South African death notices and estate files

If you only look for one South African record, make it the death notice. Unlike a death certificate, it usually names the person's children – often with the married names of daughters – and says whether they owned property. For many families it is the record that joins two generations together.

What a death notice is

A death notice is a legal form filled in soon after a death, usually by the next of kin, and sent to the Master of the High Court (earlier the Master of the Supreme Court). It becomes the first document in the person's estate file. If there was no estate to wind up, the notice was simply filed away.

It is not the same as a newspaper death announcement, and not the same as a death certificate. The death certificate is a civil record from Home Affairs: it gives the cause of death but much less about the family.

What it can tell you

The form changed over the years, but you can often find:

date and place of birth, and on many older forms the names of the parents
date and place of death, and where the person lived
the husband or wife, and earlier marriages
the names of all the children, with married names of daughters, and whether they were minors
whether the person left property or a will

The estate file

If there was something to inherit, the estate file can hold much more: the will, an inventory, the accounts showing who received what, letters, and sometimes death, marriage and birth certificates. Not everyone has one – people who left little or nothing often do not.

Remember that the informant may have been a neighbour or an undertaker, so names and ages can be wrong. Check them against other records.

Where to find them

Older estate files are kept in the National Archives repositories, by region: Cape files at the Western Cape Archives in Cape Town (the oldest under the Orphan Chamber series, MOOC), Transvaal files at the Pretoria archives, and so on. Younger files may still be with the Master's office.

FamilySearch (free account) has put a great many online as images, including Transvaal probate records 1869–1958, Transvaal estate files 1950–1993, Orange Free State estate files 1951–2006, Eastern Cape estate files 1962–2004 and Cape probate records within its Western Cape Archives collection. Many are browse-only: you open the right film or folder and page through it.

Tips

Search for the children as well as the parent – a child's estate file may name the parents.
Women may be filed under their married name, with the maiden name in brackets.
Some images are poor or misfiled; if a file seems missing, look a few frames either side.

Useful links

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Checked October 2026. Archives and websites change – tell us with "Report a problem" if something here is out of date.