Before we examine families 15 (David Koehn), 16 (Peter Schmidt), and 17 (Jacob Pankratz) in the Rovno register, a brief preview of several coming attractions:
- Glenn Penner continues to excavate through archival material relevant to nineteenth-century Mennonites and our family in particular. Most recently he identified two Benjamin Bullers in Waldheim during the early 1840s. One of these is most assuredly the father of David.
- We will also return to the other Rovno register (which we dubbed Rovno 2; see here), since it provides additional information on the Mennonite community of Zofyovka.
It seems unlikely that a lone family such as Benjamin Buller’s—husband and wife, two young sons, and a teenage nephew—trekked hundreds of miles all on their own. It seems more likely that groups of families traveled together, just as U.S. families headed west in wagon trains later in the same century. Obviously, we should not envision Conestoga wagons slowly rolling from Prussia to Russia, but wagons of some type were no doubt involved, and they likely traveled in groups of families of varying sizes.
With that as background and rationale, let us examine families 15–17, the ones who arrived the same year that Benjamin and family did, to see where they lived before the settled in Volhynia. For ease of reference, we repeat the listings for those families, then search for them in the GRANDMA database (GM) and the Przechovka church book (PCB).
| 15 | David Koehn |
51
| |||||
| his wife Maria |
32
| ||||||
| daughers Anna |
6
| ||||||
| Elisabeth |
5
| ||||||
| Maria |
3
| ||||||
| Helena |
2
| ||||||
| 16 | Peter Schmidt |
32
| |||||
| his wife Eva |
33
| ||||||
| daughters Anna |
8
| ||||||
| Elisabeth |
6
| ||||||
| Maria |
5
| ||||||
| 17 | Jacob Pankratz |
27
| |||||
| his wife Anna |
33
| ||||||
| son Heinrich |
5
| ||||||
| daughters Anna |
4
| ||||||
| Helena |
3
|
Family 15
The strongest evidence for identifying this family rests on the names and ages of the four daughters. GM provides the following information:
Note first that the names of the four daughters appear in the same order in Rovno 1 and GM: Anna, Elisabeth, Maria, Helena. Remarkably, the ages appear to match as well. We know that the register was compiled in 1819 or 1820; if it was the former, then according to the GM years of birth, Anna would have been six, Elisabeth five, Maria three, and Helena two. That is strong correlation.
A complication arises, however, with the ages of the parents. According to GM, David was born in 1788, which would have made him roughly thirty-one at the time of the register, not the fifty-one that is recorded. Likewise, Maria is said to have been born three years earlier than that, which means she would have been around thirty-four, not thirty-two. How can we explain this discrepancy?
The PCB does offer entries for this David Köhn (PCB 1262) and this Maria (Maricke) Schmidt (1220), and the dates of birth that GM has are correct. However, the PCB entries for David and Maria do not list a spouse for either one, so the suggestion that this David Köhn and this Maria Schmidt were married may be mistaken. There were other David Köhns in that church, and it may very well be that Maria married David Köhn number 608, who was baptized in 1785 and thus presumably was born around 1767 or 1768, which would have made him fifty-one or fifty-two when the register was taken.
Whether the David Köhn listed in the register is PCB 608 or 1262, the significance for our study remains the same: family 15 clearly had a close connection with the Przechovka church.
Family 16
This family is even more interesting. According to the PCB, a Peter Schmidt (1233) was born in Jeziorka on 24 April 1786. That village name should sound familiar, since we learned about it here, here, and here. GM states that he and his wife had three daughters: Anna, Elisabeth, and Maria—the same names listed in the same order in Rovno 1. The first two daughters also appear in the PCB: Anna is number 1527, and Elisabeth is number 1545. Both girls are said to have been born in Klein Konopat, which was close to and associated with the Przechovka church. But there is more.
The girls’ mother Eva (Rovno 1) was known as Efcke in the PCB, appearing as entry 1198, where she is identified as the wife of Peter Schmidt 1233 (so the person we are looking for) and the daughter of one Benjamin Buller and his wife Maricke. This is not, of course, the Benjamin who is the father of David, but it seems more than coincidental that there was another Buller in the group of families who came to Zofyovka in 1817. Were Efcke Buller Schmidt and Benjamin Buller father of David related? We do not yet know, but it would not be surprising if they were. At the very least, we can conclude with relative certainty that family 16, like family 15, originated from the Przechovka church, or at least the larger Schwetz area where that church was located.
Family 17
The Jacob Pankratz family also appears in GM and in the PCB. The PCB, for example, lists Jacob as number 1326, where he is said to have been born in Beckersitz, a small village to the northeast of the church but still within the Schwetz area. Anna (Ancke) also appears in the PCB (1235), which lists her as being born in Konopat. Even their first-born son Heinrich is included in the PCB (1578): he is reported to have been born in Beckersitz. No need to drag this out any further: family 17 clearly was associated with the Schwetz-area Przechovka church as well.
Conclusions
In light of what we have learned about families 15–17, it seems reasonable to suggest that Benjamin and Helena Buller and their small family likewise came from the same locale. We cannot say that we know this, only that it is the most likely explanation until further information comes to light that disproves our hypothesis.
As often happens, the more we learn the more questions arise. In this instance we wonder whether Efcke Buller Schmidt of family 16 was related to Benjamin Buller, the head of family 18. For that matter, was Maria Schmidt, wife of David Köhn (family 15), related to the head of family 16, Peter Schmidt? It would make perfect sense for close relatives to embark on such a life-altering journey together, so perhaps we need to dig a little deeper into the family histories of these families to see how closely they were bound by blood and by marriage.
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