The South African Family STRYDOM - The Beginnings
Joost Strijdom
arrived at the Cape of Good Hope in 1678 as an adelborst
(marine cadet) on a Dutch East India Company (VOC) ship, the Tidore.
Prior to joining the VOC he had been at Liefkenshoek.
Joost was released from the company service on 11th
May, 1683, and worked at the Cape as a shoemaker (cobbler) [ Despite the
reference to this occupation in all the oldest genealogies, no direct archival
information has yet been found to support this]. He married Maryna Ras,
who was baptized in Cape Town on 23rd June 1669, the daughter of Hans Ras, immigrant from Angeln, and
Catharina Ustinx (the historically known Trijn Ras). They had ten children, but we only have
information on descendants of two of them, Matthys
and Johannes, who are the progenitors of the two branches of the Strydom family
(accessed
here). Maryna died before 1714, most likely during the small pox epidemic
at the Cape in 1713, since Joost remarried Susanna
Groen, the widow of Jacobus Steen, on 11th
February,1714. Joost was still living in 1717, when his name appears on a
list of civilians employed at the Cape by the VOC in 1717/18 (archive number 12605,
recorded by Lesley Robertson), and still participated as an auction buyer in
late 1718.
There
is a Fort Liefkenshoek in Kallo
(now part of the village of Beveren), in 
present-day
Belgium, which together with the fort of Lillo, was established for the defense
of Antwerpen against the Spaniards towards the end of
the 16th century.
It was named Liefkenshoek (Liefken’s Corner), since it was placed where a creek, the Liefkine, entered the river Schelde. This area is also known as the Waasland, and it is probably the place Joost
came from when he joined the VOC. Liefkenshoek saw much action during the 80-Year War, and
peace was only established at the middle of the 17th century, about 30 years
before Joost left for the Cape. It is still a tourist attraction, but the
buildings are relatively new - early 19th century [Photos: Rinus
Strydom, 2009]. Marthie Bredenkamp found
references to a small number of Strydoms and 
related
van Strydonks (various spellings) in 17th
Century Waasland, among others specifically mentioned
in relation to Liefkenshoek. This has led to a relatively concrete
designation of the Waasland region of modern Belgium
as the origin of the Strydom family.
The “van Strijdonck” surname,
which was exclusively located in the Waasland region
near Antwerp in the 16th and 17th centuries, has a
connection with the Strydom surname through Joost’s
father, Joris van Strijdonk.
With one weak connection a few generations further back, we can actually take
the van Strydonk family line back into the 15th
century, all in the same ancient Waasland region. The
work of Han Leune in Belgium (published on the web
2012-2013) has been instrumental in providing this information. 
He
provides background information in: J.M.G. Leune,
LILLO EN LIEFKENSHOEK: De geschiedenis van twee Scheldeforten 1585-1786, Algemeen
Rijksarchief, Brussel, 2006. He has collected and organized information on
the people who lived around these forts in the 17th century - the
most pertinent one for the Strydoms is: J.M.G. Leune, LILLO EN LIEFKENSHOEK, Repertorium
van personen in en nabij deze Scheldeforten
1585-1786 - namen P-S, Capelle
a.d. IJssel, webversie december
2012. The only known copy of a copy of
the baptismal register of Liefkenshoek in the 17th
century was much used by Leune and contains
transcriptions of the baptisms of Joos Strijdonk and his family:
J.M.G. Leune, Doopboek van de fortkerk
van Liefkenshoek 1622-1706 zoals gekopieerd door Jan Jansen Leerdam in 1764, zoals gekopieerd door Jozef De Wilde
ca. 1930, zoals bewerkt
door Paul Jacobs en Mariet
Van den Broecke in 2004, en
ingeleid en aangepast door Han Leune in maart 2012. [De door Jozef De Wilde vervaardigde kopie berust in het archief van de Koninklijke Oudheidkundige Kring van het Land van Waas
(KOKW) te Sint-Niklaas onder
nummer OKW A doos 116 map
1077.]
We can therefor now place Joris Joossen Strijdonk and Mayeken Goverts, both born in the Waasland around 1620, as parents of Joost Strijdom. Good candidates for Joris’s parents are Joos (Judocus) Strijdonk, *1571 (Bazel, Kruibeke) † 11.11.1639 (Bazel, Kruibeke) and Margriet van der Eynde, daughter of Joris van der Eynde, but we need definitive data before we could accept this. Joos (1571) is person number a3b1c5d3 on the page discussing Strydom surname origins - Van Strijdonk. Joost Strydom (1741) was the eldest child and had a number of siblings - Jaquemyntjie, Govert, Huybrecht, Aeltie, Jannen, and Joes. He also had an uncle Huybrect Strijdonk with his wife Magriete Simonse Strijdom and cousin Simon, who were apparently close to Joris & Mayeken.
