It's a simple calculation, though I have no idea why anyone would want to do it "accurately". You are Gen 1. Your parents are Gen 2. Your grandparents are Gen 3. In each nth generation for which you have no further ancestors, each person counts as 1/2^n. The total of all contributions is 1. For example, assume you know your mother was born in Natal, but you do not know her parents. Your father was born in the Transvaal, and his parents were born in the Free State. You do not know his mother's parents, but his father's parents were from the Cape. So, you are 1/2 Natal, 1/4 Free State and 1/8 + 1/8 = 1/4 Cape. A typical Mpumulangan! By the way, "of the Cape" or "v.d. Kaap" means born at the Cape. It does not have a particular ethnic meaning. Best wishes, Keith ------ Original Message ------ Received: Mon, 21 Nov 2011 12:38:41 PM EST From: Sonia van Heerden <soniavh11@hotmail.com> To: <south-africa@rootsweb.com> Subject: [SOUTH-AFRICA] Ethnic percentages 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 ------------------------------- 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