Peter D?

Two entries in the Alexanderwohl church register bear closer scrutiny, since one of them may relate to our ancestor Peter D Buller.

As was discussed earlier here, this register records some of the important information—parents, date of birth, village of birth or residence, date of baptism, spouse, and date of death—for some of the members of the church. When all that information is provided, identifying the person precisely is relatively easy. When only partial information appears, the best we can do is suggest possibilities. So it is with the entries pictured below.

Numbers 672 and 675 are both named Peter Buller. One of them clearly is not Peter D, the other … well … maybe?

Peter 672 is the child of register numbers 402 and 403, who turn out to be David Buller and Elisabeth Wedel of Hierschau (p. 19 of the register). Looking to the right end of the line we see that in 1868 Peter 672 married number 650, Helena Bartel of Waldheim (p. 31). Although the names of the father and son match our ancestors (David and Peter), nothing else does, so we can conclude that this is not Peter D.

Peter 675 is accompanied by far less information. All we know is that this Peter was born or resided in Waldheim and was baptized (with Peter 672 and others) on 7 June 1866. There is a note written to the right of Peter 675, but it is thus far indecipherable, apart from the year 1866 (middle line of the photograph below) and perhaps the village name Margenau (one of the villages associated with this church) just to the left of the year.

So, is this Peter D? Possibly, but we do not have enough information to make the identification firm. This is a Peter Buller from Waldheim, where Peter D lived on 7 June 1866 (he married Sarah Siebert a little more than two months later, on 27 August). It was apparently customary for Mennonites to be baptized around the ages of nineteen to twenty-one, and the latter would correspond to Peter D, who was born in 1845 and thus would have been twenty-one in 1866. One might also imagine that Mennonites were generally baptized before they were married, although we do not know if that was the case.

In the end, without additional information we cannot know if this is the baptismal record of Peter D: all the pieces fit, but there may well have been other Peter Bullers living in Waldheim of roughly the same age. Perhaps as we continue to collect information and put puzzle pieces together we will be able to say. For now, it must remain an enticing possibility.