Karen (Kruger) Menkveld
“We were never just another file to her—we were a family“
When our parents passed away, we were overwhelmed by the sadness of loss, but also comforted by beautiful memories, stories, pictures, and documents. Often, these cherished keepsakes end up tucked away in drawers, fading with each generation. But Anne-Marie transformed these precious mementos into a meaningful legacy, preserving them for generations to come.
She treated each photo and document like gold, and listened to our endless family stories with genuine interest and joyful curiosity. She placed them in a context that made the past come alive. Through deep research and her trusted network of contacts, Anne-Marie uncovered documents and photos we had never seen before, shedding light on ancestors we knew little about. It felt like she was carefully drawing the branches of our family tree, with bright leaves—and even some apples—reminding us that the apple truly doesn’t fall far from the tree.
I wholeheartedly recommend Anne-Marie to anyone who wants to preserve their family’s history. Her deep knowledge, love for history, and well-honed process work seamlessly together. She is bright, intelligent, and meticulous, with a heart that turns your loved ones’ memories into a lasting treasure for future generations.
Anne-Marie did exceptional work on both my father’s and my mother’s heritage. She filled in significant gaps in our Kruger family history, finding value in documents we hadn’t realized were important until she reviewed them. The experience became not just a family tree project, but a healing journey—one filled with laughter, tears, and a sense of peace.
The Kruger and Goosen families will be forever grateful for Anne-Marie’s attention to detail, her emotional sensitivity, and her unwavering dedication to telling our family story. Her work will be appreciated for many years to come.
We were never just another file to her—we were a family.
Forever grateful
Karen (Kruger) Menkveld
Melissa Nezar
“She’s also been a sound board for me when I got stuck“
Anne-Mari has been a great help for me while doing family research. She helped track down our Ancestors in the Netherlands with actual documentation from the Netherlands archives. And then tracked us back even further into Germany.
Where many others were happy to say the surname originated in the Netherlands and leave it at that, Anne-Mari, with all her knowledge and experience, did not believe that was the whole story. She’s also been a sound board for me when I got stuck and not sure where to go digging. Her language skills have been invaluable when documents have been retrieved from the Archives and I could not make heads or tails out of the documents written in Dutch.
Christopher Fitchet
“…able to identify with valid documentation…”
Photographing Graves has been a personal passion of mine for a number of years. The hobby started, unplanned, when I couldn’t trace my family graves.
I traced our ‘stammoeder’ and yet the generations that followed left gaps. This led to a personal decision to photograph as many graves and cemeteries as I could. From Langebaan in the Western Cape all the way up to Zimbabwe. Never have I encountered a cemetery where the headstones have not been damaged by both nature and man. It’s these unknown, difficult to identify graves where Anne-Marie has been of great service. Sometimes only a name, sometimes only a date, but in the end she has been able to identify with valid documentation who are the people buried in these forgotten graves.