Did you know that the town Willowmore was founded by a distant relative of yours?
Willowmore was originally established as a trading centre called The Willows owned by William Moore. William Moore is your 3rd great great uncle. He was Eleanor Moore’s brother, your 3rd great grandmother.
Background to William Moore
Moore arrived at the Cape Colony (as the Cape was called in those days) on 30 April 1820 with his wife Margaret, his father William Moore Snr, mother Ann Dove (or Duff) and his sister Eleanor Moore. The family emigrated from England as part of the 1820 British Settler Program. Source:- British South Africa; a history of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope page 179.
It says:-
Per [Ship] “Zoroaster” arrived at Simon’s Bay 30 April 1820 with Wait’s Party, Middlesex.
SETTLER (AGE) WIFE (AGE) CHILD (AGE)
Moore, William (44) Ann (48) Eleanor (19)
Moore, William, jun (25) Margaret (24)
William Moore Jnr. wife Margaret died soon after the arrival at the Cape. On 2 July 1827 at Uitenhage William Moore married a local girl called Petronella Catharina Terblanche.
William Moore was given land to farm near Baviaanskloof in the eastern Cape. He established a trading store and called it The Willows.
The town of Willowmore (Willow-Moore) was founded in 1864 when William Moore and his son-in-law and business partner Frederick Lehmkuhl donated land to the Dutch Reformed Church. The Dutch Reformed congregation was established in Willowmore in 1864. In 1874 a magistracy was established and Willowmore became a municipality in 1884.
His sister, Eleanor Moore married George Smith on 9 September 1821 in Uitenhage. George Smith was born in England approximately 1794 . I am not sure when he arrived at the Cape. From 1816 to 1818 he was working at the Cape and was employed by Mr. Maré. In the „Records of the Cape“, it is noted in his desposition, on 16 February 1825 at Uitenhage, that George Smith and Stephen Jefferson (2nd husband of Eleanor Moore) were both Government Boatmen and lived in Port Elizabeth. They went fishing in the Modderspruit River and into the bay to fish. He said they caught the best fish in the river at Modderspruit.
George Smith and Eleanor Moore had 4 children.
Their second son, George Smith (your direct line) was born on 11 July 1823 in Port Elizabeth and baptised at the NGK Uitenhage on 22 February 1824.
George Smith Snr. died at a young age of 32, on 21 August 1826 in the Cape Colony. He died before his youngest daughter, Ann Elizabeth Smith, was born on 19 September 1826. Eleanor was left to bring up 4 children all under the age of 4 years. On 4 June 1827 in Port Elizabeth, Eleanor married Stephen Jefferson from England, a work colleague of her first husband.
Eleanor and Stephen had two daughters Mary Ann Jefferson (*1829 Port Elizabeth; † 16 June 1918 in Pietermaritzburg) and Emma Elizabeth Frances Jefferson, born 11 November 1831. Emma married Isaac Parkin. I assume this is where the „Parkin“ that appears in the family, for example Howard Parkin Ferreira comes from.
Stephen Jefferson died in 1832 in Port Elizabeth. Eleanor Moore married her third husband George Rye in 1837. They had one daughter Sarah Ann Rye.
Your 2nd great grandfather George Smith Jnr. married Gertruida Susanna Jerling, daughter of Johan Jacob Jerling and Gertruida Susanna Smith, in Port Elizabeth on 17 March 1847. Their first born child was named Eleanor Gertruida Smith (your great grand-mother), she was born on 25 May 1847 in Port Elizabeth and died on 21 July 1898 in Steytlerville.
She married Johan Nicolaas Barkhuizen on 13 April 1874 in Uniondale. Their 6th child was your grandmother Martha Maria Barkhuizen who was born on the Farm Spreeufontein in Steytlerville and she was baptised on 28 June 1885 at Willowmore Dutch reformed church. She died in Durban on 30 April 1971.
Martha Maria Barkhuizen married Thomas Ignatius Ferreira on 15 November 1904 in Rouxville, Orange Free State.
This is a page out of the Willowmore NG church marriage book from 1885. Note how the town was written as Willow-Moore.