Posted on September 17, 2012
Family history is not always straightforward. Just about every family has a few skeletons in its closet, a couple of secrets. Sometimes there's a child who's whispered to look rather too much like a neighbour, a mother who's not 'confessed' to a previous marriage or a 'missing' father who turns out to be an inmate in a far-off prison. Family histories have their mysteries too: what exactly was a grandmother doing in a particular place at a particular time or whatever happened to an uncle who went missing in the city? Family histories also have their legends, the richly embroidered tales of family members or events that are passed down from one generation to another, with scant attention to factual accuracy.
When a particular family history is linked to that of a community all sorts of opportunities exist for the 'facts' to be blurred or exaggerated in favour of a spicier story. Sometimes though, the simple truth is that a story that offers a reasonable explanation and has gained status as it is told and retold by countless people or disseminated via the internet bears no relation to the archival record.
Consider the mystery of Alexandra. Every account of the history of Alexandra begins with a mention of Mr HB Papenfus, the attorney who, a century ago, purchased the farm Cyferfontein 2 on which the township now stands. Papenfus divided the farm into 338 lots, two parks and a square and set about selling the lots to white buyers. There were no takers, so the plans were redrawn and stands were advertised for sale to natives and coloured persons'. The new township was known as Alexandra, as was the Township Company that sold the plots.
Who is, or was, Alexandra? It is generally said that Alexandra was Papenfus's wife who, according to Linda Twala, son of one of the original inhabitants, 'loved Africans'. This is the story that has found its way unquestioned into just about every history of Alexandra and is told by just about every guide offering a tour of the area.
But here's the mystery: none of Mr Papenfus's immediate female relatives were named Alexandra. His wife was Ethel Mary, his sister Katherine Mary, and his daughters Ethel Mary and Irene Alice. Similarly his cousin, or possibly brother, who worked with him also had no female relatives named Alexandra. Well and good one may say, the name Alexandra may have had some other association, or been selected for another reason altogether.
The mystery deepens with Papenfus's last will and testament. This and the inventory of his assets compiled in December 1937 contain two seemingly unrelated clues to the identity of the mysterious Alexandra. Firstly, in this document he bequeathed his assets to his children procreated in wedlock. Secondly, his shares in the Alexandra Township Company do not appear – it seems that these were disposed of earlier. Searching for a clue to this mystery Noor Nieftagodien and Phil Bonner uncovered an unlikely archival source, the unpublished journal of James Stevenson-Hamilton, Papenfus's close friend, better known for the role he played in the establishment of the Kruger Park. Stevenson-Hamilton records a visit he made to Papenfus's widow shortly after her husband's untimely death in a car accident. He found the widow in an angry mood, angry because it appears that Papenfus had left a paltry sum of money to his family while his prize asset, the Alexandra Township Company, had been made over in its entirety to his former typist. Papenfus had fathered the typist's child 30 years before!
There is no record of the gender of this child but it seems highly possible that it was a girl named Alexandra. But this is only supposition. More work needs to be done in the archives to trace the secretary and her descendents before the mystery can be said to have been solved.
Family histories, family mysteries demonstrate the importance of the records that confirm the details of births, marriages and deaths which can play a role in unravelling complicated family relationships.
For more information see Alexandra: A History by Phillip Bonner and Noor Nieftagodien, Wits University Press, 2008.
For more information about family history records see the Ancestry 24 website http://www.ancestry24.com.
Jo-Anne Duggan is the director of the Archival Platform.