Drawing on previously compiled genealogical information, archival records, and family letters and photographs, the authors have worked diligently to "set the record straight" regarding the Van Raaltes' ancestors and descendants, as well as to provide a document that future historians and genealogists can build on. Beginning with a brief biographical sketch of their lives, the book then traces Albertus and Christina's ancestors and tells the story of each of their seven children who lived to adulthood and their respective descendants. Also included is an account of what happened to the Van Raalte papers and homestead.

This famous and much loved little treatise, On Cleaving to God, (De Adhaerendo Deo) has always been attributed to Saint Albert the Great, who lived from about 1200 to 1280, and was one of the most respected theologians of his time.

Volume 31 in the HSRCA series explores the important -- and largely unknowledged -- contribution of women to the history of the Reformed Church in America. Much more than an expose of untold stories, this significant foray into women studies discusses the church's continuing struggle to define the role of women in ministry and begins, at last, to rewrite the whole story of this significant North American demonination.

The story begins in Europe, with a brief history of the church out of which the Reformation grew. The scene then shifts to New Amsterdam in 1628, where a miniscule church survived the English conquest and eventually grew into the Reformed Church in America. By Grace Alone follows its story into the twenty-first century. In addition to the sequential story of the Reformed Church's development, there are vignettes of people involved in events small and great - from the diary of a frail young woman who survived near calamity at sea but ended her life at eighty-one, the widow of the president of Queen's College, to the boy from a farm in Iowa who built the Crystal Cathedral. The reader will also be helped by timelines in every chapter, as well as a glossary, an index, and many illuminating illustrations.

Albert Barend Gildenhuizen (also spelt Gildenhuisz or Gildenhausen) arrived at the Cape in 1661 from Burgsteinfurt, Wesfale, Holland, as a sailor on board the ship "Princesse Royale". He became a "vryburger" on 23rd September 1661, the year before Cape founder Jan van Riebeeck returned to the Netherlands.He returned to Holland to marry Margaretha Hoefnagels and settled in the Cape in 1672. The Geldenhuys Stamvader was employed as a farm labourer from 1662 to 1665, and were known as knechts (hired hands released from the Garrison), working on various farms, among others with farmer Jacob Cloete. "Free burghers" were granted 11.5 hectares of land along the Liesbeek River. Their descendant son, Barend Gildenhausen born on 6th September 1682, was the first purchaser of Vergelegen - the Hottentots Holland wine farm established by Willem Adriaan van der Stel, the son of well-liked Simon van der Stel. Vergelegen borders the town Somerset West.