It is rather interesting to note that this young man is baptised not in the Dutch Reformed Church of the Afrikaner community, but in the Methodist Church of Grahamstown.

On 22 December 1856 he marries Heila Elizabeth Oosthuyzen, daughter of Jacobus Ockert Oosthuyzen and Elizabeth Cornelia Visagie, in the Dutch Reformed Church in Smithfield [#1], situated in the Caledon River district of the Orange Free State Republic. The marriage entry records that he is from the farm Sevenfontein and she from the farm Haasfontein. Their agonised and halting signatures suggest that they were barely literate. It is therefore a forgivable genealogical tragedy that he somehow confuses not only his surname when he registers this marriage, but also the order of his three names. He thereby immortalises his name not as Daniel Jan Andries Booyens, but rather as Jan Daniel Andries BooySEN. This has created a persistent problem for this wing of the Booyens family, but it is not the only part of the wider family to suffer this way. This is a significant problem as there is a considerably larger BooySEN family in South Africa bearing no relation to the family Booyens, other than that both can trace their roots to 17th century Southern Denmark, later Schleswig-Holstein in Northern Germany. It has led to many Booysen descendants fruitlessly searching for their ancestors among BooySEN records.

Daniel then proceeds to exacerbate the problem by naming his first born son Andries Jan Daniel Booysen at Smithfield in 1860. His own surname subsequently varies from Booijens to Booyens to Booise to Booijsen.

Heila dies on 20 November 1874 on the farmVaalbank in the District of Caledon Rivier in the Free State, having delivered eight children. Daniel Jan Andries Booyens, by whatever name he perceives himself to be known, then marries Maria Helena Alberta Hefer in the Magistrate's Office in Smithfield on 1 January 1876. She is the daughter of Francois Nicolaas and Dorothea Christina Hefer.

Maria gives him five more children. As though not content with the naming confusion he has sown thus far, Daniel (or is it Jan?) names his very last child "Andries Daniel Jan". The confusion is thereby complete.

When Daniel and Maria draw up a will on 6 September 1881 [#2], he is identified as Jan Andries Daniel "Booijen" and they live on the farm Leeuwfontein in the Smithfield district. To his credit, he signs his name as "Jan Andries Danihel Boiyens", which at least gets the last part of his surname phonetically correct.

When Daniel Jan Andries Booyens*1926 dies in 1889, his widow signs her name as M.H.A Boisen and confirms her late husband as having been "Jan Andries Daniel Booijsen". I would appear that he lived through two marriages and the baptisms of thirteen children with the firm conviction that his own surname was Booysen. How it corrupted in that fashion is unclear. Perhaps he was illiterate in his early years and no one corrected him. His wives clearly never knew any different. When Maria Helena dies in 1932, her death notice still records Daniel Jan Andries Booyens, her husband of 43 years earlier, as "Jan Daniel Booysen", and the children from the earlier mariage are listed quite correctly.

¤

How do we know we have the correct man?

Piecing together the genealogy of this man and his progeny has been a massive challenge, given the absence of death notices for his parents. Fortunately, the well kept registers of the Dutch Reformed Church eventually come to our aid in this matter, revealing that the witnesses to the baptism of his son Jacobus Ockert to include "Jacobus Frederik Booijens en Leentje Petronella Catha. Plessis". Those are the immediately older brother of DJA*1826 and that brother's wife, Helena Petronella Catharina du Plessis. Those records also show that the witnesses to the baptism of his son Willem Jacobus are "Willem Jacobus Booyens en AC Bester". Those are a younger brother of DJA*1826 and that brother's wife, Aletta Cecilia Bester.

This man's own death notice shows not only the correct children as listed on this page, but also identifies his parents as "Andries, Jan, Daniel, Booysen en Mearia, Magdalena, van Rensburg". The grieving wife may well be forgiven for persisting in her mistaken belief that her husband, who she knew as "Jan Andries Daniel" or Andries Jan Daniel", was the son of a man of the identical (wrong) first name, but there is no way in which she could have dreamt up the first name and surname of her mother in law. That mother-in-law was Maria (Geertruida Catharina) Janse van Rensburg.

There was indeed a person named Jan Andries Booyens, a cousin of DJA*1826, son of Barend Matthys Booyens, but he died without progeny before 1869, because he is not named in his father's death notice of 1869. DJA*1826 was then still alive in the Smithfield District and baptising children with Maria Hefer.

For the references, see below^#