With the birth of Daphne's first grandchild in 2005, Daphne and I took a six week "holiday" from Turkey. We spent three weeks in Durban, South Africa and the other three weeks in England, visiting family. It was while we were in Durban that the urge to research Daphne's family was transformed into action.
Natal was an English colony from the early 1800's, with many settlers, soldiers, and sailors arriving there from Cape Town. People with names such as Dunn, Ross, Farewell, Fynn, Ogle, Rorke, Nunn, and many, many more, braved extremes of climate and privation to set up outposts along the coastal area between Cape Town and what was then called "Port Natal" - Durban of today.
We knew that Daphne's mother was a "Rorke", and we also had rumours that there were other names of European origin within the family. Names such as Fynn, Dunn, Ogle and Nunn were remembered from long past family gatherings. What we did not know was the link between Daphne's family, who were "coloured", and these early European settlers - if any.
Our first step was to investigate very carefully the contents of a small box that all the children knew as "daddy's" - and no one went near it.
We found many unidentified photographs, along with some we identified as a young Maggie Lily Rorke - the maiden name of Daphne's mother, as well as some of a young Herbert Cecil Green, Daphne's father.
We found marriage certificates for Herbert and Maggie and also for Herbert's parents - Daphne's paternal grandparents - Benjamin Green and Adeline Ogle. This particular certificate gave us links to Benjamin's father, Charles Edmund Andrew Green, and Adeline's parents who turned out to be Benjamin Ogle and Elizabeth Fynn.
From a small box of old papers we had linked Daphne to the Rorke, Ogle and Fynn families. Names that had only been rumours up to that point.
