The Spine
From David Defranceski's grandmother back to a man with no dates and no parents. The descent is continuous and the tree is unusually well sourced — but it ends abruptly, and two links inside it are in dispute.
The descent
Generations counted upward from David Defranceski. His mother Cheryl Anne Lerena is living, so she is named with her relationships and nothing more, as he is.
This is the spine only. For everyone else the archive names — siblings, cousins, godparents, witnesses and in-laws — see Everyone, which is searchable by name, place, year or spelling variant.
Two of these men married twice, and in both cases the second wife was found long after the first had been written down. Both second marriages are given in the Married column; the ancestor chart has one slot for a mother and can only draw one of them. The chart →
- Generation7
Gerthardus Lodewikus Booysen and Magdelena Elisabeth De Beer (1754–1843)
The joint here will not bear weight. He has no birth date, no death date, no father and no mother. He exists because a clerk wrote his name on his son's 1876 death notice - and de Villiers's printed Cape genealogy puts that son under a father called Jan instead. One primary document signed by a son, against a printed genealogy agreeing with itself. How it was narrowed →
no dates, no parents — but both names now DOCUMENTED, on his son's 1876 death notice
- Generation6
Petrus Jacobus Booysen and Anna Maria van der Merwe (1785 – bef. Mar 1825)
bornc. 21 Sep 1788, Graaff-Reinetdied1 Sep 1876, district Rustenburgmarried1805 Graaff-Reinetdocumented
married at about seventeen; died a widower in the Transvaal with nothing to leave · and Elizabetha van der Merwe — DOCUMENTED, named as the mother on their son Hendrik Stephanus’s 1908 death notice
- Generation5
Petrus Jacobus Booysen and Johanna Catharina Mountjoy (30 Apr 1819 – 19 May 1863)
born10 May 1812, Graaff-Reinetdied1884 (probate)married4 Nov 1838 Cradock
died fifteen years before the war began; signed his wife's death notice · and Johanna Margaritha Pretorius — DOCUMENTED, named by the 1870 Doop Register and by nothing else
- Generation4
Willem Hermanus “William Henry” Booyzen and Catherine Maria Sophia “Kathleen” Barry (1859–1940)
born4 May 1851, achter Sneeubergdied13 Sep 1905, Indwetradefarmer in 1879, mason in 1905married22 Dec 1879documented
parentage DOCUMENTED by two registers; died of a stomach ulcer
- Generation3
George Downing Mountjoy Booyzen and Anna Johanna Maria Pretorius (1906–1944)
born1 Jun 1901, Cape Provincedied11 Dec 1947, Forest HilltradeSouth African Railways & Harboursmarried30 Dec 1924 Vereeniging
married his first cousin once removed
- Generation2
Catherine Mary Sophia Booyzen and Nuno Fernando Lerena (1924–1971)
born25 Mar 1929died25 Dec 2013, Johannesburgmarried15 Jan 1949, St Joseph’s, Mayfair
orphaned at eighteen; the hinge to the Lerena archive
All from the MyHeritage tree Defranceski Family Site (23andMe), read 9 September 2026. Most dates there carry a FamilySearch citation to Dutch Reformed Church registers or to Cape and Transvaal probate records; those citations are listed on Sources.
Where it stops, and why that is the whole problem
Gerthardus Lodewikus Booysen has no birth date, no death date, no father and no mother. MyHeritage offers the buttons "Add father" and "Add mother", and there is nothing behind them. Seven generations up, the male line simply ends.
15 SEPTEMBER 2026 — AND THAT CLERK IS NOW THE ONLY THING HOLDING THIS ROW UP. De Villiers's printed Cape genealogy of 1893 places this Petrus Jacobus under a father called JAN, and Riël Smit confirms that de Villiers & Pama’s 1981 revision still does. Pieter van Zyl searched for a marriage between a Gerhardus Lodewicus and a Magdalena de Beer and found none. Jan was dead more than forty years before Petrus Jacobus died. And the disputed name sits nine lines lower on the same sheet: line 12 of that notice lists eight children and the fifth is JAN GERTHARDUS LODEWIKUS BOOIJSEN — so the name in the parents' box is the back half of a son's name, and the half that was dropped is Jan. The man who signed it was Hendrik Stefanus, the seventh child, born about 1828, writing the name of a grandfather dead before he was ten.
