His roots do not all pass into the soul of Notting Hill or Scotland - it passes deep through our Mother City, Cape Town and not only the British Isles – as one would think. His roots run deep into South Africa, notwithstanding his excellent British education. Major Ronald Grant was born in the Cape and died at his home in Newlands, Cape Town. Whilst his paternal roots run deep into the South African heart, his maternal roots are as Scottish as can be – and she is an aristocrat, without doubt.

“Hugh attended Wetherby School, Latymer Upper School as well as gaining a scholarship at the New College in Oxford where he studied English and was a member of the Piers Gaveston Society, a notorious dining club. Before his finals exams at Oxford, he was set to do a PhD in the History of Art at the Courtauld Institute but could not follow through as he failed to attain a first class degree which he would have required to achieve for his doctoral studies”

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s mother actually gave him piano lessons, so he is musical as well!

Lets forget all the scandal and concentrate on the positive. Apart from his well-publicised film career, where he became famous as a result of Four Weddings and a Funeral, he is an accomplished producer and comedian and good musician.

Scandal seems to have followed him throughout his life and I think he really has the knack to ‘step into it’ – as it were.

Grant is an ‘addictive’ golfer, albeit it very competitive and often extremely unsporting about it, a very good rugby union player who played In his Schools first team and even plays soccer.

You can have a look at Hugh’s Family Tree here.

This might be slightly late, however, rather late than never

Officially it started in the United States, West Virginia to be exact, in 1908. A young lady named Anna Jarvis was the person who got the ball rolling. Anna’s mother was very active in organizing woman’s groups that promoted friendship within the community, educated the community and did all she could to encourage the various communities to live together in harmony and peace. One has to bear in mind that this was a post war society – a war where brother fought brother. It was her dream to bring families, that had been divided by the Civil War, together. So, she came up with the idea of Mother’s day and her daughter, in 1908 got the ball rolling. Exactly one year after her mother had died - the 12th of May 1907.
So that memorial service to her mother became the first Mother’s day.

In 1914 President Woodrow Wilson declared the second Sunday of May to be the official Mother’s day.

Anna Jarvis wore a white carnation as a tribute to her mother, but the new tradition changed that and a pink carnation was worn to represent a living mother and a white one for a mother that has already passed. Some people still do that. Over the years and over continents grandmothers – and even aunts are included. (In our family, all the mothers are honoured equally). At first the day was a day to honour and show respect for mothers, but this soon turned into a massive commercialized day and cards and any flowers are now sent, as well as simple and sumptuous gifts. A glorious opportunity for the retailers worldwide.
Ironically Anna Jarvis spent the last years of her life trying to get the day abolished.

In 17th century England people who had moved away from their homes visited their mothers on the fourth Sunday of Lent and became known as “Mothering Sunday” – but celebrated earlier in the year in England. In India they celebrate Durga-puja, when the goddess Durga is honoured – and that is Mother’s day there!!

A post by Jacoba.

In ancient times no such thing existed and since we lived in tiny, closely knitted communities and we believe such information was passed on by word of mouth. Early scrolls provide scant information and as soon as they started showing up, we depended on the census records here. Once we learnt to write, we started recording everything!

Information was very difficult to find during the middle ages and it is only quite a while after Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press in 1440 that accurate records start appearing because systems improved and because there were more Bibles printed – even though these were very few and far between. Remember that books were a rarity. The Catholic Church, that ruled Europe at the time with the assistance of the Canon Law, had their hands full with persecutions, stimulation of wars and a fervent need to cleanse everyone and everything. There was little time to educate the masses – much less a need for it and they had no time to have Bibles printed for the people. It must be remembered how prominently the Catholic Church featured in the lives of our ancestors living in Europe.

Now for today and our need to record our own family trees! To start, you will need birth records or death certificates. Usually the latter records the date of birth, the cause, exact date and time of death. However, death certificates may not always have been issued in the more recently developed nations. In Australia, America and South Africa where pioneers were responsible for the birth and development of a modern nation, the Family Bibles are the most important source because very often these were the only records ever kept. Life in a wagon on a wagon trail was hard and once the pioneers arrived at their destinations, they still had to develop communities and only then built towns. The Family Bible was the only viable vehicle in which to record such vital information.

In most families, the family Bibles will contain extremely accurate information of a family tree – as well as information about where that first relative came from – and researching then becomes much easier. In Europe reasonable records were kept, often without the aid of the Family Bible – with the exception of countries where natural disasters occurred, of course – like in Holland where some of my own family records were lost when an entire town was flooded!

Nowadays we have the web and a massive amount of information can be found online. Online information does save time and endless trips to libraries, archives and government departments but more often than not one will be unable to find the detailed information contained in a Family Bible. There are millions of family Bibles all over the world and numerous American websites devoted entirely to them – but even those cannot function without the Bibles themselves.

Most Family Bibles contain more than one surname because when marriages were recorded, the full names of both bride and groom were entered, thus introducing completely new families to the family tree. In this way, one finds long forgotten links to maiden names, names of Godparents and all the baptismal records for that family. Here the birth dates will be recorded very accurately. I have even found Bibles where someone recorded the census records – a good tip for trying to locate that elusive relative is to search through census records. But to save yourself a lot of frustration, do try and find your old Family Bibles.

It is generally believed that the Khoikhoi arrived in the Cape about 2,000 years ago, having migrated South from outside South African borders. A peaceful people they were hunters gatherers.

In order to make any study of genealogy, one would need to have access to records of some kind – written records. Here the problem arises. It was only in the 19th century that two German ethnographers became the first people to write down the Khoisan folklore, belief and customs. All this information was received verbally from a few informants.

Accurate family trees for Kindo members of Khoisan descent may be more difficult to do than for some other cultural groups for the simple reason that there was no written records. The later governments did not provide for this but, largely, the nature of the way of life of this incredible people was such that it was impossible to keep track of who was born and who died and when. It is only in the last few decades that we have systems in place that ensure accurate record keeping and the many prominent leaders and educated citizens will certainly see to it.

So to the Kindo members – persevere and visit that old aunt or grandmother for the true information.

Thank you to Jacoba for her input on this article.