Who was David and Helena’s firstborn?

As noted earlier (see here), the Grandma database and the Buller Family Record (BFR) disagree on the identify of David and Helena Zielke Buller’s first child and their first son.

According to the Buller Family Record, David and Helena first had a daughter named Helena, after which Peter D was born in 1845. Following Peter, in order, were Elisabeh, Benjamin, Maria, and David. Sometime after David Jr. was born, Helena died, and David Sr. remarried and had three more children: Heinrich, Jacob, and Sarah.

Buller Family Record page for David Buller and family

The Grandma database, on the other hand, moves Heinrich from first child of David and his second wife (whose name is unknown) to first child of David and his first wife, Helena.

Grandma database screen for David Buller and family

In addition, whereas the Buller Family Record lists Sarah as David’s youngest child, one of three children born to David and his second wife, the Grandma database places her after Elisabeth as a child of Helena.

So, in spite of general agreement on the order and dates of birth of the children, as well as other details related to the family history—both agree that Sarah married a man named Nickel, and both indicate that David’s second wife died in Siberia (Asiatic Russia, as Grandma puts it)—there are significant differences between the two sources:

• The BRF lists Helena as David and Helena’s first child; Grandma lists Heinrich.
• The BRF identifies Peter D as the oldest son in the family; again, Grandma lists Heinrich.
• The BRF states that Sarah was born into the second marriage; Grandma, the first.

Without contemporary documents pointing one way or another (time to look at the Alexanderwohl church register again?), we cannot say which resource is correct—even though one might prefer the more recent and the more well-documented one: Grandma (recall that Grandma had Peter D and Sarah’s ship name correct, when the BRF had it wrong).

Why does this matter? If we assume for the sake of argument that the Grandma database is correct, then our ancestor Peter D was not the oldest son in his family. Further, as the second-born, Peter D had no chance of inheriting Waldheim Wirtschaft 48 (a half-allotment), which David had received in 1869. It would pass to Heinrich instead.

This may further explain Peter D’s decision to move his family to the U.S., along with his in-laws Johann and Katharina Siebert. All avenues to securing his own land in Molotschna were closed; the U.S. was his only land of opportunity.

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Even if Peter D had been the oldest and had remained in Molotschna, he would not have inherited Waldheim 48 from his father David. In fact, Peter D passed away in 1897 at the age of fifty-two (why so young?); David died seven years later at the the age of eighty-six.