West Gauteng branch meeting 18th August 2012

 Penny Evans

Neels Coertse

Neels Coertse spoke about how to interview someone in order to obtain information about family history. He emphasized the importance of preparing for the interview and knowing exactly what you wanted to get from the interview.

Questions should be written down and should aim at obtaining answers to the” who, what, why and when”. This preparation will allow you to structure the interview.

One should read up as widely as possible in order to obtain background information. Collect as much information from a variety of sources. Going back to where family had lived and finding people who could remember the family. Remain flexible and adjust your approach according to whom you are interviewing.

Care is needed where information is sensitive.

An interview can be recorded on your cell phone . The Legacy program has a section that deals with interviews.

Brigadier Fred van Niekerk, detective of note 

Charl ten Oever

Neels Coertse was followed by Charl ten Oever, our guest speaker. Charl is the grandson of the well known and respected detective Brigadier Fred van Niekerk, who served in the SA Police Force for 41 years.

He started as a young constable and worked his way up to brigadier level. Brigadier Fred van Niekerk, at 6’ 5’’ and weighing 103 kg, was a man of stature both physically and figuratively.

He was an excellent investigating officer, involved in solving many of the famous criminal cases such as the Maria Lee murder case (she poisoned her husband). This took a year and a half to solve and involved interviewing 150 witnesses.

Brigadier Fred van Niekerk

The panga man case, where the perpetrator, Phineas Tshitaundzi left footprints of his deformed toes, which eventually lead to his arrest. The Castle Mansions case, Volkskas Bank thefts and thousands of other cases. During the time when Dr Verwoerd was Prime Minister he was a captain and head of security.

He acted as body guard to Dag Hammarskjöld on his visit to South Africa. He was held in high esteem by his colleagues in the Police Force. He passed away in 1982. Charl concluded his talk by listing the values his grandfather had lived by. Charl fondly remembers his Oupa Fred as someone who sat on the stoep reading the daily newspapers.