1. We began in a small village named Brüttisellen just outside of Zurich, Switzerland (see here), the original home of Heinrich Bühler and who knows how many generations of ancestors before him.
2. At some point Heinrich adopted the Anabaptist faith, and in 1602, no doubt fearing for his and his family’s safety, he fled more than 500 miles east to Moravia, where he joined a Hutterite Bruderhof (see further here).
3. According to the Mennonitisches Lexikon, Heinrich returned to Zurich at least four times, the last time in 1614, when he was imprisoned and then threatened with more severe punishment if ever he showed his face in Zurich again (see here; so also The Chronicle of the Hutterian Brethren).
4. The Mennonitisches Lexikon also identifies Heinrich’s place of residence in Moravia: a Hutterite Bruderhof known as Weselen, which is where we pick up the story now.
Obviously, the first questions that come to mind are: Where is Weselen? Does it still exist, or is it, like Kleefeld our later home, nothing more than a spot in a field? Answering these questions is not as simple as one would think, since Google knows of no such city or village today. As luck would have it, however, a Czechoslovakian blogger with an interest in genealogy discusses a town in Moravia Veselí nad Moravou that probably is our ancestor’s home (see here). He writes:
We know a few versions of the name Veselí: Wessele, Weseli, Wessely, and from 1437 on also a German form Wessels. The phrase “nad Moravou” was added in 1883 to distinguish this town from another homonymic towns [sic].
All the forms bear a strong resemblance to the name given in the Menninitisches Lexicon, the main difference being an -n at the end of Weselen, which is most likely a case ending, not part of the basic stem or root Wesel-.
Although the mention of at least one town with a similar-sounding name (it is unclear if the blogger means “another homonymic town” or “other homonymic towns”) should caution us against jumping to conclusions, a map of Hutterite Bruderhofs during this period seems to cinch the case.
As noted earlier, Nikolsburg was the center of Hutterite life in Moravia, but around a hundred Bruderhofs populated the area. According to the key to the map above, number 82 (far right and just north of center) was a Bruderhof named Wessely. This Bruderhof was located just east of the March River, which is now known as the Maravou or, more commonly, Marava River. The correspondence between Wessely, Weselen, and Veselí nad Maravou seems conclusive.
Assuming that all this is correct, we can now sketch Heinrich and his family’s journey a little more accurately, a journey that took them over 500 miles from Zurich to a town on the border between Moravia and Hungary.
The next post will finally take a look around the area of Veselí nad Maravou, which will offer further evidence that our ancestor Heinrich Bühler did call this town home four centuries ago.
In the meantime, I leave you with a comment from our Czechoslovakian blogger that is at least a little intriguing:
Most common among the oldest surnames [in Veselí nad Maravou] are: Bílek, Brumovský, Buráň, Cigánek, Čambala, Čech, Čermáček, Čermák, Černoch, Černý, Červenka, Dobrozemský, Doubrava, Fiala, Gazda, Gregůrek, Groš, Hanák, Heinrich, Horký, Húska, Chmelařík, Jalubský, Kadlček, Karas, Kočí, Kolář, Komoň, Královský, Kratochvíl, Krejčí, Krušina, Kučera, Kůrka, Kutalík, Kuželka, Macháček, Maršálek, Menšík, Novák, Pleva, Pokorný, Polášek, Příborský, Scholtz, Skupina, Slanina, Smutný, Spěváček, Springer, Švec, Vadovský, Vojtík, Všetula, Zámečník, Zbořil, Žilka.
Maybe it is mere coincidence, but I am struck by the similarity of the last name listed with a last name that we have already encountered, way back here.
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