My dad believes that his Great Uncle Albert Knowles Bn 1874 at Chesterfield Derbyshire emigrated to South Africa in the early 1900s. Formerly of Chesterfield Derbyshire I have found him in the 1901 Census living in Levenshulme Manchester with his wife Mary born 1875 in Littleborough Lancs and two children John P Knowles Bn 1899 and Henry Bn 1901.were both born in Levenshulme. Albert was a roofer/Slater Builder by trade. The family have no knowledge of Albert apart from the fact he lived in Johannesburg South Africa. I have no idea where to start has anyone any ideas. Regards Malc Knowles
There was a family by the name of Knowles in Pinetown near Durban in Natal (now Kwa-Zulu Natal) who owned a supermarket which was still going strong in the late 1970's. You can try and trace the Pinetown family through the yellow pages. www.yellowpages.co.za (i think)
Another way of tracing family is by googling - community newspapers south africa and send a letter to various Johannesberg papers (very large city) and to Pinetown and Durban papers.
Hope that helps - the Pinetown Knowles were known by my mother-in-laws family but there is no-one left who may remember them personally.
There is no obvious reference for Henry although there are a few possibilities. Did he perhaps have a second name?
The references come from the National Archives and the Pretoria Archive, more specifically.
Info on how to order copies of these documents can be found on one of the sticky topics at the top of this board. Also on the sticky topics is an example of what type of info you will be able to obtain from the Death Notice in their files.
Regards Moira
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