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VOC Archive Website

Exploring Cape Colonial History Has Never Been Easier

We're excited to share a new free online research tool for anyone passionate about South African history. The Council of Policy Resolutions Research Dashboard covers the official records of the Cape Colony from 1651 to 1795.

Link to the site: https://eggsa.org/WebApps/VOCArchive/

 

What is it?

This interactive archive brings together thousands of digitised records from three primary source collections:

  • The Resolutions of the Council of Policy (the VOC governing body at the Cape)
  • The Cape Diaries (daily journals kept at the fort and later the Castle)
  • Annexures, which are petitions and memorial documents from colonial residents

What can you find?

  • Named individuals including governors, officials, free burghers, enslaved persons, and visitors
  • Ships that called at the Cape, with dates and context
  • Locations across the Cape Colony and beyond
  • Events, decisions, and daily life spanning nearly 150 years of VOC rule

Why trust it?

Every record comes directly from the TANAP Transcription Project (Cape Town, 2001–2003) and the Suid-Afrikaanse Argiefstukke edited series. These are peer-reviewed archival transcriptions, not summaries or interpretations. What you read is as close to the original source as possible.

Languages?

Each record is available in Dutch (the original), Afrikaans, and English. The full interface also switches between English and Afrikaans.

Powerful search built in

Search across all records at once, or browse by person, ship, location, category, or volume. The search tool finds results across tens of thousands of entries in seconds.

Whether you are tracing family history, researching the VOC era, or just curious about life at the Cape 300 years ago, this resource is for you.

eGSSA serves its members by:

promotionproviding information, publications and research education

promotionestablishing important links with other groups world-wide.

promotionincreasing public awareness of opportunities for discovering family history.

promotionpromoting interest in the fascinating field of genealogy.

promotionpromoting a number of projects aimed at expanding the availability of South African genealogical sources online.

For many years, there have been people who, for various reasons, could not join a regular GSSA branch. Some of these reasons include living too far from a branch or living outside South Africa. These people still have a need to belong to a branch and to enjoy the benefits of GSSA membership, such as receiving GSSA's journal, Familia. eGSSA has been established to meet these needs. This is an ideal opportunity to become part of GSSA and to step into this exciting era.

At eGSSA we have an Online shop where you can buy the various publications of the Genealogical Society of South Africa, as well as a number of other genealogical, historical and cultural items.

There are indexes to the articles in Familia, the quarterly journal of the GSSA and those in genesis, journal of eGGSA itself. In addition we have a downloadable archive document section, as well as photographs of graves in South African cemeteries.