Born in Harlingerode, Brunswick, Germany on 7th May 1803 and died in Rosebank, Cape, 28th February 1905), merchant, artist and musician, was the youngest son of Cornelius (von) Landsberg (1765-1843) who emigrated from Brunswick because of political oppression after the fall of Napoleon. With his wife, Elisabeth Knoblanch (1763-1857), and his children he arrived on 8 August 1818, after a voyage of eleven months and settled in Cape Town as a watchmaker. According to family tradition the Landsberg’s originated from royalty and owned a German castle built by Count Hero in 976. From 1415 to 1798 the castle was the seat of the Bernese governors. In 1803 it was awarded to the canton of Aargau and at present belongs to the city of Lenzburg. Family correspondence in the Potchefstroom Museum tends to discredit this tradition.

Soon after his arrival at the Cape L. joined trading ventures to the interior. By the early 1820s he had become a snuff manufacturer (‘Landsberg’s snuff’ is still used) and by 1831 was registered as a retailer in Shortmarket Street, Cape Town, where the firm still exists. His business soon expanded to embrace tobacco and cigars, medicines, and later, wines and spirits. By the end of the century Landsberg travellers were known throughout South Africa.

As a young man he taught drawing and music at the Tot Nut van’t Algemeen school from 1847 to 1851, and at the South African College. In 1870 he still had his studio at 17 Roeland Street. He was a co-founder of the Cape Musical Society, playing first violin in its orchestra. Of his 200 works as an artist, some seventy-five, including sculptured heads of his grandparents, were presented to the Potchefstroom Museum by a grandson, August D’Astre. ‘The Magi’, a large painting, was removed from the Mowbray town hall, Cape Town, after repeated mutilation by vandals and, so far, has not been traced. A lithography of his painting of Brandvlei Baths, near Worcester, is included in Poortermans, while the Potchefstroom Museum has a number of Landsberg’s original paintings.

His European scenes were developed from sketches perhaps made during his visit to Europe in 1864, or, in the case of earlier ones, were painted from memory. Of his Cape scenes (some are in water-colours) good examples are ‘Farmstead at Worcester, 1847′; ‘Storm at the Cape, 1865′; ‘Washerwomen in Platteklip, 1882′; and ‘A rugby match on the Camp Ground, 1888′.

His larger works are either Biblical or historical, being realistic and minutely detailed. Cape characters such as Hottentot women, Bantu and piccanins appear in his ‘Christ addressing the people’ and ‘The last trump’. The large ‘ Battle between Germani and Romans’ is full of action and human expression. His men and women are muscular and often ruggedly Semitic-featured. His ‘Moses with the ten Commandments’ was presented to the Cape Parliament in 1883. The Africana Museum, Johannesburg, possesses a large painting (44½ inches by 66½ inches) of the battle of Amajuba, done in 1881, and Personality contains coloured reproductions of four brilliant pieces: ‘Gibraltar’, ‘Frederick the Great of Prussia’, ‘Arrival of Julius Caesar on the British coast’ (showing the fierce struggle in the water), and the peaceful ‘Camp ground, Rondebosch’. Mrs Thora Botha, a descendant, owns the painting of the Tugela River (1823), in which his sister was drowned.

Hottentot Girl

Otto lived moderately and was a devout Unitarian. He remained an active walker and horse-man, an excellent raconteur, and was in his hundredth year strong enough to play the violin and to start a painting, ‘The Creation’.
His profits were invested in bonds on farms and by 1880 he was able to hand his business over to his grandson, Julius Otto Jeppe, and retire in comfort to Vredenburg, Rosebank.

