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Written by Corney Keller. Posted in Introductions.

Cape Town Baptisms 1713-1742

This is the third series of registers of the Dutch Reformed Congregation in Cape Town following the second register which covered the baptisms, marriages and memberships for the period 1695-1712.

This register contains baptisms covering the period 1713 to 1742. The pages are rubber stamped with ascending numerals starting with no. 1 and ending with no. 191. It is divided into three sections. The first section is a series of baptisms of the "non-slave" christian children and starts with page 1 on 1 Jan 1713 and ends with page 152 on 30 Dec 1742. The second is a series of baptisms of the children of company slaves, starting on page 153 (8 Jan 1713) and ending on page 175 (18 Nov 1742). This is followed by the third, a series of baptisms of the slave children of the Free Burgers and company servants, starting on page 176 (8 Jan 1713) and ending on page 191 (16 Sep 1742.)

The first part of the register was formatted in tabular form, i.e. columns with headings: date | child | parents | witnesses, for example:
1715         Gedoopten        Ouders                               Getuigen
23 Junii     Maria                Jan Kuiperman, en               Gerrit van der Heijden, en
                                       Catharina van der Heijden     Maria van Brakel.

For readability we have opted to group each entry in 4 lines of text, where each line represents one of the columns in the same order as following:
23 Junii
Maria
Jan Kuiperman, en Catharina van der Heijden
Gerrit van der Heijden, en Maria van Brakel.

From July 1726, the entries in the original revert to narritive the format. The transcription follows suit.

The readability of the register is fair to good considering these are photographs of photocopies of the original. The handwriting of D'Aillij over the years 1713 to 1725 contributes to the readability. Text that was already faded and smudged in the original has become even more difficult to read. Also when the photocopies were made, the imaging technology was not what it is today. The initial pages of the register have some overexposed areas, probably caused by this process. Any problems of missing information of this kind, as also doubtful interpretation or legibility, are indicated with square brackets.

The register has been transcribed exactly as found, that is text and spelling as best we can read them. In order to make the reading easier we have transcribed all personal names, geographical place names and names of months, as well as the beginning of sentences or entries, to begin with an upper case letter, although this is not always how they are written in the original. In addition, with certain letters, it is not always possible to judge if upper or lower case is intended. Insertions in the original text are marked as <text> and deletions as either [text] where the text is still readable and as [xxx] where it is unreadable.
There are no doubt still mistakes, both of typing and transcription. We will be pleased to receive any suggestion for corrections.

I hope these transcripts may be of some use to researchers.

Corney Keller

© March 2013

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Source: Cape Archives Verbatim Copies VC 603, Nederduits Gereformeerde Kerk, baptisms 1665 to 1696.

VC 603 is a photocopy made during the 1980s of the original, made for the Sciences Research Council (HSRC) and a copy was donated to the South African Archives, a copy going to the Cape Town repository and to the Pretoria Repository (where it is part of the FC series).

The original register is now housed in the Nederduits Gereformeerde Kerkargief, Noordwal-Wes, Stellenbosch, as G1 1/1.

The transcription was originally made in 2006 by Richard Ball. Corrections were received from Delia Robertson and Alwyn Smit and Corney Keller had now completely revised and amended the original transcript (February 2012).

There are no doubt still mistakes, both of typing and transcription, but they are much fewer. We will be pleased to receive any suggestion for corrections.