[1] In Dutch and German, “burg” means “fortress, castle, citadel, stronghold or acropolis” [3] (the first permanent European settlers in the area were primarily Dutch-speaking).
[12] The family also had homes in Le Marais, Paris, which they fled after the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, and settled first in Amsterdam in the Dutch Republic, before moving to Kampen in the Overijssel where they Dutchified.
Dirk Coetsee left the Netherlands in 1679 aboard the Asia, a Dutch East India Company ship, and settled initially in Huis Herengracht (Herengracht House) in the Herengracht (now Adderley Street) between Hout and Krotoa Place (Castle) Streets, Cape Town, in the Dutch Cape Colony before the Dutch Governor of the Cape Colony Simon van der Stel granted him land in 1682 which he named Coetzenburg.
[15] A branch of the Coetsee family became Anglicized through intermarriage after the British conquest of the Dutch Cape Colony in 1795 and Coetzenburg is now under their custodianship.
[19] One gains access to the estate via Coetzenburg Road which crosses the Eerste River over an old wagon bridge at the site of the original ford, which is known as a drift in South Africa.
[23] In the early 1680s, Simon van der Stel, the Dutch Governor of the Cape Colony, granted land to white settlers on the banks of the Eerste and Berg Rivers in and around what would become the towns of Stellenbosch and Franschhoek.
[25] In 1682, Simon van der Stel granted land at the foot of the Stellenbosch Mountain to the captain of the Stellenbosch Infantry and progenitor of the Coetsee family in South Africa, Dirk Coetsee, who established one of the oldest wine estates in South Africa, Coetzenburg, on the land.
[27] In the same year, Van Der Stel promised land higher up in the Jonkershoek Valley to Dirk Coetsee.
[23] Van der Stel also granted two other estates to Dirk Coetsee: Uiterwyk (“Outer ward”) in Bottelary in 1699, and Zonquasdrift (from “Zonqua” which means San and drift in Dutch) in Tulbagh in 1714.