WhereIsSteve's Guestbook

There's a coincidence - that they both ended up in the lunatic asylum. I guess your great uncle probably ended up in Valkenberg - there can't have been that many lunatic asylums in Cape Town. The conditions in the asylum must have been fairly horrific back then. Peter died within a year of being admitted to the asylum. We'd always wondered why he died relatively young and when we found out he'd been put in an institution that really answered our question. We came to the conclusion that he died because he was in the asylum. I'm afraid you might well find the same. The court order we found committing him to the asylum was very brief. It didn't give any reason. It was just done on the orders of the magistrate. I'm sure that back then there could have been all sorts of reasons for putting someone in such an institution. I think we accepted that we'd never know who or why. Because he died in an asylum there was not a death certificate. It was the fact that we'd found the graveyard but that there was no death certificate that lead us in that direction. You might find the same with Caleb and not be able to find the actual cause of death. I wish you luck with your searches. Incidentally, how did you find Caleb on the passenger list? That's something I might try to follow up. It would be interesting to know how long after Peter's death his widow decided to bring the family back to the UK.

RE: Caleb Irving
Hi John, We ended up at the National Archives of South Africa. They have a website www.national.archives.gov.za On this website you need to select the "Search National Automated..." option on the left. From here select "RSA" A search for Irving will give you quite a lot to look at although I didn't immediately spot any Calebs. The dates of the documents will help. If you do find anything it will only tell you that a document exists - you won't be able to actually read it! If you go back to the website homepage and select "Services to the Public" and then "Cape Town Archives Repository" there will be a number of e-mail contacts of people in the archives office who may be able to help you. Hope this helps, Steve

Solomon's Temple
Ethiopians will all tell you that the ark is at Axum. If it does still exist then I think very few people really know where it is.

Thanks, Sharon. There is going to be a page on the family history I've found out. Hope to have that up before I leave Cape Town. Steve