Retief Family Genealogy

The du Plessis Line

civil record

Izelle’s paternal line — the daughters’ du Plessis side. Until recently it was a wall: Martinis Petrus du Plessis (b. 1 March 1952, Koffiefontein), Izelle’s father, sits in the privacy-protected, sparsely-indexed band of post-1945 South African civil records and is not found in public FamilySearch records or trees.

The 1951 Koffiefontein civil marriage record broke the wall, naming Josef “Jopie” Johannes Fourie du Plessis and Francina Carolina Meades — married 5 May 1951 at Koffiefontein, certificate no. 6, Ned. Geref. Kerk, officiant C. Halbig. Jopie’s own exact vitals 11 October 1914 – 22 September 2006 come from his FamilySearch profile (G2N2-8K3), which is attached to that marriage record.

From there the line is now documented three further generations up:

The naming echo on this line is loud: Marthinus Petrus (1878) → Marthinus Petrus Jr. (1908, Luckhoff) → Martinis Petrus (1952). Three generations of the same first two names.

The “Fourie” middle name that Jopie carries — long a puzzle — is now most plausibly commemoration of the Boer martyr Josef Johannes “Jopie” Fourie, executed by court-martial on 20 December 1914. Jopie du Plessis was born ten months after that execution. Once Marthinus’s wife was known to be Jansen van Rensburg (not Fourie), the alternative “maternal-surname carry-forward” reading became much less likely. See the thread for both readings.

Open thread — du Plessis middle. The next rung is Herklaas’s parents. Above them lies a still-untraced gap of ~5 generations back to the noble Huguenot stamvader Jean Prieur du Plessis (1638 Poitiers; Oosterland 1688).

Line-up: Martinis Petrus du Plessis (1952) → Jopie du Plessis (1914–2006) × Francina Meades → Marthinus Petrus du Plessis (1878–1963) × Martha Jansen van Rensburg → Herklaas Gerhardus du Plessis (1845–1929) × Louisa Koen → gap → Jean Prieur du Plessis (1638, Poitiers).

People in this line