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Written by Corney Keller. Posted in Introductions.

Cape Town Marriages 1713-1756

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 marriages over the period 1713 to 1756. This cluster (VC 621) also contains a second register containing membership for the period 1713 to 1733 and section 1680 to 1757.

The pages of both the marriages and members are rubber stamped with ascending numerals starting with no. 1. The marriage register starts on page 1 and end on page 95. The members register is numbered from page 1 through 17 for the period 1713-1733 and page 18 through 71 for the period 1680-1757.

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 contribute 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 transcription was done by Corney Keller. 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 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

©January 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.