TOPIC:

I am stumped. If I had to guess, how about Nopumza, which would be an honest mistake in phonetically writing Nompumza, a fairly common Xhosa surname? The Fengu, previously called the Fingo, are a Xhosa clan.

That sounds a good suggestion, thank you.

The few pages of Fingo names were the most challenging pages from the roll I have see, even beating some of the Cape Police pages!

I also read the first one as Alfred Ngidi, and the second as Nopumza.

I am currently trying to transcribe the list of the Stadt Watchmen in Mafeking (WO100/300) and finding it very hard going.

This is a first name from p160. Any guesses please?



I am stuck on the first letter.

Hi David,
This is the interpretation of the name from Ancestry. Hope that this may be of some assistance - 


Trev

Just wondering if anybody can kindly enlighten me regarding where the May 1901 Court Martial of Private 4244 Percy George Payne, 8th Hussars (originally entered as 18th Hussars hence one of the replies) was held in South Africa:



Also the meaning of the words above "In Prison" which appear to me to read "Field Impt. No.2"

Percy was born in Smethwick in 1882 and by the time he enlisted in 1898 was living in the neighbouring Handsworth area of Birmingham. He started his army career by telling a lie about his age, adding 2 years on - height 5ft 6in & weight 8 stone 8lbs. As you can see, he had disciplinary problems and when he was discharged "medically unfit" at Netley on 13th October 1903 the "Conduct & Character" box read "Indifferent (Insubordination)". Interestingly they had not sussed out his correct age by then despite him having grown 2 and half inches in the meantime!

My main problem with Percy is why, when he enlisted in Birmingham, was he assigned to a cavalry regiment based in Ireland at the time - as you can also see it took him 6 days to join them. His family history shows no connection with horses - his father, John Edwin Payne was a commercial traveller associated with the jewelry industry in Birmingham and frequently away from home - however when at home he obviously enjoyed himself as he fathered 14 children of which Percy was no.5. For the first 22 years of her married life his mother, Sarah Ann (Townsend) was "with child" for 11 of them - by the time of the 1911 Census, when John Edwin was again away from home, life had obviously begun to take its toll on 56 year old Sarah Ann, one of her children obviously completed the form for her and she was unable to remember where she was born as shown by the following entry for her place of birth - "not known" with "England" added as an afterthought.