South Africa Day # 8

"I am an African … I owe my being to the Khoi and the San … the migrants who left Europe … the Malay slaves from the East … those transported from India and China … the grandchild of the warrior men and women … taught never to dishonour the cause of freedom." – Thabo Mbeki, opening of the new SA Constitution, 1996.

What's in a (South African) name?
Sharon Marshall

Saddled with the burden of apartheid and colonial-slanted textbooks, South Africans have tended to take their identities from their political leanings. But "mixed marriages" are as old as South Africa itself. As the meaning of democracy dawns, more people are finding family tree research the key to understanding their own heritages........

The Huguenots

In 1688, a new influence brought with it another European aspect to the cultural kaleidoscope: the first French Huguenot Protestants escaping Catholic persecution in France were brought out by the Dutch.

Settling the area now known as Franschhoek, many of the Huguenots owned slaves to cultivate the winelands, and half-caste children, born mainly out of wedlock, were among the unfortunates who produced children who failed to pass the apartheid government's pencil test over two centuries later."

I am in the process of tracing my family roots.It is looking very colourful (no pun intended). South African Genealogy