I have to agree with Keith about this - you only need to look at the VOC shipping lists to see how many of our ancestors were German. Apart from Colenbrander there are other sources documenting (and also complaining) about the vast numbers of non-Dutch employees of the VOC. I believe most of them came as a consequence of the devastation caused by the 30 Years War. Not only did first Danish, then Swedish, then French, then Russian mercenaries each cause their own variety of havoc in northern 'Germany', but there were also three outbreaks of the Black Death in 1624, 1626 and 1627 that helped to decimate the population. History shows that the population of the Germanic states shrank by about 30% during the war, is some areas by nearly two thirds. During the Swedish Occupation (1630 - 1635), for instance, 2000 castles, 18 000 settlements and 1500 villages were destroyed. A census in the Duchy of Württemberg in 1652 revealed a loss of more than 40 000 homes and 58 000 residents. Some resources claim that the economic consequences were so great that 'Germany' only started recovering towards the middle of the 19th century. And of course the feudal system of land ownership did not help much, when the eldest son inherited the father's holdings, and the younger ones had to go and make a living for themselves elsewhere. My own progenitor Jürgen HANNEKUM, whose family name the Dutch wrote as HANNEKOHM and then HANEKOM, was one of those younger sons. Johann -----Original Message----- From: Keith Meintjes <umfundi@usa.net> To: south-africa@rootsweb.com Sent: Thu, 17 Nov 2011 0:29 Subject: Re: [SOUTH-AFRICA] Weyers Andrew wrote: > In South Africa the main influx of Germans was following the Crimean War I would disagree. From 1652 up until about 1800, half of all European migrants to South Africa were German. Only about a quarter were from the etherlands. Colenbrander, "De Afkomst der Boeren".) Keith