The Missing Pieces

In November 2025, we posted our progress on the Vorster website, where we had the second and third wives of my Vorster grandfather added, as well as the children he had with them.

It was not only about adding people to the website, but we also wanted to add dates. Note how my grandfather’s birth year was 1903, but there was no death year, which now, in 2026, would make him 123 years old. Impossible. We wanted to add dates, information, images. We wanted to make the picture complete. For too long, our line of Vorsters had been neglected.

Adding dates of death

Back in 2020/2021, when I first discovered the Vorster website and that first son of my grandfather, I asked my father whether he knew about him. The way he answered made me understand two things: he didn’t, and I wasn’t allowed any further questions. He couldn’t handle more pain than his parents, especially his mother, had already put him through.

I left it at that, but with our research now, we know Pieter Jacobus Vorster (b. 9 December 1903) married Maria Magdalena Johanna Opperman (b. 12 February 1902) on 25 February 1924 in Angola.

Their son, who carried the same name as his father and his paternal grandfather, was born on 11 October 1928 (sadly, the document is no longer available on FamilySearch) and died before 20 November 1928. Why before then? Because his name wasn’t on the list together with his parents when they embarked on the return journey from Angola to South West Africa.

I had asked the webmasters of the Vorster website to add his date of death as ‘before December 1928’, but they put it as ‘December 1928’, and I left it as that.

I asked them to show the death date of my grandfather’s first wife, Maria Magdalena Johanna Opperman, as before 1929, as my grandfather married my grandmother, Anna Johanna Dorothea Nel (b. 1911), in 1929. We assumed the first wife of Pieter Jacobus Vorster (b. 1903) didn’t survive the trek back to South West Africa.

Adding spouses

Now, as you can see from the first image above, I had all my grandfather’s children added to the website. The next step was to have all the spouses added. That took quite some doing. I sent all the names at once, then monitored the website every couple of days to see whether the names had been added.

For two weeks, nothing happened, so I sent a reminder. Some time later, two spouses were added. I waited another week, thanked them for the names added, and asked them when the rest would be added. Three more names appeared, but they missed out on the last one. I sent two more mails, but that last name just didn’t appear. I finally gave up, started an entirely new email, and asked them to add just that one name. By now, almost three months had passed, and finally, the names of the six spouses, which included my dear mom, were on the website.

This experience taught me one lesson, though: never send so much information in one email. From then on, I did it per couple. I started with the oldest couple, sent the details of their children, then frequently checked the website. Sometimes it updated the next day; other times, it took weeks, but once it was done, I sent off the next email.

This is where we are now. I haven’t worked on this for about three months, maybe four now, and have to get back to it. It’s not like I haven’t been busy with it. I’ve been contacting family members for information. Remember, the last line I’ve added are all still alive, and we are dealing with privacy issues. Not all of them want their details on there. Whereas MyHeritage (where we also have a family tree) automatically keeps the information of those who are alive private, the Vorster website doesn’t do the same.

This might, therefore, be as far as we go on the Vorster website, but you can always request membership of our MyHeritage if you descend from one of the same lines we do.