Family line 3: Peter 354

Thus far we have covered the first two lines of the known sons of George Buller and Dina Thoms. The descendants of Hans 340, we learned, are for the most part not well attested in the Przechowka church book, presumably because they moved 120 miles away to the Neumark (aka Brandenburg or Driessen or Netzebruch) region, specifically the villages of Franztal and Brenkenhoffswalde. The descendants of George 3XXXX, however, are extensively covered in the church book, which reflects their ongoing settlement in the Schwetz area and their close association with the Przechowka church for more than a century.

This post takes up the family line of George and Dina’s third son: Peter 354 (column F in the chart below; see here for the full-sized chart).

We have already discussed the later members of this family line a number of times. For example, we identified George 375 in the census and registers of 1772, 1776, and 1789 (here and here). We also encountered this family when they moved to Volhynia (here). Several new details are also worth noting.

1. According to the Przechovka church book, Peter 354 (generation 2) fathered three daughters and the one son listed here. Thus, the generation 3 lineage given in the church book is probably fairly complete. Four children is smaller than most families but not unknown—and it is conceivable that Peter 354 died at an early age; we simply do not know enough to offer more than hypotheses.

2. Peter’s son George 375 lived in Jeziorka for a time and then moved to Volhynia, so his relation with the church was not as close as the George 3XXXX line examined in the previous post. This is reflected, it seems, in the sparse information available for George 375’s family. Only sons are listed (see 389–392 in the scan below), no daughters, and the church book generally has no record of baptism or marriage.

3. We know that two of George 365’s sons accompanied him to Volhynia in 1803–1804, but one son (Jacob 395) remained in the Schwetz area and emigrated to Alexanderwohl village in Molotschna along with the rest of the church in 1820. The fourth son (Andreas 390) is the least remembered: of his siblings, only he does not have a date of birth recorded, just a year. As far as we know, he did not emigrate to Volhynia or to Alexanderwohl, which might hint at an early death.

4. Generation 5 descendants of this family line are recorded in the church book until 1800, but after that they cease, possibly because a good portion of the family moved to Volhynia or passed on.

To bring this around to our family, it is intriguing that a number of the members of this line ended up in Volhynia, just as Benjamin and David did, but we cannot overlook the fact that they preceded our family by at least thirteen years. We cannot imagine Benjamin and Helena and David emigrating to Volhynia as part of this group. Of course, Benjamin and David still could be descended from the line of Peter 354; at this point we cannot say one way or another.

Still, having examined the three family lines derived from George Buller and Dina Thoms in some detail, we are able to form at least some reasonable conclusions:

• The George 3XXXX line is the least likely candidate for our ancestry, since that line seems to be relatively well recorded in the church book, and our family does not appear in it.


• The Peter 354 line is more likely than that, given the line’s loose association with the church (which would explain Benjamin’s absence), and the fact that some of the line emigrated to Volhynia. However, the timing of the emigration is quite different from Benjamin’s, which neutralizes that association as a compelling factor.


• The Hans 340 lines appears to be more likely than the other two lines, by virtue of the fact that this line moved away from the Przechowka church early on, thus explaining our absence from the church book. We have yet to establish any connection between this line and Volhynia, but if we are able to do so, that would tip the scale further in favor of this line.

Of course, we cannot be certain that the three lines of George and Dina were the only Bullers in town or even that all the generation 3 or 4 descendants of those three lines are recorded in the book. There may have been other Buller lines related to/descended from the George and Dina family, and we may be descended from those non-Przechowka Bullers. We do have a clearer picture of what we know, but it is to soon to tell what remains to be discovered. At least we know our tasks for the short-term: learn more about the Hans 340 line that lived in the Neumark area and search for other Bullers in the area who did not belong to the Przechowka church.