The story of Douw Gerbrand steyn

It has been so hard and frustrating looking for someone who almost seems to not exist. Douw Gerbrand Steyn, where in heaven’s name are your facts? It seems the harder I try the more I feel like a failing detective. The mystery has been eluding me for 24 years, good grief, I should have found something by now!

I started searching for my grandfather’s details when I was 13, barely a few months after my father had passed away, not out of an interest in family trees but out of needing to know who I was and where I come from.  Meeting the family I never knew became a dream in the hope of somehow getting to know more of the person my father was as a child and young man. It was only later that my obsession found outage in the research I did. Scratching through telephone books and phoning every Steyn I could find made me seem more weird than anything else but As it stands I have found two of his three wives and seven of his eighteen children (my dad being the youngest). But let’s talk records, of which I have a newspaper article, a death notice and marriage details for the first and third wife. Not very factual I have to say, I have barely been able to confirm the seven children and many problems of missing facts to get through. Everything in me is desperate for answers, it is exhausting and so disappointing when the millionth search turns up nothing.

This is the story of my grandfather, Douw Gerbrand steyn.

A journalist once described my grandfather as the father of the clan in an article written about him in 1955. As a man who loved having 165 family members seated at his table when a family meeting took place.  An old man that garnered your respect with simply a look or gesture.

He was born on 7/5/1868 in the Cape Province. There is no mention of his parent’s names in his death notice or the newspaper article, although it does state that he was the only living family member of a family of eight children, five brothers and three sisters.  In the family bible that once belonged to him there is an inscription: “Geschenk aan D Steijn 19/9/1909” (he would have been 40 years old at the time) the names that are written under the inscription are: “Jan A Steijn, Johannes Snijman, HS van der Walt, Abraham van der Walt, A van der Walt, A de Klerk, A Snijman, C Steijn, E Steijn”.

He joined a commando and fought in the Anglo Boer war 1899-1902, under Generals De Wet and Ben Viljoen. He was captured twice, once in 1901 and then again in 1902 and held at the Johannesburg Fort until the war was declared over.

When he was encouraged to speak about himself he said:

“I have been married three times, 32 years to the first wife” (Catherina M Pretorius when he was 19 years old)”5 years to the second” (unknown between 1921 and 1930) “and 9 years to the third wife” (Anna Elizabeth Croucamp when he was 62 years old) who died 15 years ago.” He had 18 children, 7 boys and 11 girls. Of the 18 children only 5 were still alive in 1954, 4 daughters and 1 son (Hermanus Hendrik, my dad).Three daughters lived in Johannesburg and were widows. The fourth was happily married and lived in Natal.

In his  earlier years he would have been a wool merchant farming with the sheep at his beloved Steenkoppies in the Karoo, Northern Cape.  After being forced to leave the farm for the second time in 1913, he would become a painter and plasterer in the place he later called home; Brixton, Johannesburg. He was 86 years old when he passed away on 02/03/1955, 2 months shy of 87. A war veteran, provider and father of a clan. He was Buried in Wespark Cemetary in Johannesburg on 1955/03/04 in the Dutch Reformed Memoria section.