He died at almost 102 years, possibly the last South African to have seen Napoleon en route for Russia in 1812. After one of the largest funerals seen in Cape Town, he was buried on 2nd March 1905 in St Peter’s Cemetery, Mowbray. His first wife was Maria Jacoba de Jongh (1809 -10 March 1861); his second wife, Catherine Matchell (1840 -30 April 1911), accompanied him, in 1864, on his only visit to Europe. One of Otto’s sons was Ernst Landsberg, M.L.C. for the western divisions in the Cape Parliament (1864 -68). Of the thirteen children of his first marriage only two daughters, Julia Elizabeth D’Astre and Sophia Theresa Henrietta Lithman, survived him; they and the children of a deceased daughter, Maria Jacoba Carolina Jeppo (first wife of Hermann Jeppe), and his widow became the main heirs of his estate, which amounted to over £95 000. Bequests also went to some servants, and to churches of all denominations. There are portraits of Landsberg in the Potchefstroom Museum (they include a photograph of him at the age of 100 years) and (infra) in The Veld and The Cape Argus.

Source: Dictionary of South African Biography

Image Source: SA Standard Encyclopaedia – Hottentot Girl, by Otto Landsberg, in the Potchefstroom Museum

Are SA Venter’s and US/German Venters related to each other ?

Jan Adriaan Venter born 20 June 1881 and Christina Adriana du Plessis. Image taken circa 1906. Grandparents of Piet Venter

About a year ago my friend in the USA, Robert Venter, and I, asked ourselves the question formulated above. We had already been able to trace our earliest known ancestors back to two persons who were born in two different localities in Germany in the 17th and early 18th centuries, respectively. Robert’s earliest known ancestor was Johann Adam Venter, born in Roth, near Meisenheim in the Palatinate, in 1715, and my own earliest known ancestor was Hendrik Conrad Venter, who was born Heinrich Conrad von Dempter, in Hamelin, during 1663.

There are believed to be 60000 Venters in South Africa, so we are a large family. There are 189 Venters in the German Phone Book, and there are also a number of Venters in the USA – our guess is that all of them might be descendants of German emigrants to the US. In fact, Robert’s grandfather was an immigrant from Germany.

There was no way in which Robert and I could connect any of our ancestors in Germany by paper-genealogy, to find out whether we are related, and so we went the route of comparing our Y-DNA results. Robert’s Y-haplogroup, and that of another American Venter (and a Fenter), is R1b1 – a haplogroup is a group of persons classified according to specific DNA characteristics. I was the first SA Venter to have had my own Y-DNA tested for a project run by Robert, and the results showed that my Y-haplogroup is R1a. This also showed up in the tests done on four other SA Venters, who like me, can trace their lineages back to Hendrik Conrad Venter.

The fact that the five SA Venters shown on the chart belong to the same haplogroup (R1a), is hardly surprising, because this was the expected result, unless there was some non-paternal event in someone’s male ancestry that would have broken the ‘lineal’ chain or standard ‘pattern’ of Y-chromosome markers. Such markers are passed on unaltered, except for some random mutations, through many generations, from father to son, in any family lineage. Bearing all of this in mind, we are now almost in a position where we can state positively that SA Venter males are R1a’s, and that our ancestor, Hendrik Conrad Venter, must also have been an R1a.

Photo of Johann Venter born 12 November 1871 in Roth, Germany and Elizabeth Weinig (USA) grandparents of Robert Venter.

Are R1a and R1b1 Venters related? The answer is no! At any rate, a family relationship cannot be proved within conventional genealogical time frames – on the contrary, we would have to go back a few millennia to find a common ancestor. And he would apparently have been a person living somewhere in the Caucasus, whose haplogroup would have been R, or R1.

This article is an abridged version of an article called, “How many ‘Venter-lines’ world-wide?”, which obviously has a much broader scope. We are hoping to find out how many different lines of ‘genetic cousins’ we have – people with the Venter surname, or similar surnames.

Click here to see the Venter Tree. The People highlighted in red are those who have had their DNA tested

Persons who can help us in this research can contact the authors  here. 
Article written by Piet Venter (South Africa) and assisted by Robert Venter (U.S.A) .

