South African Genealogy?

Verena Koop: It depends on what kind of genealogy research you wish to conduct.South African universities have a very good reputation when it comes to genetic lineage traces. Not the least of which because it is one of the probable areas where humans first evolved. If you want to pinpoint where your ancestors came from, they will give you a DNA test, send it to Witswatersrand, and return the results to you within a month. Tests cost around 2,000 rands, so this information does not come cheap. Many paternity testing services, such as EasyDNA, can do ancestry tests as well. So that's where I would start if you want to go through that route.http://www.easydna.co.za/Ancestral-origins-dna-anc...When it comes to tracing your last name, however, South Africa is spotty at best. Centuries of war and regime changes have destroyed many of the relevant records. Data from the early censuses are pretty much gone for good. The Department of Home Affairs has fairly accurate records of bi! rths, marriages, and deaths from around the 1890s onward though. If you have your grandparents' names, you can request a full certificate for them and proceed from there. Other areas you might want to look into are court records. property transfers, church rolls, and military records. Your provincial "Masters of the Supreme Court" will have documents about wills and estates. You can request service records from the SANDF if you have names and dates. But don't expect them to have anything from before 1910.You can contact the Genealogical Society for their advice as well:http://gensa.info.www19.jnb2.host-h.net/...Show more

Lizzette Wendroth: You had better consult the embassy and to take advice from them.They will teach you some useful information such as library and so on.Some cost will be needed.

Lourie Mcroberts: You need to provide us with more specific details to get a good answer, e.g. were your grandparents from South Africa?There is not much online for So! uth Africa specifically compared with other countries. You cou! ld start with ancestry24.com which is a site specifically developed for South African genealogy but still quite new. You could also post your specific queries in their forum.You could also have a look at genesreunited.co.uk, ancestry.com and awt.ancestry.com (Ancestry World Tree), with a bit of luck you might find someone else has already done some work on your family they can share with you.You might be able to get some info for free but as a rule it will cost you something, the more info you want the more it will cost you....Show more