G4 · a union of the documented line · 18 December 1877
Willem Johannes Jooste & Elizabeth Magdalene Humphries
Married at Worcester, Cape Colony (St James Church), 18 December 1877. The two houses on one shield; what the record holds of them, and what only the family can still tell.
I · The union
Married
18 December 1877 · Worcester, Cape Colony (St James Church)
Husband
Willem Johannes Jooste · born 2 May 1856 · died 16 January 1906
Wife
Elizabeth Magdalene Humphries
Children
Johanna Henrietta, born ~1879 Willem Johannes, born 14 April 1886 Erasmus, born 27 February 1888 Helena Gertruida, born 4 April 1890 Ferdinand Benjamin, born 1892
II · Two houses, one shield
JoostedexterHumphriessinister
the shield divides per pale at the centre; the husband's arms dexter, the wife's sinister (CAP-MAR-001 sect.1, Fox-Davies ch. 33)
dexter · Jooste — the line surname (Joost / Joosten)
sinister · Humphries — G4 — Elizabeth Magdalene Humphries, m. 1877 Worcester
The husband's house takes the dexter half, the wife's the sinister — the marshalling of a marriage. Where the record holds a house's arms as established they are painted in their colours. Until then they are drawn, not painted — the heralds' own working register, with each colour written in the heralds' short letters (or · gold, ar · silver, gu · red, az · blue, sa · black) — and a creature is named in writing where its drawing has not yet been taken from a period plate. A plain field with no arms named is open by design, not empty by neglect.
III · In the margin
❧ Two Worcesters
There are two Worcesters in this family's world, and they sit ten thousand kilometres apart. The one where Willem Johannes married Elizabeth Magdalene in 1877 is the town in the Cape, under the Hex River mountains. The other is the old cathedral city in England — and the English books of arms are full of families 'of Worcester' who have nothing to do with this story. The record keeps the two apart on purpose: the same word, never to be matched on.
IV · What only the family can tell
Humphries's parents. The record holds Elizabeth Magdalene Humphries's marriage; her parents, their places and anything kept from her side are not yet in it.
V · The rooms behind this union
The Estate of Willem Johannes Jooste — His estate of 1906, twenty-nine years on — the fullest room the record holds for this union's husband, and the page where this marriage's own date is written.
VI · Where this comes from
SRC-2026-034 — Willem Johannes Jooste Jr (G4) — Master of the Supreme Court of the Transvaal — Death Notice + Joint Will + Codicils — d. 16 January 1906 Braamfontein, Johannes
SRC-2026-063 — Jooste Family Bible (Dutch BIJBEL; presented Transvaal 15 Sept 1881) — printed Familie-Register leaves (1828 parents / 1848-1869 children / 1877 marriages / dea