IT BEGAN WITH A LETTER -

Geskryf deur Maureen McCleland. 

A letter came into my hands about 30 years after it had been posted from Australia. In 1972 Phyllis Duke was trying to trace her Loftie-Eaton roots in South Africa. After checking Australian newspapers online I found an obituary for Phyllis Duke who had died in 1991. There was no indication of her maiden name, so that avenue of research was closed to me. On my database there was one Petronella Loftie-Eaton born in Oudtshoorn in 1867 who could fit the description, but according to a person on that branch of the family, she had died as a baby. When obstacles to my research arise, I file whatever information I have in the appropriate file and also in my memory until needed. Fast forward to 2013.

I had joined the SA Genealogie list http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SAGenealogie the year before and in the 2nd half of 2013 made a breakthrough. One makes fantastic genealogy friends over the years and we exchange information and help one another. I had such a friend in Australia and we had helped each other before. She also belonged to the SA Gen list and I saw a message to the group that she had access to certain Australian records regarding South Africans. I emailed her the surname Duke and she found the cemetery where Phyllis and her husband were buried, as well as his army records and also some voting roll information. It also helped knowing when Phyllis was born, because I could determine that the Petronella on my database could have been her mother.

At the same time I searched on the https://familysearch.org/search/ website under the South African “Historical records collection” among the Natal civil marriages for Phyllis Duke. Then the brick wall started crumbling down. In 1923, Phyllis de Witt had married Eric Duke.

Now that I had Petronella’s married surname, I searched for the death notice of Petronella de Witt nee Loftie-Eaton on the National Archives website http://www.national.archives.gov.za/ and found the following:

DEPOT NAB
SOURCE MSCE
TYPE LEER
SYSTEM 01
REFERENCE 350/1951
PART 1
DESCRIPTION DE WITT, PETRONELLA MARGUERITE. BORN IN ENGLAND. PRSP.
DE WITT, EMMETT JOHN DANIEL. (DIED 1931) – NO TRACE.

I would never have traced this death notice if I had not known her married surname and am very thankful for all the transcribers/indexers on the family search website as well as for the NAAIRS index online.

I became a member of the GSSA as soon as I started this adventure of researching my family tree in 1999. One of the benefits which I’ve enjoyed several times is that of having archives documents photographed and, being a member, receiving a 50% discount. After receiving the digital photograph of the death notice by email, I realised that the son who had signed the death notice had either made several errors or I had the wrong person. Instead of Oudtshoorn he gave England as place of birth and he gave incorrect names for her parents. He also made her 8 years younger. However, I was sure that I was on the right track when I saw the name of her other son. He had the same names as Petronella’s father. Arthur Batchelor is not a common name except in the Loftie-Eaton family.

When I saw the names of Phyllis and her sister Gwendoline I also knew that I had the correct person. When I had previously found the marriage record for Phyllis, I had also found Gwendoline’s. Although
had not known it was her sister, I downloaded a copy in case I needed it in future.

I still needed to prove that this Petronella of the death notice was the Petronella on my database. I have been transcribing baptism/christening re¬cords of the Dutch Reformed Church in Oudtshoorn and decided that I would do a search on the supposed date of the death of the ‘infant’ Petronella to see if that was not perhaps her christening date.

It has shown me once again that one must not believe every bit of information received unless it is substantiated as I did with this christening record. However, even the person writing the entry above could have made a mistake (especially with the spelling of the names and surnames!).

I was really enjoying this adventure now and wanted to trace all of Petronella’s children. My friend in Australia had a subscription to https://www.ancestry.com/ and had offered to help me. I gave her the name of Gwendoline who I now knew was married to Frederick Houseman. I asked her to check whether Gwendoline had also immigrated to Australia because I couldn’t find any more information in South Africa about her or her husband.

There is such a variety of records available on this website and it proved to be a valuable source of information. My friend found that Gwendoline had not immigrated to Australia. She appeared on several passenger lists which showed that they had travelled to England and to Canada. From this record, I deduced that Gwendoline and Frederick Houseman had a son Willis who was married to Jaynette. I still did not know whether they had immigrated to either of these countries. Two voting records for 1965 and 1972 showed that Gwendoline was living in British Columbia, Canada and a death registration showed that her husband Frederick had died in North Vancouver in 1981.

My next step was to determine whether any of Gwendoline’s offspring were living abroad and whether they had left any genealogy messages on any of the message boards of Rootsweb http://boards.rootsweb.com/. I found only 2 messages dated 2006 and 2010 from the same person: “My name is Heath Houseman. I’m kind of new to this researching the family tree thing. Anyway, let me ask: do you know of any Housemans from South Africa? My parents were both born there, then immigrated to the States in the 60s. On my father’s side, the parents of his parents (one Houseman, father from Great Britain, and one de Witt…”. I left a message on the board and he replied the same day.

When we realised that we were researching the same family, we exchanged email addresses and could then communicate without having to do so via the message board which is rather cumbersome. I emailed all the information I had found so far on his De Witt family as well as some information on Petronella Loftie-Eaton. His response: “Maureen! I’m t ravelling in the car right now with Willis Robert Houseman and Jaynette and their eldest son, Shane (my brother). I will give you info on what happened to my father’s mum and family after the weekend (off the grid for a few days). So excited to connect with you! Will talk soon. All the best, Heath”.

Willis Houseman is 85 years old and he and his wife Jaynette live with their son Heath in the USA. Willis is my father’s 3rd cousin. It has been so interesting communicating with the Houseman family, looking at their photographs, and hearing about their interesting lives. Willis has been able to confirm that his grandmother was indeed Petronella Loftie-Eaton and her date of birth was exactly as it is on the christening record. He has been thrilled to hear the story of his grandmother’s Loftie-Eaton family which he had never known. He was also able to fill in the gaps about Petronella’s children. So far, neither of us has been able to find out what happened to Petronella’s husband Emmet John Daniel de Witt after he deserted her and her children in 1911.

That will be another story and another genealogical adventure.