The Van Zyl Line

civil record

The maternal grandfather’s line. Johan Wilhelm Albertus van Zyl (b. 1920) is anchored independently of the family tree by two real-world artefacts in the family’s keeping: his 1942 Johannesburg driver’s licence and his 1955 South African identity card, both of which match the FamilySearch profile (GLMV-MXY) exactly and place him in Johannesburg by the early 1940s. He married Anna Susanna Margrietha Fuller at Jacobsdal in the Free State on 6 January 1945 (civil record).

The line climbs one generation further to Jacobus Lodewyk van Zyl (b. 1879), who married Sophia Willemina Jacoba van Niekerk in the Western Cape on New Year’s Day 1907 — confirming that the family was still Cape-based as late as 1907, before the move north.

Open thread: Jacobus Lodewyk’s profile carries twelve sources but lists no parents. The longer Van Zyl ancestry up to the stamvader Willem van Zyl of Vrede en Lust (1668 Delft → 1699 Cape) is not yet bridged. This is the most concrete climbing challenge on the maternal side.

Line up: Johanna Jacomina Elizabeth van Zyl (1949) → Johan Wilhelm Albertus van Zyl (1920) → Jacobus Lodewyk van Zyl (1879) → dead end.

People in this line

• Jacobus Lodewyk van Zyl family tree b. 1879
• Johan Wilhelm Albertus van Zyl civil record b. 1920
• Johanna Jacomina Elizabeth van Zyl family-confirmed 1949–2019