This research enterprise is to take DNA samples from about 500-1000 South Africans in order to trace their geographical ancestry. It will provide the first national database available in the public domain. The gene pool found in the present-day South African population draws from the indigenous people of Southern Africa, namely the former hunters or San groups, the pastoral Khoikhoi who are thought to have migrated to the Cape in the last 2,000 years introducing sheep and cattle to the region, and people originating from the Niger-Congo area speaking Nguni-languages who migrated south in the last 1,200 years. In addition, sea-borne immigrants from Western Europe (largely from the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Germany and France ), indentured labourers from India and slaves from the Malaysian Archipelago, Madagascar and other parts of Africa, have also contributed to the gene pool. Varying degrees of gene admixture between the different parental gene pools have resulted in the rich diversity of South Africans and this is evident also from the cultural and linguistic diversity of the ‘Rainbow Nation.’ We wish to provide a DNA map of the genetic heritage adding thereby an additional layer of information to our self-understanding of where we come from and who we are.

Method

Two genetic histories are recovered using mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and Y chromosome DNA testing as follows:

Maternal ancestry testing (mtDNA analysis): Females and males

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is passed on from mothers to both her sons and daughters. However, only her daughters will transmit their mtDNA in successive generations. Both males and females can be tested for mtDNA to trace their maternal ancestry. We sequence a region of about 1000 base-pairs (bp) of the mtDNA control region (also called the hypervariable region of which there are two, HVRI and HVRII). The sequence is then compared to a published reference sequence (also referred to as the Cambridge Reference Sequence, CRS) to identify the positions at which your sequence differs from the CRS. This information is used together with an internationally adopted nomenclature to identify the name of your mtDNA lineage. These lineages are also called haplogroups. Haplogroups are continent specific and subdivisions of these haplogroups have a regional geographic distribution.

Database Matches

After we obtain your mtDNA sequence and deduce the haplogroup, we then compare the sequence to a database of mtDNA sequences in individuals we have examined for our research as well as other published data collected on individuals sampled throughout the world by other researchers. This comparison allows us to find matches or close matches to one’s sequence, to give you information about the distribution of your mtDNA haplogroup, and the most likely region where your mtDNA profile originated.

Y chromosome analysis (only males)

Fathers pass on their Y chromosome to their sons only, who then pass on their Y chromosome to their sons, and so on. We make use of two types of markers on the non-recombining portion of the Y chromosome to resolve the Y chromosome lineages in males. The first type of marker, so-called bi-allelic variants (two states or alleles can be found at one site on the chromosome) is used to classify Y-chromosomes into lineages or haplogroups. These haplogroups, or major branches of the Y chromosome tree, show specific ethnic and/or geographic distribution patterns. The second type of marker, micro satellites or short tandem repeats (STRs) consist of repetitive DNA elements that are tandemly repeated and are highly variable in humans. STRs are used to define haplotypes (like a DNA fingerprint, but on the Y chromosome) within the haplogroups.

Database Matches

After we deduce your Y chromosome haplogroup, we use the STR data to derive your haplotype. We then compare your haplotype to our database and with information from a global database ( www.ystr.charite.de ). This comparison allows us to find matches or close matches to your Y chromosome lineage, to give you information about the distribution of your Y chromosome haplogroup, and the most likely region where your Y haplotype originated.

Limitations of genetic ancestry testing

The limitation of using mtDNA and Y chromosome DNA for genealogical testing is that this DNA will trace only two genetic lines on a family tree in which branches double with each preceding generation. For example, Y chromosome tracing will connect a man to his father but not his mother, and it will connect him to only one of his four grandparents: his paternal grandfather. In the same way it will connect him to one of his eight great grandparents (see figure below). Continue back in this manner for 14 generations and the man will still be connected to only one ancestor in that generation. Y-chromosome DNA testing will not connect him to any of the other 16 383 ancestors in that generation to whom he is also related in equal measure. The same scenario applies when using mtDNA.

Outcomes
• National database of the geographical ancestry of a sample of South Africans;

• Workshop to train journalists and academics to interpret the information and contribute to an edited anthology; Bringing History Alive: DNA and the Rainbow Nation.

• Special website to make ancestry information available for public use and dissemination.

