The Haystack grows bigger and the needle smaller
Bets Terblance
My search involves finding the origins of my great-grandfather on maternal side. My grandfather's surname was initially Warrenton – for the children ‘Warmtoon' (Warm toe)!
A story originated somewhere that Granddad was shipwrecked and subsequently adopted by an Afrikaans-speaking family – with a sister and brother being adopted by two other families. Granddad still had had contact with his sister, Sannie.
When Granddad's eldest son went looking for information in the Cape (?), he returned with the assertion that the surname should be ‘Wartington' and that relatives from England had come in search of possible living relations, but could not find any. All the particular children then became Wartington. This sounded interesting and could even mean a possible inheritance!
All these erroneous perceptions seriously hampered my search. In the 1986 voters' role all Wartingtons were my
grandfather's descendents! When I found my (Du Toit) grandmother's marriage certificate in Ladismith, it I clearly saw that her husband's surname was given as WORTINGTON, which gave me the idea that it could rather be Worthington. My first breakthrough!
Upon publication of SAG's W-volume I found that all these old family myths were wrong. My grandfather was most certainly no shipwreck survivor, because I had found his father's marriage certificate: William John WORTHINGTON x Martha Johanna CORDIER – both from Gamkaskloof. What a breakthrough!!
(Most interestingly: The minister presiding at the marriage was Ds J H Neethling, my bridesmaid's great-grandfather and founder of the Stellenbosch Mother Church!).
They baptised four children, three daughters and a son: my Granddad. On the baptismal certificates the surname is clearly shown as Worthington! The second daughter was Susanna Johanna Mathilda (Sister Sannie!) who was 14 years older than my Granddad, Jacobus Cornelius!
Given that Granddad apparently remembered nothing of his parents, my search then turned to Aunt Sannie. On Microfiche I started searching for her marriage certificate from age 14 and was on the verge of giving up, when I noticed she had married only at age 36, to a widower named Jacobus Christiaan PRETORIUS (s.o. Johannes Matthys) at Ladismith in 1890. Breakthrough, because I had found another source of information – at least, this is what I thought!!
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