Searching for clues
I am looking for the Deeds Office on Plein Street. There’s a huge imposing building that looks official, so I go in through the rotating doors and the security check and ask if I’m in the right place. The man at the desk tells me to go to the thirteenth floor. There, I wait for my number to be called as a smelly gentleman talks incessantly to me about his claim on his late mother’s house. Finally, I am summonsed to the enquiry counter by the moustachioed Eugene. I tell him I am looking for ownership records of the farms around Darling from the 1930s. He tells me I must go to the Surveyor General office on the 11th floor to find out the numbers of the farms. Downstairs there is more waiting as a guy uses a confusing computer program to try and match up the names I give him with numbers allocated to each plot of land. Finally I am equipped with the information and I head back to Eugene, to give him the numbers.
I am handed a huge heavy volume full of carefully handwritten deeds showing the ownership of the farms around Malmesbury & Darling from the 1900s-1950s. I go through each of the farms in the Kikoesvlei area, looking for evidence of the Beinarts. We thought that possibly Woolf might have owned some of the land where the Salt Pans are located. The documents are fascinating, but bear no Beinart fruit. However, I realise that Mr Basson, the farmer who kindly showed us the salt pans, is part of a family who has owned land in that area for over 100 years.
I leave the building with no further clues as to exactly which pan our Great-Grandfather would have harvested salt from, but with the satisfaction of feeling like a detective.
Rebecca Beinart
