I was hoping that Vince Otto was lurking here and show you how to do this. He advises going to the 10th generation to be as accurate as possible. I have taken my sons' ancestry to the 10th generation and give each surname 1 point. Therefore for the surname van Heerden, I give it 1.00 point in the Netherlands, whereas van der Merwe I give it 0.50 in the Netherlands and 0.50 German, as in that generation, the first generation in SA, the father was from Holland and the mother, Elsie Cloete, was from Germany. There are a number of van de Cape ancestors in any Afrikaans family, I have found through the years, as well as East Indian. Jack's family has about 1.5% Indian and 1.1% van de Cape. Sonia

Hello Sonia, Monday, November 21, 2011, 5:34:10 PM, you wrote: SvH> Vince Otto advises going to the 10th generation to be as accurate SvH> as possible. I have taken my sons' ancestry to the 10th SvH> generation and give each surname 1 point. Vince Otto wrote: At the 10th generation point everyone of us has 1024 ancestors. Sonia, to have traced your son's ancestry completely back to the 10th generation is an amazing achievement. I congratulate you. My own Afrikaner ancestors stretch back usually 7 or 8 generations or less to the founding father and in many cases his or her parents are unknown, and sometimes the country of origin also unknown . Only one or two have I managed to trace a bit further in the country of origin. Two of my English ancestor families I can take back to the 12th generation (Ball and Billing), but most only 4 or 5 generations. Thank you for an interesting discussion. Richard -- Richard Ball, Norfolk, England http://www.ballfamilyrecords.co.uk richard.ball@ballfamilyrecords.co.uk