Sime rhymes with Time, and maybe Siam

Zoom into the small photo I have of Great grandfather Arend Johannes van der Veen, with his sister Sara Anna
and in the foreground her daughter Amy, my mother as a little girl with her Aunt Sissie.

The same little black and white photo I have keeps opening up the past just that little bit more.

I have been researching the van der Veen 'dynasty' from Pretoria.

It started when one Arend Johannes van der Veen (1809 - 1882) and family came from the Netherlands in 1859, landed in Port Natal and then at some point moved to Pretoria.

The names all fit with those of my grandfather's family, they were builders and bricklayers too, but I have not connected 'my' Arend Johannes' to this family line as yet.

I have however found his sister, Sara Anna and her daughter, Amy.

The clue came from my Nan's jotting down the names on the back of the little photo. She writes 'Amy Siam' and 'Aunt Annie, Oupa's sister'.

Sara Anna van der Veen married a William Victor Sime, which rhymes with time and Nan spelt it Siam.

I found Sara Anna's Death Notice at the Archives last week, which confirmed her having one daughter called Amy.

She and Great Grandfather Arend both died in 1946 aged 71 and 65 respectively, which could not have been too many years after the little photo was taken, as my mother was born in 1939 and she looks about 4 or so in the photo.

I have also noticed that zooming in on Arend's mouth in the photo, the evidence of his cancer of the lips which was given as his cause of death.