THE 9 Walters-Pioneers

The first five  Walters generations are shown in the diagram below.  As clearly shown, the Walters family consists of two main branches:  Nicolaas (ab2 * 1714) and Stephanus Sebastiaan (ab3 * 1716).  It is amazing that for two generations (c en d) only one son carried on with the  Walters family name!  In the fifth generation (e), three branches were formed from the  Nicolaas line and  6 branches from the  Stephanus linage. These nine Walters sons form the foundation of the  Afrikaans Walters Diaspora in South Africa. Most of them was born early in the 19th century and form a useful basis for classification and an aid in determining family trees.  The founder "stamvader" from the well known and largest Afrikane family, Van der Merwe,  son, Schalk Willemzoon, married  Anna Prevost and had ten sons.  Together with the daughters they produced an astonishing 135 children!  Samuel Walters two sons in comparison produced only 16 of Samuel's grandchildren from which only two carried on with the Walters linage. This explains the relative small number of Walters today, probably in the order of 2000.  Two of the nine sons of the fifth generation are responsible for 51 % the Walters  today,  namely Samuel Hendrik (23%) and  Matthys Michielse (28%).  Nicolaas linage forms about  38%, and  Stephanus linage about 62% of our founder " stamvader" Samuel's direct progeny.