Visit to the National Archives in Pretoria

I woke up with conviction yesterday, it was time to visit our National Archives in Pretoria, to understand where they are and how to access the files that I had researched online.

Mom's ancestry has been an exciting challenge for me, she left a few clues, but very little detail about her parents and their stories.

I have loved the discovery and the surprises, so I was full of anticipation for what this visit would surface about my many unanswered questions.

I was in search of my great-grandfather Arend Johannes van der Veen, my mother's paternal grand-father.

I have found one image of him. It's on a small black-and-white photo and he is in the background, head at a slight angle and a rather  stern look to camera.



I took a seat in the Reading Room, waited patiently through the lunch break and eventually the dusty, boxed records started to arrive.

Note to self: do not wear a white shirt when working in the archives.

You are allowed a pencil into the Reading Room and cameras. I had my cellphone. Exploring these old documents was energising but I kept having waves of emotion, these were people's lives, now just fragile pieces of paper that seem a little pointless after the fact. Lists of possessions and their values, bills to be paid, endless lawyer letters and legal forms.

One form in particular was moving for me, the Death Register, completed by the District Registrar, a Mr C. D. Heaman, on the 1st July 1946.

Here was Great-grandfather Arend, in his 60's, a bricklayer living in Gezina, Pretoria at 578 11th Avenue. He was cared for by Dr. Loubser and had died at home on the 8th June 1946 of cancer of the lips.

I read and reread the form wondering if lips was hips, but I think I am correct with lips. And in response to question 15, the duration of the disease or last illness -  44 years!

Goodness me. Is this the result of all the man-hours of working in the blazing sun as a bricklayer. Yesterday the temperatures were in the mid 30's in Pretoria, fiercely hot, not conductive to manual labour at all.

Zooming into the small photo does not give a good enough resolution to see his mouth.

His Death Notice was also revealing. He was South African, from Pretoria, which I had assumed, but I was disappointed that no details were given of Arend's parents. I am curious about the ancestry of the van der Veen's.

He was survived by his second wife Ellis Vivien. My great-grandmother, Sarah Petronella (nee Wessels) had died on the 1st July 1938, my grand-father, Bill, would have been 33 years old and 41 when his father died.