Walter Volker has collected information on German families living in South Africa for a number of years and has captured this in a database. While he started off with the Natal Germans, who are a relatively homogeneous group for whom genealogical data is reasonably easy to come by, his work has expanded to cover most German-speaking South Africans. A sizeable proportion of such families is covered by the database.

Walter was kind enough to make the overview data available to me for display on this web page. All requests for further information should preferably be directed to him directly:
Walter V. Volker, PO Box 37672, Faerie Glen, 0043, South Africa.
Tel +27-12-991-1772 (H), +27-11-350-5291 (W), +27-11-350-2001 (Fax)

Below you will find

• Short explanations of commonly used abbreviations and of column headings,
• An overview of how the database has grown, and
• A short German poem on the topic of genealogy.

	Symbol or Heading ---------------------	Explanation ---------------------------------------------------
	c.	Approximately
	N.N.	Name not known
	No.	Database number
	SA Ancestor	Immigrant to SA
	Arrival	SA Ancestor's year of arrival in SA
	Ancestor	Earliest ancestor with this name
	GROUP:	- D Leg: British-German Legion (Kaffraria) - H Miss: Hermannsburg Mission - H Kol: Hermannsburg Colonist - B Kol: Bergtheil/ Bramsche Colonist - B Miss: Berlin Mission - F Miss: Bleckmar Mission - LMS: London Missionary Society - R Miss: Rhenish Mission - R Miss (SW): Rhenish Mission (DSWA) - M Miss: Moravian Mission - EC: Eastern Cape (Kaffraria) - N: Natal (now KwaZulu-Natal) - SW: Namibia (prev. German Southwest) - T: Transvaal (now Gauteng, Mpumalanga, North-West and Limpopo) - WC: Western Cape (Cape Town, Philippi) - Z: Zululand (now KwaZulu-Natal)
	STATUS	Completion of family tree:   *     above 50%   **   above 70%   *** above 90%

Year	Jan 92	Jan 93	Jan 94	Jan 95	Jan 96	Jan 97	Jan 98	Jan 99
Entries	5 000	12 000	22 500	39 700	42 693	44 230	49 150	52 004
Marriages	1 600	4 000	7 700	13 050	14 127	14 678	16 530	17 585

Year	Jan 00	Jan 01	Jan 02	Jan 03	Jan 04	Jan 05	Jan 06	Jan 07	Jan 08
Entries	54 556	58 871	63 450	68 100	70 914	74 481	76 192	78 739	79 860
Marriages	18 609	20 254	21 610	23 095	24 150	25 414	26 074	27 022	27 454

Current Status (January 2008):

• No. of Surnames: 1 520
  
• No. of SA Ancestors: 2 000
  
• No. of Entries: 79 860
  
• No. of Marriages: 27 454
  
• No. of completed genealogies: 265

(Pastor Kehrhahn in the Deutsch-Afrikaner, 8 Dec 1937)