Raj Ramesar is Professor and Head of the Division of Human Genetics at the University of Cape Town. He is also Director of the MRC’s Human Genetics Research Unit. Raj’s interest is in identifying those aspects of the human genome that are worth investigating for their most rapid benefit to our communities in South Africa.

Himla Soodyall is Principal Medical Scientist at the National Health Laboratory Service and holds a joint appointment as an Associate Professor in the Division of Human Genetics at the University of the Witwatersrand. She was appointed Principal Investigator of the Sub-Saharan Africa part of the global Genographic Project, a joint initiative of the National Geographic Society and IBM.

Wilmot James is Chief Executive of the Africa Genome Education Institute and Honorary Professor in the Division of Human Genetics, University of Cape Town. He is also Chairman of the Cape Philharmonic Orchestra, director of Sanlam, Media24 and the Grape Co and Trustee of the Ford Foundation of New York.

Written by: Dr Wilmot James

Family History research is one of the fastest growing hobbies in the world and South Africa is no exception. Be warned though, the hobby does come with a few hazards – for instance people might think:

a) you are nuts
b) you are a prying busy body
c) you have nothing better to do with your time
d) you are living in the past, or
e) all of the above

Don’t despair – you are not alone!!!! Research in any field is never easy but when you are researching the lives, families and actions of real people, you might encounter attitudes and opinions you never expected. The up side is that you will become somewhat of a Sherlock Holmes, a diplomat and a scholar and if this is not enough you will also end up with enough knowledge of history to qualify for at least a diploma. What more could you want! Welcome to the world of genealogy!

A few golden rules:

Like all things in life there are rules that govern how you go about doing things, so let’s take a look at a few that apply to genealogy:

Rule 1

Start with yourself and work backwards.

Start with what you already know. i.e. yourself and siblings, your parents, your grandparents etc. To help you get started you can fill in the details of your immediate family on the chart we have provided with this brochure, starting with yourself and going back as far as you can. If you do not know specific dates, don’t worry, we will get to them later.

Rule 2

Know where you want to go.

In the beginning, choose an ancestral line, which interests you, and concentrate on researching that one. If you try and research maternal and paternal lines simultaneously it might become too much for you. That is not to say that you should not store every bit of information you come across concerning all your ancestors but only that the bulk of your efforts be concentrated in one direction.

Rule 3

Always make a note of your sources.

When you go hunting for proof of family ties or stories, you must always write down where (the source) and when (the date) you got the information. Better still, always try and get copies of the original documents if you do not own them. E.g. If an Uncle has a letter written by an ancestor who fought at Delville Wood in WW1, try and get a photocopy of it for your own files. If you can’t take it away with you or photograph it, a handwritten transcription will do. Understandably most people do not want to part with original photographs or other material but you can ask for a copy. If you make use of material belonging to other people, it is courteous to acknowledge them in your footnotes.

Rule 4

Never make assumptions.

Assumptions can waste a lot of your time and are the cause of many a family historian abandoning their quest. For example, don’t assume that an ancestor married in the Anglican Church because he was English. This can send you on a two year wild goose chase after which you might find that he married in the Dutch Reformed church because that was the religious denomination of the new Missus. If you do not find grandfather in the place you thought he might be, look further afield, including unlikely places!

Rule 5

Respect the dignity and privacy of relatives.

Family historians, in their eagerness to ferret out information from family members, often make the mistake of pushing them for information that they are reluctant to discuss. Never push your boundaries to the point of disrespect. Remember too that some of your discoveries might shock or upset your relatives. A case of illegitimacy or a criminal record might not be known to family members so be sensitive to their feelings and use your discretion when discussing your discoveries. In the case of adoptions, for instance, professional counselling is essential before making contact with the people concerned.

Rule 6

Never trust a family rumour.

