Looking at some recent blog enquiries.

A blog follower was looking for the passenger list of the Haidee, arriving at Natal October 7 1850. See

http://web.archive.org/web/20100404084004/http://www.genealogyworld.net/rose/maritime/b_haidee.html

There's a blog dedicated to the topic at  http://haideesettlers.blogspot.com/

Tiyo Soga

There have been several requests for information on Tiyo Soga. Enter these two words on the search facility on this blog for various posts.

Similarly, for details on immigration or settlers to Natal or passenger lists use the search facility on the Blogger toolbar at top left hand corner of the blog page. For more successful results search on the words 'passenger lists' and 'immigration' etc rather than 'manifest/s'. 


Alternatively browse through the archived posts using the right hand menu. 

Numerous queries come in weekly re the Boer War and there is some information available on this blog; again, use the search facility. If you Google those two words you'll get a deluge of hits, of course; save time and go to www.angloboerwar.com/

Incidentally, for the record, Mole is not my surname but my nickname (digging in the records being what I do) so if you are looking for information on the surname MOLE you won't find it on my blog.

Also, if you spell a word incorrectly when using the blog search facility (e.g. recabite instead of rechabite) no references will be found. Stating the obvious? You'd be surprised at how often it happens.

Soga/Burnside family history

Janet Soga m.s. Burnside (1827-1903)

Janet Burnside, wife of Tiyo Soga, was born to Alan Burnside and Isabelle Kirkland on 18 March 1827, Hutchesontown, Glasgow. Scotland. Her father was a weaver, Janet and her sister Margaret were yarn winders, another sister, Anne, was employed at a gingham warehouse and their mother was a dressmaker.

The 1851 Census reveals that the Burnsides were then living in the Saltmarket area of Glasgow. Janet and family were part of the congregation of Hutchesontown Relief Church.

Tiyo Soga was at that time studying at the United Presbyterian Church College in Edinburgh, financially supported by the John Street Church, Glasgow. It seems likely that he and Janet met through church circles.

1857 was a turning point for the couple: they married, Tiyo Soga was ordained in February and in April he and Janet sailed for South Africa on the Lady of the Lake, arriving in Port Elizabeth 3 July 1857.  Soga founded a mission station at Mgwali, remaining there until 1867 when he moved over the Kei to Tutura, where he died.   

Their children were:

WILLIAM ANDERSON SOGA, b. January 5, 1858, South Africa; d. July 15, 1916,
South Africa. [He was 13 years old when his father Tiyo Soga died. Medical missionary; established Miller Mission nr Elliotdale, Transkei; 1885 married Scotswoman Mary Agnes Meikle. Their son Alexander R B Soga followed his father into the medical field, qualifying at Glasgow in 1912; he practised at Elliotdale and subsequently at Idutywa.]

JOHN HENDERSON SOGA, b. February 10, 1860, South Africa; d. March 11, 1941,
Southampton.[Trained for the ministry in Edinburgh, qualified 1893, returned to South Africa, established mission station at Mbonda; married Isabella Brown, daughter of Christina (m.s. McKay) and David Brown. See previous post on this blog.]

ALAN KIRKLAND SOGA, b. November 24, 1861, South Africa; d. 1938, South
Africa. [His forenames a combination of Janet Burnside's parents' names. He studied law, became a magistrate in Transkei; later he became editor of a South African newspaper; married Ellen Mba of the Xhosa. Their son De Villiers Soga became a Presbyterian Minister.]

ISABELLA MCFARLANE SOGA, b. May 10, 1864, Inverkip Renfrew; d. March 16,
1884, South Africa.

JOTELLO FESTIRI SOGA, b. 1865, South Africa; d. December 12, 1906, South
Africa. [Qualified as a veterinary surgeon at Dick College, Edinburgh in 1886 and returned to South Africa; he played an important role in the fight against rinderpest in 1897. Jotello married Catherine Watson Chalmers; they had three daughters: Catherine, Margaret and Doris. For further information on Jotello Soga see www.ais.up.ac.za/vet/soga.htm]

FRANCES MARIA ANNA SOGA, b. February 10, 1868, South Africa; d. September
20, 1942, South Africa. [Missionary.]

JESSIE MARGARET SOGA, b. February 8, 1870, South Africa; d. February 23,
1954, Glasgow. [The youngest of the children, was only a year old when her father Tiyo Soga died in August 1871.]

There was one other child who was stillborn; Tiyo and Janet Soga had 8 children in total.

Janet died on 1 September 1903 in Glasgow. Although she had limited education, she was an intelligent woman: this is borne out by the fact that after Soga's death the Foreign Mission Committee of the United Presbyterian Church offered her a position as one of their missionaries in the field.

Tiyo Soga's descendant on SATV

Hector Soga, a descendant of Tiyo Soga, made a brief SATV appearance on the evening of 9 September 2011.  As part of Heritage Month, a memorial to Hector's famous ancestor was unveiled in the Nkonkobe Local Municipality, Amathole.


Tiyo Soga (c 1829-1871) was the first black South African to be ordained as minister in the United Presbyterian Church. He was the grandson of Jotello Soga of the Xhosa. Tiyo's mother was a converted Christian and sent him to the local mission school; he subsequently attended Lovedale and when his education was interrupted by the frontier wars was taken to Scotland in 1846 for religious instruction. In 1848 he returned to South Africa to assist in establishing a Mission Station but when the 8th Frontier War broke out Tiyo returned to Scotland, where he was ordained in December 1856. He married a Scottish yarn winder, Janet Burnside, at Govan in February 1857 and returned to South Africa to found a Mission Station at Thuthuru.

He translated the Gospels into Xhosa as well as part of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress; his son John Henderson Soga (1860-1941), also a missionary, completed this translation. Tiyo Soga served on the board which revised the Xhosa Bible. Of his seven children, the eldest, William Anderson Soga, attended Glasgow University and became a medical missionary; William married Mary Agnes Meikle in 1885 and established the Miller Mission in Transkei where he worked until 1903. John Henderson Soga trained for the ministry in Edinburgh, qualifying in 1893 and returned to South Africa to establish a mission at Mbonda. Tiyo's son Jotello Festiri Soga (1856-1906) was the first South African-born black veterinary surgeon, and after he qualified in 1886 returned to South Africa where he did research on animal diseases - particularly the rinderpest - in the Eastern Cape border region. Tiyo Soga was 42 when he died in August 1871. John A Chalmers wrote the story of Tiyo Soga's life, Tiyo Soga: A Page of South African Mission Work published in Edinburgh 1877.

Tiyo Soga