Editor: Dr Saul Issroff
Copyright © 1999 Saul Issroff, Mike Getz, SAfrica SIG
and Jewishgen Inc.
URL: http://www.jewishgen.org/SAfrica/natrec.htm
Revised: 20 December 1999

The Cape Colony Jewish Naturalization Registers are a result of a 1904 request to the Jewish Board of Deputies of the Cape Colony from the Colonial Secretary. He required a report on Jewish applications for naturalizations that had not been available previously. The Board agreed to the request and prepared the Cape Colony Jewish Naturalization Registers that are to be found in the Morris Alexander Papers that are housed at the Kaplan Centre Archives in Cape Town, S.A.
 
Due to the fact that the registers were prepared as a report rather than a legally binding document, the information contained in these registers may not be a totally accurate representation of all Jewish naturalizations or of information that will be found on the actual naturalization documents. For instance, there are naturalizations listed for 1907, but there are so few that it is apparent that not all naturalizations are included.
 
For many, there was no great impetus to become naturalized and people waited many years before taking the actual step. There were two persons in the registers who waited the longest period of time to seek naturalization. One was Isaac Edelman who was fifty-four years old in 1904 and had lived in South Africa for twenty-four years before seeking naturalization. The other was Felix Kappe, fifty years old in 1905, who came to South Africa in 1880 and had lived in South Africa for twenty-five years. The person who was the oldest in age to seek naturalization was Abraham Finkelstein, age sixty-four, who was born in 1840 and came to South Africa in 1904.
 
The registers represent a small proportion of those who were naturalized during the period of 1903 through 1907. The full range of these records can be found in the Mormon microfilm and in the South African Archives. Computerization of the records in the Archives allows direct searching and ordering of the records to take place in person. There is also the option to request the actual records by mail. Despite the small number of entries in the registers (there are only 1,253 entries), they do provide a valuable insight into the origins of what was to become the major force in the South African Jewish community . . . the Lithuanian immigrants.
 
The Cape Colony Jewish Naturalization Registers were hand-written by different individuals and oftentimes were difficult to read. As the registers are very fragile, the only ones who are allowed to copy them are the staff of the Kaplan Centre Archives. Approximately, thirty to thirty-six entries are contained on each page and the more names on the page, the more difficult it is to decipher the entries. There were thirteen columns in the original registers and the information contained in them has been entered into a sample database and is described as follows:
 
 
Year of Naturalization
 
In the original registers, the month day and year are provided. However, only the year is given is to be found in the sample database. Note that a number of individuals from the same locality may have been naturalized on the same date.
 
 
First and Last Name
 
The names may not conform to those that you know your relative may have used. This may be seen as a deviation due to variations in spelling, errors of the clerk and very often the fact that the immigrants did not use a consistent means of spelling their names. For instance, Reuben Paiken from Vitebsk, Belarus, had other branches of his family who went to Denmark and spelled their name Paikin and others in America spelled it Peiken. Some very often changed their name or shortened it to ease its use in business. An example of this is the case of Karl Rubinstein from Liskove, Latvia, who became Robinson. Individuals also changed their name to match the name of the family member(s) that brought them to South Africa as is the case of Hirs Pargament who became Berman. Some even lengthened their name as in the case of the name Ber which became Berman.
 
 
Town and Country of Origin
 
Much of what you will see, if you sort by town of origin, is not necessarily the town the person was born in, but the town the person left from or the town they were last living in. The name of Kovna may actually refer to the Guberniya or Province and not the town and the same may be true of Lomza and Grodno. The spelling of the town names is not consistent at all and there are many variations of spelling on the registers. Most of the names are either the Russian or Yiddish versions . . . the Lithuanian versions were not used yet. Therefore, you will find Shavli and not Siauliai. Also, there were a few town names that were not found in any of the commonly utilized resources such as "Where Once We Walked".
 
The town and country names to be found in the sample database are the ones that are currently in use today. For instance, many immigrants stated that they came from Russia, whereas the town would now be in Byelorussia or Belarus or the Ukraine, etc. There are a number of entries where the immigrant stated that he came from Kurland when in fact Kurland is another name for the country of Latvia.
 
 
Age and Date of Birth
 
The age of the individual being naturalized is self-evident and their approximate date of birth is provided based on their age at time of naturalization and year of naturalization. The majority of the individuals in the registers were under thirty years of age and a very minuscule proportion is over fifty.
 
 
Years in Country Prior to Naturalization
 
In many cases, the register gives both the months and years the person lived in South Africa prior to becoming a citizen. There are a few individuals who lived in England, Ireland or Scotland prior to the citizenship process and then moved to South Africa. This time in Great Britain was counted towards their citizenship requirements. The data in the registers indicates that the residency requirements for naturalization changed from time to time and that during the period of the registers, it was eighteen months to two years and then also five to seven years.
 
 
Occupation
 
Be aware, that the data for occupations was not provided for all the entries.
 
 
Residence, Town and Country Address
 
These columns of data are in the most raw fashion as there has not been time to cross-check or make sure that all the information is spelled correctly or missing information is included in this sample. If you see errors, don't panic as these will be taken care of in the final form of the database. As you will note, the Jews tended to congregate in certain areas of the towns and villages of Cape Colony such as Albert Road, Canterbury Street, Commercial Street, Constitution Street, Roeland Street and others.
 
 
 
Miscellaneous Information
 
The miscellaneous information contains references, the name or initials of the case investigator, various dates relating to stages in the process, the naturalization number and the name of the lawyer (s) who handled the legal aspects of the naturalization process for the immigrant. These pieces of data have been excluded from the sample database due to lack of space.
 
A sample database in Excel [spreadsheet] format that has approximately 1,000 entries is available for download. Use this sample database as you would any other ... test the data given against other sources of information and use it as a benchmark to guide you in further research of your relatives in South Africa.
 
NOTE: Professor Aubrey Newman of Leicester University has computerized the entire registers containing 1,253 entries, but they are presently unavailable to the general public. The sample database utilizes the original data obtained from the Kaplan Centre Archives in 1997 and then compiled and analyzed by Ann Rabinowitz, Miami Beach, FL.