I have dabbled in finding out about my ancestors and creating a family tree etc. Mostly this started with the decision to moved to the UK from South Africa when I needed to find recent ancestral background etc. to establish my rights to a visa to the UK.
Who woulda thunk that because I was born in Malawi whilst it was still the British protectorate if Nyasaland, that I had the right to British citizenship. Woohoo no visa for me!
Sadly though my sister who was born in Zambia 10 months after independence, could only go the ancestry visa route.
We have been in the UK for seven years now and the occasional dabbling turned into an outright obsession during the first lockdown whilst I was on furlough.
On my father's side, there was only him and his sister. The background there is primarily Stokes & Taljaard. Whilst I can trace the Taljaard history back a few hundred years to Afrikaans / Dutch Settlers in the Cape, where the Stokes history is concerned, I can only trace back to my great grandfather. I have his death certificate which states he was born on the Isle of Wight. But so far, nothing more than that. So this is a conundrum that I have to solve.
On my mother's side, the recent background is primarily Maiden and Northern, both sides coming from the UK. My Mum was one of nine children so I have a multitude of cousins and my hope is to provide them with our shared ancestral history.
Not all news has been well received. There is a lot of historical conflict between the English and Afrikaans speaking people in South Africa. On both sides there is a lot of pride and thus pressure to have a pure lineage untainted by either English or Afrikaans blood. My mother's family have I think always taken pride in the fact that we have a true blue pure bred English/British background.
Scotch that thought... I have recently discovered that my maternal grandmother's mother was actually half Afrikaans and it seems that this little gem has not gone down well with my family. (OOOPs).
I am as said before, a
child of the colonies. And whilst in this uber PC society that we live in it has become de rigueur to declare anything to do with anything colonial as being bad, I am who I am.
My ancestors emigrated from England and Europe as pioneers to the colonies in the hopes of providing a better life for themselves and their children. I am proud of my ancestry and whilst my bloodlines are a bit of a hinds 57 kind of mish mash, I accept them gladly because they are part of what makes me who I am.
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