Sunday, February 13, 2011

The Sam Mottau Anderson collection


In 2007 we were thrilled to receive an E-mail from Susan de la Motte, a fellow researcher who lives in Canada. Twenty years ago Susan had written to Mr Sam Mottau, the Ceylon Government  assistant archivist and avid genealogist, seeking information on her own family. The Anderson connection,  through the marriage of her maternal uncle Jim Kelly, and  Barbara Kathleen Anderson, daughter of an Anderson planter, and Mary Jayaweara did not tie in with our family, but other research presented by Mr Mottau did. 
Further Anderson entries gave us closure on the James Thomas Anderson  second marriage to Johanna Henrietta de Vos (widow of Reynier van Alken) on 14 February 1831. We had been looking for the marriage in Galle, as  stated in "Tombstones and Monuments in Ceylon" and also in the "Dutch Burgher Union Journal," but Mr Mottau's research showed that the wedding took place in Kandy.