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Waarmee is ek besig? / What am I busy with?
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How convenient flying has become. Where our ancestors spent months on a boat travelling between countries, most countries are now reachable within a 10 to 15 hour flight. One captain reminded me of our attitude to flying when he announced, after landing in Johannesburg, that the safest part of our journey was now finished and advised us to drive home with care.
One flight that unfortunately ended in disaster was South African Airways (SAA) flight SA295, the Helderberg, which departed Tapei, Taiwan on 27 November 1987 destined for Johannesburg with a stopover in Mauritius. At 23:48 the captain contacted the Mauritius air traffic controller, declaring an emergency due to a smoke problem and told the controller that they were doing an emergency decent to flight level 140. At 00:08 the air traffic controller tried in vain to make further contact with Springbok 295. Tragically the aircraft crashed into the sea approximate 240 km from Mauritius resulting in the death of 140 passengers and 19 crew members.
The book 'Helderberg Death Flight 295' (ISBN 1 86812 322 7) written by Ronnie Watt gives a detailed account of the tragedy, the resulting search and the subsequent investigation into the cause of the crash. It was later established that a fire started in the front pallet on the right-hand side in the main deck upper cargo hold. The Helderberg was one of two Boeing 747-200B Combis in the SAA fleet and carried both passengers and cargo. The exact source of the fire has never been determined and to this day there remains a lot of speculation about this, ranging from computer lithium batteries, illegal fireworks and even missile parts that started the fire.
What caught my attention in Ronnie's book was the mention of the name of Dr. Theuns Kruger, Director Technical of SAA and the hard work and many hours that he and others spent on the crash investigation. Sadly he was not the only Kruger involved in this tragedy. One of the cabin crew members listed is a Martha Kruger. I was a bit supprised by this and wondered where she fitted into the Kruger family tree.
The Afrikaans Sunday newspaper, Rapport, dated 29 November 1987 had front page article on the loss of the aircraft and an article on a number of the couples that lost their lives. Under a photo of an attractive young lady the following caption appears: Dead: Magda Kruger and her fiancé Dave Attwell. His smaller photo also appears. The article refers to her as Magda and not Martha and I wondered why the fiancé of an airhostess would be on the same flight? The passenger list does not contain any Attwell's but the flight deck crew list does! The co-pilot / first officer is listed as being David Hamilton Attwell(36). She was engaged to the co-pilot!
I have since tracked down a copy of a document released by SAA which included photographs of all the crew members and the photograph of crew member M.M Kruger, cabin attendant, bears a close resemblance to the photo of Magda Kruger that appears in the Rapport article. So does the photo of D. H. Attwell. The photos released by the SAA are of a much younger group of people and I suspect these are the offical ID photos taken when they were originally employed by SAA. I have also now found out that Magda's full names were Martha Magdalena Kruger.
If you knew Magda, know more about her or know of anybody that knew her, please contact me.
One of the interesting books on my bookshelf is a book by Tom Andrews and Jan Ploeger with the title Street and Place Names of Old Pretoria / Straat- en Plekname van Ou Pretoria. On the inside cover of the book is a map of Pretoria dated 1889.
One of the streets is Paul Kruger Street. The street use to be called Markt (Market) Street but the name was changed to Paul Kruger Street in 1938 during the Voortrekker celebrations. The street name made me wonder how many towns and cities have street names with the word Kruger in them. If you know of any, please let me know and I will post here on the website. If you have a photograph please include it as well.
I could not resist grabing a road atlas to see how many places there are with the name Kruger in them. There is the Kruger National Park, Krugersdorp, which is to the west of Johannesburg. As well as Krugerspost, which is to the north of Lydenburg. There is Krugerhof, at Waterval-Onder where President Kruger governed from in 1900. There is also a station on the railway line between Trompsburg and Bloemfontein in the Free State called Krugers. If you know of any other places any where in the world please let me know.
I recently read Rob Milne's book Anecdotes of the Anglo-Boer War. In a section titled Devotion, Rob writes: "Every September, since 1901, a package arrived at the Post Office in Chrissiemeer (Lake Chrissie) in the Eastern Tranvaal, addressed to "The Postmaster", with no accompanying note, or even return address. The package contains a sprig of heather: one year bound with a blue ribbon, the next with a pink ribbon. Instructions were passed from Postmaster to succeeding Postmaster that the heather was to be placed on the grave of Lieutenant Arthur William Swanston of the Inniskilling Dragoons who died in action near Lake Banagher on 18th October 1900, while trying to save the life of Private J. Garlick. My informant, Tannie Rensie Kruger, the Postmistress from 1947 to 1957, for ten years placed the sprig of heather on Arthur's grave. In 1957, just before she left Chrissiemeer, she received a note with the package, which she translated from English with much difficulty. The sender revealed that she had been Arthur's fiancee and that she never married, but was now very sick and thought that this would be the last time she would send heather for her beloved's grave. However the package continued to arrive for the next two years and Tannie Rensie's successor did her duty."
