Helena was born in Poland

The Buller Family Record contains an intriguing note on the matriarch of generation 1, Helena Zielke (wife of David Buller): the record states that she was born in Poland. David, it further notes, was born in Prussia. What is meant by this enigmatic “born in Poland” comment, particularly in light of David Buller being born in Prussia?

One theory is that the Polish birthplace hints at Helena Zielke’s ethnicity, that she was Polish. If so, then the storyline might be that Mennonite David Buller married outside of his group, ethnically and perhaps even religiously. Although uncommon, marriage outside of the group (in sociological terms, exogamy) was possible for Mennonites.

In this instance, however, there seems a better explanation. According to the Grandma database, 342 Mennonites have had the surname Zielke. Further, all Mennonite Zielkes are said to come from the same area: the Volhynia region (the yellow area in the map below).

As is immediately clear, the Volhynia region extends across several nations (whose borders shifted throughout history), so although it is not precisely correct to say that Helena was born in Poland, it seems permissible to refer to the area of her birth as being in the area of Poland. What more might we learn about the area of Helena Zielke’s birth?

Mennonites lived in various villages within several settlements in the Volhynia region between the years 1800 and 1874. According to Martin H. Schrag, after the initial group of Mennonites settled in villages near Ostrog (in the map above, on the river southeast of Rivne), additional Mennonite groups moved to Volhynia, including the area around Luck/Lutsk (see map above). This group is of special interest to us.

Schrag writes:

The best known of these migrations was that of a group of 21 [Dutch Prussian] Mennonite families with the names of Beyer, Bose, Dirks, Voth, Nachtigall, Nickel, Pankratz, Richard, Sperling, Unruh, and Ziekle [sic: Zielke is meant], who in 1811 entered into a contract with the nobleman Waclav Borejko, settling on his land and founding the vil­lage of Zofyovka located north of the town of Wysock on the Horyn River. The terms of the contract were very good, … but the land on which they located was marshy. The group left Zofyovka in 1828 and established “Ostrova” which is identical with Jozefin, 20 miles northeast of Luck, Volhynia. They also settled in the neigh­boring village that they again named Zofyovka.

After mentioning two additional migrations to Volhynia, Schrag adds:

In 1836 (some writers suggest 1838) the Men­nonites living in the above villages…, 40 families in all, left Volhynia, and settled in the south Ukrainian Molotschna Mennonite settlement, where they founded the village of Waldheim, a name carried with them from Volhynia.

This would be the Waldheim that is located eight miles west-northwest of Alexanderwohl (see the map here), the same Waldheim where Bullers are known to have lived (more on that later). So, it would seem fair to surmise that Helena Zielke’s family was part of the group of twenty-one Dutch Mennonite families who first migrated from Prussia to Volhynia, then to Molotschna, where they founded the village of Waldheim.*

One final intriguing note: the first Mennonite village in Volhynia was named Karolswalde, about which Ernst Crous comments: “Names of common occurrence were Becker, Buller, Decker, Dirks, Goertz, Koehn, Schartner, Siebert, Thomas, and Unruh.” Not only is our name listed but also several of the names that we saw earlier in the Przekhovka church register (Becker, Decker, Dirks, Köhn, Thoms/Thomas, and Unrau/Unruh); Siebert also makes appearance, the first time we have encountered it.

It is not yet clear what we should make of all this (not enough dots to connect into a picture), but it is intriguing that the Zielkes lived in Volhynia and moved to Waldheim, Molotschna, that Bullers also lived in Volhynia (ca. 100 miles away), that our family of Bullers moved to Molotschna fifteen years before the Zielkes, and that somehow the families became joined through the marriage of David Buller and Helena Zielke. As is often the case, we end with unanswered questions:

• Did some Bullers and Zielkes in Volhynia know each other? If so, was this a factor in David and Helena marrying?
• Were Bullers part of the group that founded Waldheim? If so, how were they related to the David Buller line?
• Did the Zielkes associate with the Alexanderwohl church, as we assume the Bullers to have done?

Maybe someday we will be able to fill in this and other dots that enable us to sketch the picture with a bit more detail and accuracy.

*****

* Apparently by 1848 a large number of this group had grown dissatisfied with life in Molotschna and migrated back to the Volhynia region. Since David and Helena are said to have died in Russia, they were not part of the returning group.

Source

Crous, Ernst. 1957. Karolswalde (Rivne Oblast, Ukraine). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online.

Schrag, Martin H. 1959. Volhynia (Ukraine). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online.