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One year ago, we opened the door to a world we had only just begun to discover.
We called it Daughters of Time.
What began as a place to share our family history has grown into something much more meaningful to us. A place for old photographs, names, dates and fragments of stories. A place where the people behind the names can be remembered as people, rather than simply names on a family tree.
Our journey has mainly followed three families: the Vorster family, the Du Toit family and the Kuiper family.
Each family has its own history. Each has taken us down a different road.
For the Vorster family, one of the greatest stories we have encountered is the Dorsland Trek. It is a story of people who left their homes, travelled into the unknown and built a life in Angola. A journey filled with hardship, courage, loss and survival.
We invite you to climb aboard the ox wagon and travel with Pieter Jacobus and Cecilia Johanna Vorster as they leave their home behind and set out on a difficult and courageous journey into the unknown.
You can read the Dorsland Trek series here:
The Du Toit family has taken us even further back into the past. We travelled back to the time of the Huguenots and found François du Toit, the father of the South African family. When he arrived at the Cape, he began an epic story that would continue for generations through many changes and challenges.
Follow François and his brother during their terrifying escape from Lille, and join them on their journey from Europe to the Cape by reading the series here:
And then there are the Kuipers, whose history has led us into the world of the Dutch colonies. Their story shows us a different side of the past. It reminds us that our ancestors lived in a tough world, far away from our own, where they had to fight hard to survive.
Follow the heartbreaking life of our Grietje, who always got back up and kept going, no matter how hard life knocked her down.
You can read our Kuiper series here:
Three families.
Three different histories.
And countless individual lives within them.
Over the past year, we have searched archives, studied old records, looked closely at photographs and followed clues that sometimes led somewhere and sometimes disappeared again.
We have found names we did not know. We have found photographs we had never seen. We have found connections between people separated by generations.
And sometimes, we have found questions instead of answers.
But perhaps that is what makes family history so fascinating. Because genealogy is not simply about finding out who came before us. It is about remembering that they were here.
They had names.
They had voices.
They loved people. They lost people. They made choices. They made mistakes. They had hopes for their children. They woke up each morning without knowing that one day, someone, many generations later, would be searching for them.
One of the things most people fear is being forgotten.
To live, to love, to build a life, and then one day to disappear completely from the memories of those who came after us.
And this is where genealogy becomes something more than a hobby.
Every time we find a name, we bring someone back into the story. Every time we write about them, we give their story another place to exist. Every time we speak their name, they are remembered again.
Perhaps we cannot keep our ancestors alive in the way they once were. We cannot hear their voices or see them walk through the world.
But we can remember them. We can tell their stories. We can write their names down. And as long as someone, somewhere, still says their name, a small part of them remains with us.
That may be the greatest gift family history can give. Not only discovering where we came from, but making sure that the people who came before us are not lost completely to time.
Perhaps one of the greatest gifts of all is that we get to do this together. Mother and daughter, sitting side by side across generations, searching for the generations that came before us.
We get to preserve these stories together, to add our own little piece to the family history, and to leave something behind for those who will come after us.
In a way, this is our legacy too.
Maybe one day, when our own names have found their place among all the others in our family trees, someone will look back and wonder about the two women who spent so much time searching for the people who came before them.
That is when our part of the story will become someone else’s family history.
But for now, there are still stories to find.
One year ago, we began with a family tree.
In that year, we found stories.
And behind those stories, we have found people.
The search continues.
There are still photographs waiting to be understood. Documents waiting to be found. Mysteries waiting to be solved. And names waiting to be spoken.
So, on our first anniversary, we look back with gratitude for everything this first year has brought us. And we look forward to everything that is still waiting in the past.
Happy first anniversary, Daughters of Time.
Here’s to another year of finding the forgotten, telling their stories, and keeping their names alive.