We all have them in our families; our own personal ‘Myths & Legends’. These often take the form of…”it is said that we are related to the Duke/Earl/Marquis of Blah Blah…and the country estate awaits us in England, that is if we can just find those lost letters to prove it etc. etc.” These are the things that usually get us interested in the family’s history in the first place so don’t be disappointed to find that there is only a grain of truth in the stories and they might not be anywhere near as romantic as they are made out to be. You might find that the only connection to the Duke/Earl/Marquis was that your ancestor was a footman in his household or something of the sort. As with any rumour, where there is smoke there is usually a fire of sorts but with the telling, things get a little embellished. It does not matter!! They are your ancestors no matter what their station in life.

Rule 7

You have to accept them warts and all

You might come across things your ancestors did (or did not do) that shocks you. You are not alone! There are skeletons rattling in every family closet so be prepared to accept them the way they were – after all they are your very own skeletons and there is nothing you can do now that will change what they did then. Be objective when evaluating your information and tell the truth.

Rule 8

Enjoy Yourself

Family history research will set you on a journey of discovery. You will learn things about history, about your ancestors and ultimately about yourself. Your time will be filled with piecing together the vast jig-saw puzzle of your extended family. The main thing is that you should enjoy doing it. Enjoy gathering and arranging the information, knowing that you will end up producing as accurate an account of your family’s history as you can, one that will be appreciated by your descendants in years to come.

By Sharon Warr alias Sharonus Scribus

The signatures of our ancestors are windows to our past. Before the invention pen and paper people like the Khoi and the Egyptians used rock art and hieroglyphics to depict there name names. There was no other form of confirmation of names except those folk lucky enough to be able to read and write.

Signatures tell us whether or not our ancestors were literate and also how educated they were as well as whether or not they were beginner writers, nervous about writing or perhaps they had a disability of some kind.

One of the first things our ancestors probably learnt to write was there name and to sign their name – this form of identification would have at first probably be thought as the work of the devil as how could anyone try to see if they were really that person? Most of us write out signature without even thinking and sometimes find it very difficult to try (just for fun) to copy our grandparents or great grandparents ones. If you have spent time in the National Archives and looked through the countless death notices or estate papers between the years 1840 and 1880 – much of the writing is very similar albeit many of you would find it difficult not only to read the persons name who signed the document even though the actual person who signed the document did not fill it in making it even more intriguing. .

As the makeup and material of paper and pen has changed over the centuries so have signatures also changed. They way we were taught to write and by whom make a large impact on how our handwriting and signatures have endured. I am certainly not proud of my handwriting and find that many youngsters today have even worse writing skills – the emphasis in basic writing skills is one the wane and is a great loss to anybody tracing their family history.

How many of us actually print out and file an email ? We forget that in a 100 years’ time [email protected] might be your great grandson’s signature and there will be nothing in paper format – heaven forbid as it will all look the same!! We all love keeping old letters and either filing them in box files or and old – and we know that the ink there will remain there much longer than from a printer cartridge.

To get the most out of signatures we need get the most information from the records that are available, we have to decipher these records and put meaning into the symbols we see on the old documents or papers that we find. As we read wills, death notices, baptisms, marriage certificates or even simple birthday cards we very often find that the text is gibberish to us and sometimes completely un-comprehendible.

You will find out as your research goes back in time the further back you go the more difficult it becomes to decipher old signatures. It is important to remember that many of our names today are still spelt phonetically meaning written the best way you could and how it sounded.

In many instances old handwriting looks similar to our modern day shorthand with dropped or (upper or lower) letters in names. Assuming what these names should or should not be can be a fatal mistake. If someone’s name is written in a signature such as Edwd does not necessarily mean the persons name is Edward as it could be Edwin. Names should be transcribed exactly as they are written – notes can always be made but never change the original record.

Signature of David Senekal

The signature of David Senekal (believe it or not?)

One of the letters in the alphabet that has changed the most is the Double SS which is used to be written as FF or fs like the surname Burgeff which is actually Burgess. Over 100 years ago the “s” was often written like a backward “f.” This strange symbol for “s” was used very commonly in instances where there was a “double s.” The unusual s first, called the “leading s.” Then the regular s.