Genealogical source data is a prerequisite for practising genealogy and for that reason the GSSA runs a number of projects within a few focus areas:

• A person’s life, in its most basic form, is defined by the events associated with birth and death. The first focus area centres around death related information: this includes cemetery locations, cemetery records, gravestones, funeral letters and a virtual space for remembering loved ones (“In memorium”).

• Genealogy is about family and the second focus area centres around family trees: this includes the South African Family registers (SAF registers); family pages and ancestral charts, as well as inscriptions in family bibles.

• Surveys such as “muster rolls”, census or voters' rolls provide a snapshot of an individual in time and collectively also provide insight into migration patterns. The third focus area addresses surveys; at this stage the focus is on the 1972 voters' roll.

• The fourth focus area is places of interest: and the specific projects focus on churches and postcards.