The Rovno register 2

The previous post offered some simple observations about the first ten families of Rovno register 1, which included ample evidence of the disruption that a higher adult mortality rate caused with many families of that day, as well the priority given to males in the listing of heads of household. This post turns to consider families 11–18 (which includes Benjamin and Helena Buller), in order to make further observations.

First the list from Chaiderman 1997, then the observations.

11		Karl Baltzer		38
		his wife Maria				28
		son Karl		1
		daugher Helena				2
12		Johan Nickel		56
		his wife Susanna				24
		sons Andrew		20 [?]
		Abraham		3
		daughters Susanna				4
		Helena				1
13		Erdman Nickel		26
		his wife Eva				43
		sons Samuel		12
		Peter		10
		Johan		3
14		Karl Wedel		38
		his wife Helena				38
		their sons Karl		5
		Dominik		1
		Heinrich		17
		daughter Elisabeth				3
		Karl’s brothers
		Heinrich		17
		Peter		15
		Dominik		24
		his wife Magdalina				18
		Jacob		22
		his wife Anna				22
		daughter Helena				1
		their mother Maria				50
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
18		Benjamin Buller		31
		his wife Helena				25
		sons David		2
		Dominik		4
		nephew David		15
		Totals		XXX44		XXX46

1. The first thing that jumps off the page here is the age difference in most of the married heads of households listed: Karl Baltzer was ten years older than his wife Maria, Johan Nickel was thirty-two years older than wife Susanna, while Erdman Nickel was seventeen years younger than wife Eva; Karl and Helena Wedel were the same age, and Peter and Eva Schmidt were only a year apart, but David Koehn was nineteen years older than wife Maria, Jacob Pankratz was six years younger than wife Anna, and Benjamin Buller was six years older than his wife Helena. In all, six of the eight couples listed were separated by six or more years.

The average age difference between these eight couples was 11.4 years. More husbands were older than their wives, but only barely: four to three (one the same age). However, the average number of years by which a husband was older was double the average number of years by which a wife was older: 16.75 years for the four older husbands versus 8.0 years for the three older wives.

What are we to make of these significant age differences? A working hypothesis might be that the age differences are evidence of the high incidence of a second marriage for at least one of the two partners, which would be expected if the families of that time and place (an early nineteenth-century village within the Russian Empire) experienced a relatively high adult mortality rate.

2. One data set that might substantiate or call into question this hypothesis is the ages of the children relative to the ages of the household’s husband and wife. For example, in family 12, twenty-four-year-old Susanna Nickel clearly was not the mother of twenty-year-old Andrew (the reading “20” is uncertain but likely); nor was twenty-six-year-old Erdman Nickel (family 13) likely the father of sons aged twelve and ten.

Other clues point in the same direction: seventeen-year-old Heinrich Wedel (family 14) is listed last, although his two brothers are younger. As suggested in the previous post, this could be an indication that he was Helena’s son by a previous marriage. We might deduce the same from the Buller family listing: younger David is listed before older Dominik, perhaps reflecting a difference of parentage.

Although we cannot be certain about everything suggested, it seems reasonable to conclude from the differences in ages between husband and wife and from the ages of the children relative to their listed parents that perhaps six out of the eight families listed were second marriages for at least one of the partners. This in itself is a clue to the relatively high adult mortality rate for this group of Mennonites.

Scan of the original Russian archival record for family 14.

3. The size and complexity of family 14 is worthy of special note. Fifteen related people lived in that single household: the head of the household and his wife, four children connected to one or both of them, two unmarried brothers of the household head, a married brother of the head plus his wife, a second married brother of the head plus his wife and child, and the mother of the head and (probably) his brothers.

This Wedel household did not contain just a single nuclear family but rather three married couples and their children and a widowed matriarch and her two unmarried sons. Somewhat surprisingly to us, the matriarch of the family is listed last, after all her sons and families are recorded. Whether this reflects the reality of the household is impossible to say. This is, presumably, a Russian government official’s listing of the family, and it is possible that matriarch Maria Wedel’s opinion was the most important one in the household. After all, widows could sign contracts to rent land in that setting (see here); perhaps their status in the household is not accurately reflected in this listing.

Although one might think that there is little else we can glean from the Rovno register, there are more nuggets waiting to be uncovered. The next post will explore further to discover where families 15, 16, and 17—those who are said to have come to the village Zofyovka at the same time as Benjamin and Helena Buller—lived before they moved to the Rovno district of Volhynia in 1817.

Source

Chaiderman, Sergei, trans. 1997. Register of Mennonites in Rovno Region, Volhynia, 1819–1820. Posted by Richard D. Thiessen on the Mennonite Genealogy website. Available online here.