For nearly three centuries the printed family books called her Magdalena Rooy — and the church book never did. In 2026 the record read the marriage entry of 11 October 1739 on the page itself: the clerk wrote Magdalena Raats, plainly, and another clerk wrote her Raats again at her grandson's baptism half a lifetime later. One line of handwriting had been misread in print long ago, and every book since had copied the misreading. So this house begins anew, under its true name.
What was asked
Do the old books of arms record a coat for her family — Raats, her father's Utrecht line — that this house could call its own?
Where we looked
The first book of arms has now been asked under the true name: the great European register, opened at both spellings of it — Raats and Raets — and read page by page at the positions where the name would stand. It holds nothing under either. Before that, who her family actually was had been read three times over: the church book of Drakenstein, a careful modern copy of the same page, and a second church book naming her at a family baptism.
The church books, read at the page
the Drakenstein marriage register of 1739 (the entry read letter by letter), a published careful copy of the same page, and the Tulbagh baptism register of 1785 naming her as witness
All three write her RAATS. The marriage entry itself: married at the Drakenstein church, 11 October 1739, he a young man, she a young daughter, both of the Cape.
The great European register, read at both spellings
the Armorial Général of 1884, opened at the pages where Raats and Raets would each stand, five pages read whole so nothing could hide between the columns
Nothing under either spelling. Families of similar sound from Holland and Flanders have their arms there — none of them is her father's Utrecht line, and a similar name is never a family.
Who she was is certain; what her family bore is still open. Her father was Jasper Raats of Utrecht in the Netherlands, her mother Magdalena Bastiaans of Drakenstein — a different family altogether from the ones the misprinted name once pointed at. The great European register has now been read at her name and holds nothing; the books of her father's own country, the South African register, and the state's registry have not yet been asked, and the record will not guess at what they hold. One book empty is not an answer — it is one book, honestly read.
The search that was made under the old, mistaken name is kept in full — it remains a true account of what the books hold at THAT name — but none of it attaches to her, because it was never her name.
What would settle it
- The South African register (the book on loan), asked at Raats — the European half of this shelf was read in 2026 and holds nothing.
- Her father's own line. Jasper Raats came from Utrecht, and the old Dutch records of that city are where his family — and any arms it bore — would be found.
- Something in the family’s own hands — a ring, a seal, a bookplate, something painted or carved, or a story that there were arms. A thing the family actually used outranks anything a book matched to a name.
- The state’s own register of arms in South Africa, where a coat granted or registered in the last century would be written down.
What we would like from the family
Anything real: a ring, a seal, a bookplate, a letterhead, something painted or carved — or simply a story that the family had arms, and what they looked like. If there is nothing, that is an answer too, and the record will say so plainly.
There is more on the page of things only you can tell us.