, which is likely in the Potchefstroom Hervormde Parish, but we do find the couple baptising in the newly formed Heidelberg Parish of the Hervormde Kerk on 31 December 1865 [#10]. We assume that Daniel Jan Andries Booyens dies before that child is conceived, divorce being socially unlikely in that community.

Over the next few years Judith gives David Jacobs several children. We have not been able to trace either Judith's or David's death notices, but we can tell from her mother's death notice [#11] that Judith is still alive and married to David in 1878. She is then 40 years old.

¤

How do we identify the Daniel Jan Andries at the second marriage?

Chapter 14 of the book AmaBhulu was written in 2009 when the author assumed the groom at the 1855 marriage in Potchefstroom to be the son of Daniel Jan Andries*1790. The new information provided here comes as a result of a very intensive study of this family genealogy based on the newly available access to the South African Archives via the digitized microfilms of Church of Latter Day Saints.

It is at the very first Potchefstroom baptism by the Daniel Jan Andries in question and Judith that we find the first clue to the identity of the groom. The witnesses include "HP Goossen en AM Booyens". A quick reference to the list of children of JDA*1790 below shows that the two witnesses are DJA*1790's own second youngest daughter from his first marriage, Anna Maria, and her husband Hendrik Petrus Goosen.

At the third baptism the witnesses are (1) "J.P Booyens & Ma. Ja. Botha" [JDA*1790's son Pieter Johannes and his wife Martha Susanna Johanna Botha], and (2) "M. M. van Rooyen & Ma. Ma. Booyens" [JDA*1790's second daughter Maria Magdalena and her husband Marthinus van Rooyen].

The other realistic possibility--the option originally assumed in AmaBhulu--is that the Potchefstroom groom is DJA*1790's own son DJA*1826, who would have been 29 at the time of the 1855 marriage. But that choice raised the question of why a young man of 29 would have his age recorded as "46" if he were marrying an 18 year old young lady. As it is, we now know that DJA*1826, with his name and surname misleadingly disfigured, is already courting Heila Oosthuyzen some 400km south in Smithfield. He cannot very well be galloping the poetic "five hundrend miles" back and forth on his Basotho pony between Smithfield and Potchefstroom to maintain two wives bearing eight children over the next few years.

By process of elimination, the "46" year old man [#12] who marries Judith Reineke in Potchefstroom in 1855 is none other than Daniel Jan Andries Booyens Senior born 1790 himself, now 64 years old. This is to be compared with DJA senior's own older brother, Matthys Stephanus, who four years later marries a 17-year old girl when he is 71 years old.

No death notice can be found for Maria Magdalena/Geertruida Catharina Janse van Rensburg, nor for Daniel Jan Andries Booyens (born 1790), her husband. As fate will have it, no death notice can be found for second wife Judith Susara Margaretha Reineke either. However, there is a document in the Free State Archives describing the illiquid estate of a certain Jan Daniel Andries Booyens who [acording to private communication from the Archives] dies 15 July 1869 in the Smithfield district. Based on this information, one might conclude that Daniel Jan Andries Booyens returned to Smithfield in the Southern Orange Free State after the 1860 baptism of his second son from his second marriage. However, we prefer to discount the personal communication from the Free State Archive and take it as read that DJA*1790 died sometime after 14 March 1862, when he and Judith still serve as witnesses at the baptism of a grandson named for him, and March 1865 when Judith's first child by her second husband, David Francois Jacobs, is conceived. Based on this, we place his death as circa 1863, around the halfway point between the two dates. He is about 73 years old at the time of his death.

Work remaining: The baptism of daughter Judith Margaretha Susara from the second marriage still eludes us, but it is not in the Hervormde Church in Potchefstroom before 1865, and the couple is completely absent from the Hervormde Church books in Potchefstroom after 9 May 1860. They are not present in the Potchefstroom Gereformeerde Kerk after 19 April 1863 either.

We have identified Judith Reineke's parents and her mother's 1878 Death Notice (she dies 13 May 1878) describes Judith as married to a man whose horrifically badly written name appears to be David Jacobs. Judith's mother dies on a farm named Elandsfontein in the Heidelberg district. This places the family in exactly the part of the Transvaal where descendants recall them. The farm also is home to a Jacobs family.

To date, no formal death notice has been found for DJA*1790 or for either of his wives. As a result, determining his list of children has been a genealogical nightmare. This is a great pity, as he is the root of the largest fraction of the greater Booyens family, some of whom migrated as far as Rhodesia-Zimbabwe. His triple name is also the most common among the males of the Booyens family and is very distinctive of the South African Family Booyens; the equivalent of the English "Daniel John Andrew".

For the references, see below^#