TOPIC:

Good day,

I was wondering if anyone could assist me; I'm trying to find any more information about my great-great-grandfather who apparently joined the Commandos of the Boer War. One major problem in the search is that of the spelling of his name since several variants exist; Jan or Johannes or even John for the first name and van Brumlen / van Brumelen / van Brummelen for the surname.

After many months searching Death Estate records and the South African National Archives and getting some great assistance from distant family members I finally managed to find his Death Notice record here on FamilySearch.org (a free account registration is required to view it). Most importantly, the next page (viewed by clicking the next button or just click here ) shows an affidavit written by his wife, my great-great-grandmother, Susara Maria Venter, in 1907.

I previously came across this article on this forum while searching for him; which contains some amazing old photos and it caught my interest.

The death notice I linked above shows that my great-great-grandfather was a "stock and agricultural farmer" before joining the Commandos so all of this implies that he actually lived in Ficksburg, Orange Free State, South Africa and then married my great-great-grandmother, meaning that he was not actually one of the Dutch Volunteers of the Hollander Corps whereas I got the impression that the man on the photos (linked on the article above) was in fact a direct volunteer to the war.

Also, the following page after the death notice (i.e. the affidavit) shows that my ancestor was reported as having died at sea by a friend of his, one "Willemse", on their way to Ceylon as Prisoners of War.

I found this article that seems to confirm that the Van Brummelen shown on the above-linked photos was a different one, who in fact survived the war and travelled afterwards with General Maritz to Madagascar and eventually went back to the Netherlands.

I would really appreciate any more information (if it exists) about what specific regiment/s my ancestor would have been a part of, about Prisoner of War Passenger Lists (which might have his name on it), the names of ships which travelled to Ceylon at that time, from which ports, or if there's any way of knowing the full name of the Willemse who claimed to be his friend as I've found several such names via the name search which indicate it may have been a Adam Christiaan Willemse, but he was rather young compared to our ancestor who was about 31 years of age at the time. Either way my thinking was that this apparent friend might lead to more information about him.

If anyone could recommend any source material, any books or articles which may reveal any more information about our "Johannes van Brumlen" then that would be great.

Either way it's a sad but fascinating tale as revealed by the Death Notice and Affidavit. They shared one child together, my great-grandmother, Ernestina Reinetha van Brumlen. Susara Maria went on to marry a P. Lecler (referring to herself as Sarah Maria Lecler, widow of John van Brumelen - most likely altering their names to the English versions in hopes it would more easily gain approval of the magistrate in Vryburg, South Africa). I am still in search for more information about a Mr P. Lecler just for reference but this is proving quite the challenge.

Other Sources:

1 - Consent Letter by Mother Sarah
2 - Consent Letter by Stepfather P. Lecler
3 - Mother as a witness to daughters first marriage
4 - Potential death notice for Susara Maria Lecler, mistakenly noted as having been born as van Deventer

Thank you in advance.

Hi Larnyjeaney,

Welcome to the forum; you have made an excellent start with your research.

Another very useful website is this one:
wmbr.org.za/database-search/

If your relative was taken POW then he should show up in the database.

However, I tried the variants you supplied but had no luck.

I recommend you try a few more variants; if you do get a hit(s) then compare the age and date of capture to his death certificate.

Good luck and keep trying.

Johannes (Jan) van Brummelen was a foreign volunteer from Holland. Brummelen is the correct spelling. Van Brummelen was a Field Cornet who was with Jan Smuts deep in the Cape Colony. You may want to get a copy of "General Jan Smuts and his long ride"(Taffy and David Shearing) as your ancestor was a.o. involved in the famous (notorious if you are a rooinek) Dynamite train at O'Okiep.

Hi @EFV, thanks for the book recommendation. I'm aware of the correct Brummelen spelling as it's indicated as the most popular variation in the Dutch archives.

However as I explained in my first post above already; I've found evidence to the fact that there were several van Brummelens taking part in the Boer War at the time. I referred to "our Johannes van Brumlen" to specify my ancestor in context because that is how his name was spelt on his death certificate, and as such to distinguish between the different "Jan van Brummelens" since my ancestor apparently died at sea in 1902 on the way to Ceylon. And so I don't think it's the same person who fought alongside Jan Smuts.

I have even found a death certificate referring to yet another Johannes van Brummelen who had a brother Peter, but as you can see here on the previous page, this death notice was cancelled since apparently he was found to be alive later.

Thank you @Sturgy - yes I've tried that website, it does return results for "Van Brummelen" but you need to first refresh the page in order for it to return any other results if running subsequent searches again.

The "foreign volunteers" result for Johannes does not give any useful information unfortunately, but the "Prisoner of War" result for Pieter does return more information. I'm still led to believe that these two van Brummelens from the search results were brothers ( source ) and that that particular Johannes van Brummelen is the same person as shown on the photos here but is not my ancestor, who happens to have the same / very similar name.

Simply, there is more evidence showing that multiple Johannes van Brummelens took part in the War at the time.

Also, the photos on the link above were apparently taken in April 1902, whereas my ancestor was reported to have died at sea around March 1902 as is written on his death certificate.

Hi,

Unfortunately I tried a number of different variants in the search engines but could not locate anyone taken as a POW and subsequently died at sea; I couldn't get a close match even when I searched "Brum" or "Brem".

My gut feeling is that Mr Willemse erred when he stated that he was taken as a POW in 1902 and subsequently died at sea.

Your initial search was quite comprehensive and you have used the same databases that we all use; sorry about that.