My ancestor, Daniel Joachim Schumann, came to the Cape in 1750 from Mecklenburg in Germany (see pictures of Schwerin under the Bio pages) as a soldier in the service of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). He became a farmer at Stellenbosch in 1759 where he died in 1763. I was born several generations later in Somerset East in the Eastern Cape and educated at the University of Port Elizabeth and Colorado State University, USA, where I obtained Masters degrees in History and Historic Preservation. I have worked as historian in archives and museum services, the National Monuments Council, as Hansard reporter and newspaper journalist and rugby magazine editor. My first book, District Six: The Spirit of Kanala, was published in 1994, and in later years books on rugby legends, the Anglo-Boer War, World War I and regional history followed. My interests are travel, photography, the outdoors, sport, and reading.