EUROPEAN SEARCHES FOR DE BEER FAMILY ROOTS

(Respecting the Creative Commons reference acknowledgement to Open Education Resources, this map was downloaded from Google, Cf. Rugen, on 2009-11-03)

In my research visits to family graves, I found German inscriptions on my great, great grand father's grave, on the farm "Inhoek" next to the town, Petrusburg, in the Free State province of South Africa. His name, Barent Petrus De Beer later became "Barend" with a "d". This name perpetuated also to my own father's name, Barend Petrus. The names of his first and second wives on the graves next to his, are also German orientated. Although they spoke Dutch, some researchers on the De Beer origins are not very clear about the roots back to Europe. Some speculate about the Rugen roots from Waase. Due to the vague boarders of the European past, the De Beer families were scattered all over the German and Dutch territories. It may be very interesting to conduct deeper research into the German roots which also lead to "Berna", the capitol of Switzerland. The familiar "bear" were also found on the old logos of Bern.