YOU HAVE FOUND HER!!!    
-    Contribution by Sam J Basch  (Editor, N-Tvl branch newsletter)
With three exclamation marks Canadian resident Jodi Cameron “shouted” her delight.  This followed the result of a search for the grave of her great aunt who was presumed buried in Pretoria.
The poignant tale unfolded in a series of recent emails, starting as:
“This is an enquiry e-mail via http://www.genza.org.za/ from: Jodi Cameron. Hello! First off, I would like to say what an amazing job your team has done of documenting the cemeteries in South Africa.  I have been through all of them in the area I was interested in and they were extremely easy to navigate, incredibly well photographed and thoroughly covered…”
She was trying to trace relatives of hers, of Scottish descent, whom she believed to have died in Pretoria in the 1970s.
Peter and Beverley Moss who manage the eGSSA cemetery project, requested more information, and enquired whether Jodi had access to the cemetery DVD.
She had not, but said she “just stumbled across the website and went from there.”
In no time Peter Moss sent her some data from the DVD that most closely matched her search, adding:“We also have:  Smart, Janet Bryce Born: 1885 Died: 14 Aug 1956 Buried: Rebecca Street Cemetery, Pretoria, District Pretoria, Gauteng, RSA.  Note:  Janet Bryce Smart Graf 1859.  Died aged 71 years.”
That was when Jodi realised her search was over:
“Dear Peter and Beverly!!!  You have found her!!!  She is Janet Bryce Smart;  the middle entry!!  Thank you so much!!  Rebecca Street was one of the first ones I looked at but, for some reason, I must have missed her...  My aunt, Janet's namesake, will be so relieved to know where her aunt is resting.  Thank you so very much for your help with this.  It really does mean the world to me as my aunt Janet Bryce (my mother's sister) is now 91 and in very fragile health.  I wish I could give you a hug!!!”
In subsequent correspondence Peter and Beverley explained that the word “graf” was the Afrikaans for “grave”, which in this instance referred to the grave number.  They also explained that all entries on eGSSA's DVD were indexed by the maiden name, where it was known.  The cemetery registers would be by married name.

We don’t always realise the value of our cemetery project.  This is Jodi’s observation:  “It is very interesting (and clever) that you would index by maiden name if possible as it gets confusing otherwise.  I am so impressed by your project and wish all countries had a similar process in place.  I have recently come to appreciate the importance of cemeteries and tracking of such (and don't think I could possibly appreciate the immense scope of the project either).  It is so nice to find that yours are so well documented, beautifully photographed where applicable and so thoughtfully managed by such caring people.  I was so very fortunate to have found you on the other end of my (rather desperate) email and I believe that's the only luck that was actually involved here.  You and your colleagues seem to have the rest of it thoroughly under control!!! Again, many, many thanks!!  I can't wait to call my aunt to let her know. Very gratefully, Jodi :)”
Then came an appeal from eGSSA to the Northern Transvaal branch to help with a photograph of the headstone, should one exist, or then at least the gravesite.
N-Tvl’s October newsletter, in which the appeal was published, had barely reached our members, when several headed out to the Rebecca Street cemetery.  Dirk van Heerden, Ludwig Döhne and the Northalls independently of each other captured images of the grave and headstone.  These were emailed to Jodi, to which Peter Moss replied:
“That is fantastic, we really appreciate your efforts! The whole N-Tvl team
is just wonderful!  I see from the message below that you are sending Jodi the information…  She will be so pleased.  Very best wishes and thank you so much.”
To include a final chapter on this moving story, we summarise some of the historic background that Jodi provided:
Born in 1885 in Kinghorn, Scotland, one of three children, Janet was believed to have studied in Edinburgh to become a "lady chemist" who worked at ‘McLean's’ on the High Street in Kinghorn. It must have been rare for a woman to be a chemist in those days.  In 1908 she married Annan Morris who died in 1919, after which Janet departed for South Africa.  Anecdotal reports place her as a "superintendent in a boys' school" in Pretoria. [Dirk van Heerden established that this was Pretoria Boys High].
She died on 14 August 1956 according to a letter from Marge McIntyre, a good friend of Janet’s, apparently after a hospital stay in Johannesburg and whilst convalescing at the home of the Jim Napier family.
Jodi believes the McIntyre’s address was 461 Reitz Street in Pretoria, but she was not able to find out anything about either that family or the Napiers.  She feels Janet Bryce Smart was quite a spirited person to have challenged so many accepted social norms of the time.  “I can't help thinking that a woman as vivacious and with such a determined mind must have been important to many people in the Pretoria area,” she writes.  “[Those] that might have known more are long gone.  For now, I am so very blessed to know that there are people out there... who are kind enough to help me find out a bit more.”
Some days later Jodi sent another email with a photograph taken probably around 1931 of Janet Bryce Smart, in which she writes:“It's lovely to put a face to the name;  it's all a bit poignant really.”  
What an apt sentiment underlining this most interesting search.