Walter Volker has collected information on German families living in South Africa for a number of years and has captured this in a database. While he started off with the Natal Germans, who are a relatively homogeneous group for whom genealogical data is reasonably easy to come by, his work has expanded to cover most German-speaking South Africans. A sizeable proportion of such families is covered by the database.

Walter was kind enough to make the overview data available to me for display on this web page. All requests for further information should preferably be directed to him directly:
Walter V. Volker, PO Box 37672, Faerie Glen, 0043, South Africa.
Tel +27-12-991-1772 (H), +27-11-350-5291 (W), +27-11-350-2001 (Fax)

Below you will find

• Short explanations of commonly used abbreviations and of column headings,
• An overview of how the database has grown, and
• A short German poem on the topic of genealogy.

	Symbol or Heading ---------------------	Explanation ---------------------------------------------------
	c.	Approximately
	N.N.	Name not known
	No.	Database number
	SA Ancestor	Immigrant to SA
	Arrival	SA Ancestor's year of arrival in SA
	Ancestor	Earliest ancestor with this name
	GROUP:	- D Leg: British-German Legion (Kaffraria) - H Miss: Hermannsburg Mission - H Kol: Hermannsburg Colonist - B Kol: Bergtheil/ Bramsche Colonist - B Miss: Berlin Mission - F Miss: Bleckmar Mission - LMS: London Missionary Society - R Miss: Rhenish Mission - R Miss (SW): Rhenish Mission (DSWA) - M Miss: Moravian Mission - EC: Eastern Cape (Kaffraria) - N: Natal (now KwaZulu-Natal) - SW: Namibia (prev. German Southwest) - T: Transvaal (now Gauteng, Mpumalanga, North-West and Limpopo) - WC: Western Cape (Cape Town, Philippi) - Z: Zululand (now KwaZulu-Natal)
	STATUS	Completion of family tree:   *     above 50%   **   above 70%   *** above 90%

Year			Jan 1992	Jan 1993	Jan 1994	Jan 1995	Jan 1996	Jan 1997	Jan 1998	Jan 1999
Entries			5 000	12 000	22 500	39 700	42 693	44 230	49 150	52 004
Marriages			1 600	4 000	7 700	13 050	14 127	14 678	16 530	17 585
Year	Jan 2000	Jan 2001	Jan 2002	Jan 2003	Jan 2004	Jan 2005	Jan 2006	Jan 2007	Jan 2008	Jan 2009
Entries	54 556	58 871	63 450	68 100	70 914	74 481	76 192	78 739	79 860	80 207
Marriages	18 609	20 254	21 610	23 095	24 150	25 414	26 074	27 022	27 454	27 572
Year	Jan 2010	Jan 2011	Jan 2012	Jan 2013	Jan 2014	Jan 2015
Entries	82 257	82 792	84 435	85 212	86 163	86 393
Marriages	28 380	28 591	29 212	29 633	29 849	29 927

Current Status (January 2015):

• No. of Surnames: 1 600
  
• No. of SA Ancestors: 2 000
  
• No. of Entries: 86 393
  
• No. of Marriages: 29 927
  
• No. of completed genealogies: 300

(Pastor Kehrhahn in the Deutsch-Afrikaner, 8 Dec 1937)