Lynette Coetzee
(1912-2001)

Lynette Coetzee ²

Born: 1912 ²
Marriage (1): Prof. John Cecil Middleton Shaw
Died: 2001 aged 89 ²

Family Links

Spouses/Children:

1. Prof. John Cecil Middleton Shaw

bullet Sources of information or noted events in her life were:

• General Comment. ² One of the co-authors and co-researchers of the Van Rynevld Family Records.

AJVR writes:-

Lyn did a tremendous amount of work following up this family history, and these notes result mainly from her work, together with input from Tony van Ryneveld. She was an industrial psychologist, and did some excellent work in designing aptitude and selection tests for mining and other companies. In approx. 1948, PUTCO, the Johannesburg public bus company, servicing Soweto and other areas, was experiencing an unacceptable accident rate and Lyn was originally employed to form an Aptitude Testing Division. She started from scratch and designed personality and aptitude tests for selecting drivers, which resulted in a significant reduction in the accident rate. This Division grew quickly and began testing for many various skills required in industry. When PUTCO was bought out by private investors, Lyn bought the Division and formed (IPS) Industrial Psychological Services (Pty) Ltd. The name was later changed to Industrial Staff Testing Services (Pty) Ltd. She continued to run this company until seven years before her death. She was the author of a book entitled "Accident Proneness" which became a textbook for the Aptitude Testing fraternity worldwide. She was a member of the S A Foundation.
On a personal note: As soon as Lyn graduated from Wits University (B.Sc Hons) (and during which time she was Transvaal Diving Champion), she was almost forced into marriage to a divorced man many years her senior who had 2 children in Ireland. This was as a result of her Mother wanting financial security for Lyn as the family had been impoverished by Lyn's father, John Andrew Coetzee. He was a Chartered Accountant and the family was quite well off in the early days but, unfortunately, he developed a passion about finding the other half of the Cullinan Diamond and spent the family fortune following up stories of sightings of this stone all over South Africa and the then Rhodesia.
His wife, Yda, was left to bring up the children as best she could. John would come home from time to time and the children remember him as a jolly man but, unfortunately, he was totally irresponsible. Yda had no training as she was a "lady" and ladies did not work in those days. In later years when finances became desperate, she took a job as Matron of the Girls' Residence at Wits University where Lyn was studying.
Lyn and J.C. were divorced after 20 years of marriage, not having had any children. Lyn never remarried. She was very close to her niece, Denise (Denny), and Denise's 2 children (Linda, who married Hylton Zeelie, and typed much of these history notes, and Jennifer) of whom she was very fond. They formed a family unit for many years with Denny looking after Lyn in her final years.

• Web Based Info. https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CS3T-K9VV-S?i=776&cc=2520237

Lynette married Prof. John Cecil Middleton Shaw.

Van Ryneveld Table of Contents | Van Ryneveld Surnames | Van Ryneveld Name List

There will inevitably be errors and omissions and the whole purpose of creating this online record, is to invite feedback and corrections.
The data is specifically for non-commercial use and my clear intention is to build family records. The data may, therefore, not be used in any way for the purposes of financial gain.

Caveat:- Throughout the project UK GRO birth, marriage and death index data appears. The GRO data appears in Quarters. Q1 = January, February and March, Q2 = April, May, June , Q3 = July, August and September and Q4 = October, November and December. Similarly, Mar Q = January, February and March, Jun Q = April, May, June , Sep Q = July, August and September and Dec Q = October, November and December. Where these dates occur, they represent the date of Registration of the event rather than the date of the actual event. Logically, registration occurs AFTER the event. In some cases this may be days or months or even years after the event. The important thing is that the event was recorded and a copy of the document of registration could be obtained if necessary. This also applies to South African NAAIRS records.

Similarly, the UK system is confusing to the uninitiated because registration districts can span several counties. Accordingly GRO locations may not record the true location of the event. They do record where the record is actually kept or recorded.

Caveat #2:- I have used URL's throughout the website as sources. The URLs are often from paid subscription sites so you may not be able to access them without an account. Inevitably there are broken URL's. I have been to every URL recorded here and at the time they were operational. In this regard, the Ancestry24 records are a problem. There are numerous references in the South African data citing Ancestry24 records. Unfortunately Ancestry24 has closed down and these records are no longer available on line.

The early South African records on this site would not have been as good as they are without the work done by Delia Robertson. Where there are website addresses containing http://www.e-family.co.za... I record the citation should read Robertson, Delia. The First Fifty Years Project. This website can be found at First Fifty Years

Lynette Coetzee 2

Lynette Coetzee ²