"Cape Melting Pot" is the English translation of "Groep Sonder Grense". Colenbrander (De Afkomst Der Boeren") did an analysis of European settlers to about 1800. Numbers and percentages. Keith ------ Original Message ------ Received: Mon, 21 Nov 2011 02:47:15 AM EST From: "Steve Hayes" <hayesstw@telkomsa.net> To: south-africa@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [SOUTH-AFRICA] Ethnicity of early settlers was Weyers On 21 Nov 2011 at 14:38, Andrew Rodger wrote: > On 20 Nov 2011, at 5:27 PM, DRobertson wrote: > > > Johann, > > > > I'm curious, do you know if anyone has done a numerical analysis - as > > opposed to a percentage analysis - of the ethnic origins of the > > various > > waves of settler arrivals prior to 1900? > > > > Kind regards > > Delia Robertson > > I'm curious, too, but what I wonder is why anyone thinks it important > (hereditary diseases apart). > > "Ethnicity" is a somewhat woolly term, and does not exactly coincide > with descent, as it also involves some environmental and societal > aspects -- at least, in the popular understanding. Moreover, > percentages are inevitably inexact, given that each fraction we are > considering is a number divided by a power of 2, whereas percentages > are divided by a power of ten. Starting with yourself and your > spouse, and supposing that both of you have both parents of "pure" > ethnicities, whatever that means, you immediately use up all the > whole numbers in percentage terms (100%, 50%, 25%), even before you > go back one generation more. > > That's the mathematical side of the problem; the geographical side is > even worse, as anyone with any association with South Africa well > knows! The country's political history means that very few families > accepted as "European" have an entirely true history, with many > ancestral ethnicities firmly suppressed and kept even from the family > so as not to suffer the consequences of a "leak" by an unwary child. > Thus, taking my family as an example, I have three grandparents born > in Scotland and one in South Africa. The three Scots came > respectively from Ayrshire, Aberdeen and Fife stock. All three would > undoubtedly have a rich mixture of Celtic and Norse ancestors, as the > Vikings were active on both the North Sea side of Scotland and around > the Irish Sea. (Dublin is actually a Viking-founded City, though it > has a Celtic name meaning "Black Pool", after a tidal phenomenon in > the River Liffey at the point where the Vikings landed.) The > remaining grandparent, born in South Africa, had a name that was > clearly of German origin (Haarhoff), and the stamvader appears to > have come from somewhere in Northern Germany, joining the VOC at > Texel, as a knecht, early in the 18th Century, and there is a Marais > somewhere in all that lot, too (French Huguenot). And Germany itself > was a linguistic rather than a political term in those days, with its > borders gradually developing as a result of successive post-war > settlements over several centuries, and with "Germany" as a single > political entity only coming into being after the Franco-Prussian > War, and it gets worse as you progress eastward in Europe. I find it interesting nevertheless. I have been rather disappointed to discover that all my ancestors originated in what is now the UK, whereas my wife's ancestors are much more varied -- her maternal ancestors are from the UK (Cumbria), but her paternal ancestors from Canada, Scotland, England, Germany (including some Huguenots) etc. An interesting book to read in this connection is: Author Heese, H. F. Title Groep sonder grense : (die rol en status van die gemengde bevolking aan die Kaap, 1652-1795) Imprint Bellville : Wes-Kaaplandse Instituut vir Historiese Navorsing, Universiteit van Wes-Kaapland, 1984. another, by the father of the above, and a well-known genealogist, is: Author Heese, J. A. Title Die herkoms van die Afrikaner, 1657-1867/ [deur] J. A. Heese. Imprint Kaapstad : A. A. Balkema, 1971 [c1972] > I guess the moral of the story is (again excluding medical > considerations) that what really shapes us is the social and economic > environment we come from, at least as much as, if not more than, the > "racial", national, "ethnic" or what have you make-up of our > ancestors. That is where the real stories lie. And I guess that > from that you can guess that I was a member of the old Liberal Party > of 50+ years ago! (But I've lived in Australia for over 50 years now.) In which case I shall invite you to join the Liberal Party mailing list. We're hoping to collected all the stories before the members croak. -- Steve Hayes E-mail: shayes@dunelm.org.uk Web: http://hayesstw.tumblr.com/ (follow me on Tumblr) Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com Phone: 083-342-3563 or 012-333-6727 Fax: 086-548-2525 ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SOUTH-AFRICA-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message