This row has deliberately not been changed. Everything against him is a printed genealogy agreeing with its own earlier edition, which is one source agreeing with itself; what he has is a primary document signed by a son. Jan Booijsen is on this site as INFERRED, not documented, and he is not in the table above. What ends it is the baptism entry of 21 September 1788, which is at Cape Town and is not on FamilySearch — that collection begins in 1843. How it was narrowed →
That converts an assertion into a record. It does not add a generation. The buttons above him are still empty, the dates below are still arithmetic, and the question of who his own parents were is exactly as open as it was.
What can be said is arithmetic rather than evidence. His wife Magdelena Elisabeth De Beer was born in 1754 and his son in 1788 — the second of those is now confirmed by an age of 88 on a document of 1876. He was therefore probably born somewhere around 1745–1760 — which places him precisely in the generation that would connect to the documented Cape progenitor of the surname.
That progenitor is known independently of this family. Boij Boijeszoon — in modern spelling Boy Booysen — came into Dutch East India Company service from Barlt, in Northern Friesland, Schleswig-Holstein, and settled at Stellenbosch and Drakenstein in the mid-seventeenth century. Inferred Every South African Booysen is presumed to descend from him. This family's link to him is not demonstrated here, and must not be assumed. The name →
The other line — through his mother
The male line stops at generation 7 with a man who has no dates. The line through Johanna Catharina Mountjoy runs a generation deeper, and every step of it is now on paper.
| Name | Born | Died | Carried by |
|---|---|---|---|
| James Montjoy saddler at Cradock;
his parents recorded as Not Known | c. 1782, "Europe" | Sep 1827, Cradock | His 1840 death notice, KAB MOOC 6/9/21: 4393 |
| Anna Catharina Sleer his wife, m.
9 Mar 1817 Graaff-Reinet; previously widow of William Pietersen | 1787 | 1885 — aged 98 | The 1840 death notice; the 1817 marriage index |
| Johanna Catharina Mountjoy m. Petrus
Jacobus Booysen, 4 Nov 1838 Cradock | 30 Apr 1819, Graaff-Reinet | 19 May 1863, Zevenfontein | Her 1863 death notice, KAB MOOC 6/9/104: 499 |
| Willem Hermanus Booyzen generation 4
of the line above — her fifth child | 4 May 1851, achter Sneeuberg | 13 Sep 1905, Indwe | His 1851 baptism; his mother's 1863 death notice |
Her age on the 1863 form is given as "44 years & 19 days" when the form asked only for years — which fixes her birth at 30 April 1819. And Willem Hermanus is the fifth of the eight children listed on that form, which is how the Mountjoy descent enters this family: through his mother, not his father.
This line stops for a different reason than the Booysen one. It does not run out of records — it runs out of memory. Asked for James Montjoy's parents in 1840, thirteen years after his death, a relative who knew his trade, his house and its value wrote "Not Known." The 1840 notice →
Two links inside the line are in dispute
Willem Hermanus — now settled
Documented The tree doubted its own date. The 1905 death registration confirms it: he died at Doorn Street, Indwe, on 13 September 1905, of a stomach ulcer after fourteen months' illness. His son David Schalk, recorded born 1907, therefore still cannot be his — that child, not the date, is the error. The document →
Johanna Catharina died when?
Her death at Zevenfontein on 19 May 1863 is supported by a probate record. But Izak (1864) and Stephanus Francois (1875) are both recorded as her sons. They cannot be. Inferred Petrus Jacobus almost certainly remarried, and the second wife is missing from the tree entirely.
Neither breaks the descent to David — both sit on side branches — but both are warnings about how the tree was assembled. The full list →
Catherine's brothers and sisters
The children of George Downing Mountjoy Booyzen — six by Anna Pretorius, then two by Gertruida Kinnear.
| Name | Born | Died |
|---|---|---|
| Willem Hermanus “Willy” | 15 Oct 1925 | 1996 |
| Margaretha Wilhelmina Elizabeth “Maggie” | 14 Oct 1926 | 1966 |
| Catherine Mary Sophia | 25 Mar 1929 | 25 Dec 2013 |
| Anna Johanna Maria (Vermaak) | 12 Oct 1930 | deceased |
| Georgina Jeanette (Boshoff) | 22 Sep 1932, Johannesburg | deceased |
| Petrus Jacobus “Piet” | 10 Jan 1934, Johannesburg | 2003 |
| Gertrude Elizabeth | 11 May 1946 | 15 May 1946 — four days, Queen Victoria Hospital |
| Gertrude | 11 May 1947 | 11 May 1947 — six hours, Turf Club Nursing Home |
The documents that carry the line itself, generation by generation.
The full bibliography, with what each source gave and where it is weak →