Today the spelling “Strydom” is nearly always used, following the Afrikaans spelling convention, although some usage of Strijdom still occurs, and in records from the 19th and 18th centuries many still use the old Dutch spelling. Joost signed as “Joos Strijdom”, in a very neat signature:
Joost’s second
wife, Susanna Groen
(1655-1718), married Johannes Cornelisz de Hoogh in 1676 in Delft, and they had had one surviving
daughter, Johanna (Anna), *1684. As
widow Susanna Jacobs Groen she married Jacob(us) van der Steen in Delft in 1691 (The
record of their “ondertrouw” (bans) is dated 27th
January, 1691 at the Nieuwe
Kerk, Delft). They baptized a girl, Adrijana, on 11th November, 1691 (Delft);
witnesses were his parents Abraham van der Steen and Adrijana
van der Steen (aka Adriena Andries
van Hartevelt). Her inventory (1718, Tafelvallei; MOOC 8/3.78, 3.79, 3.80a, TANAP
transcriptions) mentions her daughter Adriana van der Steen (husband Frederik
de Vries), grandsons Johannes and Christoffel
Pythius (children of her late daughter Anna de Hoogh), and her Strydom step-children. (MOOC = Master of
the Orphan Chamber; TANAP = Towards a New Age of Partnership,
National Archives of the Netherlands and Leiden University - TEPC project by
Universities of the Western Cape and Cape Town).
Joost’s mother-in-law, Trijn Ras (Catharina Ustinx), was an interesting figure at the Cape (see i.a. C. Pretorius, “Trijn Ras”, Historia 18(2), pg 93-96, 1973). She apparently was of Danish extraction, arriving at the Cape out of Lubeck in the southern late summer of 1662 as a young widow (about 20 years old) on the ship 't Hoff van Zeelant. That spring, on the 3rd September 1662, she married Hans Ras, who nearly died in a knife fight with a wedding guest on their wedding day, but survived to father 4 children (including Maryna), before he was killed by a lion in 1671. She remarried on the 16th April 1672, to Francoys Schanfellaar, from Ghent, but lost him the next year when he was killed by Hottentots. Laurens Cornelisz from Gottenburgh became her next husband on the 28th October 1673, but after another 2 children were added to her household he disappeared in 1679 while hunting hippos, presumably trampled by elephants. Her kneg (servant), Matthys Michiel, of Gluckstadt was the next husband, marrying her on 28th January 1680. They had one daughter.
Among others the Baron van Rheede visited their farm, in 1685, and she made quite an impression on him, through her sporting a strong tan, with her hospitality in providing fresh bread and vegetables, and by her doing a dramatic horseback ride to the Cape on a quick errand. Maryna Ras, as a teenager, also met van Rheede at this time (C. Pretorius, “Trijn Ras”, Historia 18(2), pg 93-96, 1973).
The ten children of Joost and Maryna Strydom were Catharina (1687), Joris (1688), Matthys (1690), Johannes (1692), Symon (1695), Maria (1696), Catryntie (1699), Helaatje (1701), Simon (1704), and Aaltie (1706). Only Matthys and Johannes left known descendants, and both became farmers. The eldest son, Joris (1688) died along the coast of Bengal in 1713, serving as an adelborst in the VOC, like his father. The eldest daughter apparently died in her first year, not being present on the appropriate “monsterrolle”. The six youngest children all died young, some perhaps living for a few years, since we find extra child numbers, beyond the obvious two elder sons, in the “monsterrolle” until 1712. The proposed family of Joost fits in well with the names of his children. Catharina after his mother-in-law, Joris after his father, Matthys after his wife’s step-father, Johannes after his wife’s father, Symon after his close family in the Waasland (or Governor Simon van der Stel??), Maria after his mother (Mayeken is diminutive for Maria), Aaltie after his sister.
The first four generations of Strydoms are
provided on the next
page, and for those of the fourth generation who left descendants, clicking
on their names will provide lists of further generations of descendants.
Page constructed by Dan Strydom, 2003
Page last updated: October 28, 2016
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