Hester Zitsiliia (Liewenbergh) Visser (1788 - 1869)

Liewenbergh-3 and Liebenberg-2845 appear to represent the same person because: Two profiles for same person. Please merge.

Please add Anna Sophia Geertruyda Visser as child "https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Visser-4164" source documentation baptism and Probate.

I have commented out items in the biography that appear to be fully superseded by better attested sources. The profile manager can delete or restore these as deemed fit.

Dear Bea and Ronel:

Concerning the principle of representing in the LNAB the exact spelling in the primary source, I have come round to your point of view. Thank you for explaining it so clearly.

I still have reservations about representing quirks of handwriting rather than quirks of spelling in the LNAB, but that point is not at issue in the case of this profile.

Hi Dirk,

I understand what you mean, but in many cases treating or 'just deciding to treat names as just and error by the scribe', can make things also very hard.

I'm working a lot for the NNS project as well (we are trying to find baptism/birth records for the early (Dutch) ancestors), now a whole lot of these ancestors were imported by Gedcom or created with the names they used or adopted in the New Netherland or more or less standardized or translated names or with wrong 'patronymics' (patronymics of father added as last names for children), so finding their parents often is like searching for a needle in a hay stack, due to all the translated names, standardizing, wrong patronymics, wrong interpretations and so on.

So I do understand your wish for standardizing in some cases, but we still have to be careful and go by the baptism records, it for sure isn't 'hurting' anyone, the current last name and other last name fields still can contain the what we think of as more correct or standardized or other versions.

We just have to keep in mind these people themselves were used to the inconsistent ways of writing and unless there's a record where they went to court where they were complaining the name was written wrong and demanded it had to be corrected (have found some of those). I really don't think we should always just look at these kind of names in records as errors by scribes. For most people those days, they really didn't care about this and were used to all these different ways of writing their names.(inconsistency in writing is not the same as an obvious error, seeing inconsistency as scribe error is a modern thing and how we all nowadays think or feel about this inconsistency)

"Should the official Baptismal records not proof that De Villiers, working from these records, did not use the exact spelling, as can be seen on the records?" My point exactly. De Villiers knew what the birth record said and decided to treat it as an error by the scribe. That scribe tried to write "Frederik Liebenberg" and failed. We have other sources for how Frederik's name was spelt and none of of them is this mumpsimus.

Should the official Baptismal records not proof that De Villiers, working from these records, did not use the exact spelling, as can be seen on the records? I Know it is form in South African genealogical works to use general conformity, but WikiTree rule states that the LNAB should exactly be, as can been seen, on the primary source. In this case we use the baptismal records, for lack of a birth certificate. WikiTree knew from the start that there wil no doubt be discrepancies and therefore the option for the other names and also know as was created. We use them to indicate that the LNAB, as recorded from our source and indicated on the profile, was not the rule. Feel free to use these to indicate the name and surname as they were generally known. You can also add a research note.

I take your point, Bea, but it is equally valid if not more so for Hester's father, who after all is the person bearing a surname in the baptism register (hers merely being inferred), and he has "Liebenberg" as LNAB.

We all know that De Villiers cannot be relied on uncondtionally. The poor fellow after all never had the opportunity to proofread his book.

Yet he remains the pioneer. He was a genealogist, not an historian. He, too, worked from church registers. He was faced with the same problems we wrestle with today and solved them in a way that has become the basis that we work from. One deviates from that when there is clear evidence that he was mistaken.

Hi Dirk,

well for a lot of projects we decided to keep things easy and try to prevent much discussion or confusion about a LNAB .

The easiest thing for everyone and normally, is to stick to just the LNAB as it is written in the baptism records and add all other versions to the other last name field and the last one they used to the current name field. There just was not much, or no consistency at all, in the way of writing back than, it's sometimes really hard for us modern people to understand or be just as inconsistent, because we of course are used to be always consistent in writing names and everything.

But we have to keep in mind that for these people it was totally the opposite, they didn't mind at all and couldn't care less probably about the way their name was written, they were used to the inconsistent and many different ways their names were written, pronounced.

And looking at this name, the name originally was Leeuwenbergh...so Liewenberg is probably even more correct or consistent, than Liebenberg even though they all used Liebenberg at some occasions as well.

Just imagine there are also people, that had the last name written different on each occasion, which one should we pick ?

Of course if everyone would really like to change it, for me personally this is not such a problem, (no problem being inconsistent ;) ), but although it now perhaps looks like a minor thing, changing this policy for just this profile could mean or result in something quite big for many, and we perhaps will receive many and more and more requests to change or discussions about LNAB  ? So do we really want or need to change our policy for just this profile ? The LNAB is correct and according the baptism record..it's not a misspelling but the result of the inconsistency of writing those days....

WikiTree policy on LNAB:

"It is usually the formal name as it appears in official documents at the time of birth. However, it may not be exactly what appears in a birth record if:

There was a spelling mistake or error in the document, or if the family name was more commonly spelled in a different way at the time of the birth (see the spelling conventions section above)."

In view of the other uploaded sources (two primary, one the well respected De Villiers work), the name should therefore be "Hester Cecilia Liebenberg".