Rob Milne's book is published by Covos Day Books, ISBN 0-620-25439-4
One bit of Kruger information that I missing out on at the moment is the Kruger estate notices that are published in the Beeld and other newspapers every Friday. It in the section of the newspaper that nobody else reads. A typical notice reads as follows: "In die boedel van wyle: ABRAHAM JOHANNES KRUGER Identiteitsnommer 21091125020085 van MAANLIG WOONSTEL 39, KERKSTRAAT TRICHARDT 2300 Wat oorlede is op 12 Desember 1999. Boedelnommer 1453/01 Nagelate gade JOHANNA CORNELIA KRUGER Identiteitsnommer 2909212502007. Kennis geskied hiermee aan alle krediteure in bogenoemde boedel om hulle eise in te dien binne dertig (30) dae na publikasie hiervan. PRETORIUS TRUST BEPERK, POSBUS 239, PRETORIA, 0001"
If you want to contribute and are willing to check the newspaper and send me the information, it would be great. If would probably be much quicker to cut the notices out and scan them together as an A4 page. Please let me know if you are willing to help, if a few people help we can assign each helper a specific page to check.
Towards the end of 2005, Jannie sent me some digital photographs that he took of Kruger graves in a cemetery in the Free State. Recently I spoke to Johann who's family is buried in the same cemetery.
Thanks to Jannie's efforts and his willingness to share the photo's with me, Johann now has a photo of his grandparents graves. Now if everyone else went to their local cemetery as well and took pictures of the Kruger graves.....
There are quite a few Kruger family history's and family tree's that have been published over the years, after all the Kruger have been in South Africa for more than 290 years. One of the most consulted Kruger family tree can be found in the 1992 publication "South African Genealogies" Volume 4 J-K . The Kruger family tree covers about 40 pages. Since 1992 a number of errors have been identified and additional information on some of the Krugers have become available. I originally started compiling a list of the corrections but soon realised that it was getting to complicated. Sections of the families had to be moved around due to children and wives being linked to the wrong husbands. At the end of the day, the only option that really made sense was to create a replacement family tree that incorporated all the known corrections. This Kruger family tree only covers the same families but includes a index and some second and third marriages as well.
Thanks to Alta, there now is a bound and printed copy of this register on the shelf at GISA in Stellenbosch. GISA is the 'Genealogiese Instituut van Suid-Afrika' and they have continued with publishing the South African Genealogies series since the HSRC closed down around 1996.
Technology has probably been the one single most important contributing factor to the growth of genealogy as a hobby. Fifteen or twenty years ago many researchers kept their information on 2"x"4 cards. Each individual had a card with his name, a number and information on the front. As a persons place in the family tree became know or changed, the position of the card could be moved. Very similar to the card system that I had to used as a child to find a book in our local library. I also know of one researcher that had his family tree drawn out on a bed sheet and I guess many others had bits of paper either stuck together or carefully numbered to make up large diagrams.
But then came computers and the introduction of the personal computer. There were huge advantages in keeping your information on a computer and today there are genealogical programs which make the keeping and managing information a pleasure and can handle the information of 50,000 individuals with ease. That would have been a stack of cards 15 meters high!
The other exciting part of all this technology is e-mail. While writing letters served us well for many years, it still is amazing that I can send an e-mail to a Kruger in Canada and get a response within a day. Not only that but a marriage certificate or photo can be scanned and sent around the world, reaching the other end in perfect condition.
I often get asked in e-mails to give advice on doing research. One of the aspects that has always amazed me is how much information is out there. That in itself is probably the biggest challenge, knowing where you can find what. There are many haystacks out there and it you have to know about them before you can start finding the needles! Some of the best sources of information are: estate files, baptism and marriage registers, family registers, cemeteries, existing publications, researchers and your family members.
"If only I spoke to my parent/grandparents while they were alive!" I often heard people saying that. Now that they are interested in their family roots, it is too late and the people who knew the answers have all passed on. So next time you visit you parents or grandparents, take a pen and paper with you, ask a few questions and write down the answers. Dates and full names and locations are important but probably the most important piece of information, is maiden surnames. Many of the older documents will identify a wife or a daughter as Johanna Cornelia Kruger born Delport or Elizabeth Johanna Venter, born Kruger. So in ten years time when you start wondering about your ancestors, you will glad that you made notes. Just remember where you put them or better still, make a few copies!
Kruger Nuus. Een van die eerste besluite wat ek moes maak was om te besluit in watter taal ek hierdie gedeelte van die webwerf sou byhou. Ek kan dit in Afrikaans doen maar op die Internet, sou dit 'n groot aantal lesers uitsluit. Dit gaan net te veel werk wees om dit in biede Afrikaans en Engels te doen en ek spandeer eerder my tyd aan navorsing as aan vertaling. My besluit is dus om dit in Engels te doen. Onthou my oupagrootjie het dapper in die Anglo-Boereoorlog geveg en ek trotse op my Afrikaanse wortels. As jy dus aan my skryf, doen dit gerus in Afrikaans.