Hayes family of Tshwane, South Africa

We live in Pretoria, which was the administrative capital of South Africa, and is in Gauteng province. Pretoria was recently incorporated, along with 13 other local authorities, into the megacity of Tshwane.

Gauteng is the smallest of South Africa's nine provinces, with an area of 17 000 square kilometers, but it has the biggest population - nearly 8 million.  We've lived here since 1984, but still regard KwaZulu-Natal province as our real home, as we were all born there. If you want to know more about where we live, check our South Africa page. Our home is in Kilner Park, a suburb about 10 km (6 miles) east of the city centre. The suburb was named after John Kilner, who was secretary of the Methodist missionary society, and the whole area used to belong to the Methodist Church. 

Here are some of the things we are interested in, and a few links to sites with more information about these things.

Church

We are Orthodox Christians and members of St Nicholas Orthodox Church in Brixton, Johannesburg, though on most Sundays Steve and Val go to Mamelodi nearby to a mission congregation that meets in a school classroom for the Hours and Readers service. There is more information about these on our church page.

Family history and genealogy

We recently resumed our family history and genealogy research when we went on holiday to Cape Town in November 2003, and to the UK in May 2005 and met some cousins we had never met, or not seen for a long time. See our main family history page for more information.

Sport

We're none of us players, just spectators, but Val and Bridget are the football fans in the family, and we all support Manchester United and our own South African national team, Bafana Bafana. We had great fun going to watch the semi-final and final of the Africa Cup of Nations in 1996, and but most of the time we watch on TV. The team hasn't done too well since then. Val and Simon are the cricket fans in the family, and Jethro and Val watch Formula I racing avidly.