Forty years of South African Genealogy
Keith Meintjes, 11 May, 2024Dr Keith Meintjes holds a BSc and MSc (Engineering) from the University of the Witwatersrand, and a MA and PhD from Princeton University.
In his 40 years of research he republished the Meintjes family history and researched the Wahl, Watney and several others families in South Africa. He has published numerous articles in Familia, Capensis and Genesis.
He was a co-founder of the eGGSA virtual branch and elected a Fellow of the GSSA in 2019. This is a singular honour that has been bestowed only 21 times in the previous 50 years.
Over four decades Keith collected genealogy publications and built a fine library of South African material. In 2015 he donated more than 350 physical publications and many digital items to the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA. It is certainly, the best collection on South African genealogy outside of South Africa.
Keith has been involved in other projects relevant to South African genealogy, including funding for digitising two sets of voters’ rolls, the Olifant and Renoster projects. He has supported students in Stellenbosch to catalogue the collection of about 400 old Bibles at the DRC archives. Current projects include digitising and cataloguing the oldest photographs in the DRC Archives. Furthermore, he supports studies at Stellenbosch University on the economic forces that affected settlers and slaves in the old Dutch Cape Colony.