Location: Cape Colony, South Africa
Surnames/tags: Brummer van_Zyl
Notes, pictures, letters collected by Prof. Nicolaas Johannes Brümmer (1866-1947). Some of the Marais photos may come from his wife, Ettie Marais.
Pictures
new
Menslage, Germany
Stamvader Johan Wichard, family
Jan van Wasbank, family
Andries Godlieb, children
Barend Jacobus Brümmer, family
Nicolaas Johannes van Zyl, family
Prof. Nicolaas Johannes Brümmer, family
Prof. Johannes Izak Marais, family
Others, somewhere Brümmer family tree
Information about the pictures
Nicolaas Johannes was born in 1866 in the Dordrecht district, at a farm, went to school at Lady Grey, a town his father helped found, and then studied at Stellenbosch. Subsequently, he studied at Edinburgh, and travelled to the Netherlands and Germany, where he also met the relatives at Menslage. Back in South Africa he became professor of philosophy. He named his house on Rowanstreet in Stellenbosch "Menslage". He left a collection of notes, letters and pictures about his genealogical research, mainly on his Brümmer and van Zyl ancestors.
Some of these pictures were rather early portraits, in the Daguerrotype of Argandtype technique, and it is interesting in that context just to see how stiff people are sitting, while early photographers quickly tried to become creative and original as well. There are also two paintings of a man and woman of which family tradition says these were Johann Wichard and his wife. Some of the pictures are not easy to identify. There is a group picture from the marriage of Barend Jacobus, where not everybody has yet been identified. There is a beautiful picture of a Daguerrotype of Hermann Arnd, who remained at the family farm at Andorf, near Menslage.
Among the letters, there are three letters sent in 1808 by the first South African Brümmer, with the help of the dominee of Graaff-Reinet, and via a friend living in the Hague, addressed to the pfarrer in Menslage with the request to find the living Brümmer family there. Three somewhat different copies were sent with different travellers to Europe. Remember that this was during the Continental Blockade of the Napoleonic wars. These three letters form a fascinating historical remnant of that moment in time. Nicolaas Johannes later exchanged letters with the relatives in Menslage, who sent him the picture if Hermann Arndt, and Maria Elsebein. He also seem to have corresponded with the Brümmers in Zaandam.
Wiki-Technical: arranging pictures in the bio
Wikitree has a template mentioned in the photo FAQ Help:Photos FAQ, and described in more detail on its template page Template:Image. Important: the "{ { Clear } }" template forces rendering previous floating images, and starts a new paragraph.
The wikitree template was built on top of a 'mediawiki' template. It is a bit more compact, and I used it here, as it seemed to give me more precise control of size (it may be that the wikitree template can do the same tricks).
An example of how the images are added on this page is, using mediawiki template,: "[ [Image:Brummer-525.jpg|100px|Hermann Arndt] ]". (Delete the blank between the brackets to make them active).
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