Coetzee Family History
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Dirk Coetsee, born in 1655 in Kampen, the Netherlands, arrived at the Cape of Good Hope in 1679 with the ship "the Asia." He is considered the progenitor of the Coetzee family in South Africa.
He lived at the Cape for four years, then left for Stellenbosch where he lived until 1721. The last few years before his death in 1725 he lived at the Cape again. From 1686 he was in church service, first as a deacon and later as an elder, and after 1687 he served on the collegiate council of the city government. In 1706 he became captain of the infantry of Stellenbosch. In 1683 Dirk established Coetsenburg, one of the oldest wine estates in South Africa, on land given to him by the Dutch governor of the Cape Colony, Simon van der Stel, located near the village of Stellonbosch. He also had a piece of arable land in Jan Jonker's Hoek in the Assegaibosch nature reserve. He was married to Sara van der Schulp and together they had 10 children.
Sara was born in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, but so far it is unclear whether Dirk and Sara came to the Cape together or met in South Africa. As far as we know, no marriage record has been found either in South Africa or in the Netherlands.
The ten children of this couple together provided about 40 grandchildren. A dynasty was born.