Douwe Gerbrand Steyn (bef. 10 July 1631,

Leeuwarden Leeuwarden (; ; ; ) is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in Friesland, Netherlands, with a population of 127,073 (2023). It is the provincial capital and seat of the Provin ...

– April 1700) was overseer of the

Moederkerk, Stellenbosch The Moederkerk (''Mother Church'') in Stellenbosch is the second oldest congregation of the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa. Foundation The congregation was founded, just 21 years after the Groote Kerk in Cape Town, by Rev. Johannes Ov ...

in 1686 and City Engineer of

Cape Town Cape Town is the legislature, legislative capital city, capital of South Africa. It is the country's oldest city and the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. Cape Town is the country's List of municipalities in South Africa, second-largest ...

from 1697. He came to the

Dutch Cape Colony The Cape of Good Hope () was a Dutch United East India Company (VOC) supplystation in Southern Africa, centered on the Cape of Good Hope, from where it derived its name. The original supply station and the successive states that the area was ...

in 1672 as a stonemason while working for the

Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( ; VOC ), commonly known as the Dutch East India Company, was a chartered company, chartered trading company and one of the first joint-stock companies in the world. Established on 20 March 1602 by the States Ge ...

. He is also the progenitor of the

Steyn Steyn is a Dutch surname. The most common South African progenitor was Douwe Gerbrand Steyn who arrived in South Africa in c. 1672 as a stonemason and married Maria Lozee in 1685. Notable people with the surname include: * Andrie Steyn, Sout ...

family of

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

. The book "Die Groot Afrikaanse Familie Naamboek" states that his predecessor as City Engineer of Cape Town was Oldenland when the only Oldenland at the Cape at that time was

Henrik Bernard Oldenland Henrik Bernard Oldenland aka Heinrich Bernhard Oldenland 1697 was a German-born South African physician, botanist, painter and land surveyor, and is denoted by the author abbreviation when citing a botanical name. Henrik was born in Lübeck, a ...

, a botanist.

Progenitor

Steyn is widely seen as the

progenitor In genealogy, a progenitor (rarer: primogenitor; or ''Ahnherr'') is the founder (sometimes one that is legendary) of a family, line of descent, gens, clan, tribe, noble house, or ethnic group.. Ebenda''Ahnherr:''"Stammvater eines Geschlec ...

of most of the

s of

, although his son, Jacobus, is actually the progenitor. When Steyn came to the

in 1672 as a widower he already had 2 sons, Age (1661-1727) and Gerben (1663-1672), who never came to South Africa. He married Maria Lozee in 1685 when she already had a son named Jacobus, who later took the surname Steyn. Furthermore, Steyn had no more surviving sons. So Jacobus had to have been the progenitor of the

family of South Africa, even though his real father is unknown.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Steyn, Douwe 1700 deaths People from Leeuwarden Dutch emigrants to South Africa Year of birth uncertain