I am stuck at the proginiter, in South Africa, of my line of ELLISes, one Patrick (Henry?) ELLIS. It appears that he married a Margaretha Magdalena JOUBERT on 14 August 1803. His death certificate is very unclear, but it gives the following information: Name of Deceased: Patrick Hendrik ELS (I suspect that it should be Henry. The surname is definitely wrong here as all other references are ELLIS. I suspect that the clerk who completed the record got the sound of the name wrong). Birth Place of Deceased: Dublin. Names of parents of the Deceased: ELS (Again this is wrong). Age of the Deceased: seventy five years (This is unclear and only by elimination I conclude the second word to be "five"). Condition in Life: Blacksmith. Day of decease: Seventh August 1850. Place: Very unclear but may be Louws Berg (the "berg" is clear but the fist word not). The death notice is signed by one of his sons, Daniel ELLIS. He signed his name ELLIS and all the other children have their names as ELLIS. Family lore has it that three brothers came to South Africa, but "two went back". There is no confirmation that "back" means Ireland. I know that Daniel ELLIS was a farmer at Hoeko - Ladismith. Some of Patrick's children were born in Swellendam. All my searches on Patrick ELLIS brought up nothing. Neither here nor any place in Ireland - primarily because so many of their records were destroyed. An interesting bit is that one source actually gives the origin of Patrick as Norway - I do not know on what facts this is based. This leads me to think that Patrick's ship came here via Norway. I also therefor presume that he came here in a private capacity. My reasoning is that if he was a convict, or in the service of the UK at the time, he may have come here directly by official ship or something. Another interesting thing is the Wicklow rebellion during 1798 as well as the fact that the Cape changed hands (Dutch and British) a number of times over this period. I hope to find shipping records of the time to trace his route back to his origins in the hope that some info will come up. Any advice that you may have will be much appreciated. Thank You Kindly Adré Ellis [email protected] http://users.iafrica.com/e/el/ellis