The first Bullers in Volhynia … continued

The previous post introduced several archival lists uncovered by Glenn Penner that record the names and ages of over one hundred Mennonites who asked for permission from the Prussian government to emigrate from Jeziorka to Volhynia in 1803 and 1804 (see further here). Included on those lists were two Buller familes and two women whose maiden name was Buller (Anna Buller, wife of Behrendt Ratzlaff; and Anna Buller, wife of Andreas Koehn).

The two Buller families, who deserve closer examination, included the following individuals:

6		Peter Buller		31
		Anna Ratzlaff		30
		Ewa				6
		Anna				5
		Peter				4
		Maria				1
7		George Buller		49
		Maria Koehn		49
		Jacob				18
		David				15
		Maria				12
		Anna				10

These families requested permission to emigrate from Prussia on 15 September 1803, so we can calculate everyone’s year of birth (roughly) based on his or her age at that time. Peter, for example, would have been born thirty-one years before 1803, so 1772 or 1773. His wife Anna Ratzlaff, who was two years younger, must have been born in 1774 or 1775. George Buller and Maria Koehn, at age forty-nine, were born in 1754 or thereabouts.

As before, we look to the Przechovka church book to see if it identifies these Bullers more precisely. Because the Jeziorka Mennonites were typically associated with the Przechovka church, and because both families moved from Jeziorka (see here, here, and here) to Volhynia, we would expect them to be listed in the church book. In fact, they are.

PCB number 389 is Peter Buller, who was born on 23 February 1773. The church book also records that he married number 95, who is identified in the PCB as Ancke Ratzlaffen. Interestingly, she was born several weeks before Peter (in spite of having her age given as younger than Peter in the list), on 1 February 1773. All this is evident in the extract from the PCB below—as well as names of three of Peter’s brothers: Andreas (1776), David (1780), and Jacob (1783). We know that they are brothers because all have PCB 375 listed as their father.

So who is PCB 375? George Buller, husband of Trincke Köhnen (PCB 597). At first blush, one might conclude that the father of this Peter Buller was the head of the other Buller family who emigrated to Volhynia, George. However, several complications should be noted.

(1) According to the church book, George was born in 1847, not the 1854 that we expect. (2) The request to emigrate gives George’s wife’s name as Maria but the church book as Trincke (PCB 597); I do not know how to explain that, apart from Trincke perhaps being a given name and Maria a preferred (middle?) name. (3) Although the emigration application and the PCB agree that the couple had four children named David, Jacob, Maria, and Anna (Ancke), the years of birth differ in three out of four cases:

name		emigration year of birth		PCB year of birth
Jacob		1785		1783
David		1788		1785
Maria		1791		1788
Anna		1793/4		1794

There is no obvious reason why five out of the six years for this family are incorrect: perhaps it is a problem with the application, perhaps with the transcription. In any event, it seems that we have the right George Buller, since George 375 and his wife and children all match the governmental record rather closely (further, the GRANDMA database knows of no other Köhn who married a George Buller).

Assuming that we have identified the right Bullers, we can make some further observations. First, it is not surprising that father George and son Peter emigrated at the same time. We have suspected that this sort of “family migration” took place before, and here we see it in action.

Second, we cannot overlook the fact that this is not the first time we have encountered George 375. In fact, we discussed George in a post on Jeziorka (here) and another on the Prussian censusus of 1772, 1776, and 1789 (here). George Buller 375 appeared in all three of them. It is amazing that fourteen years later George pops up in governmental records again. Because he does, we now are able to answer the questions posed earlier:

• What happened to George after this time?


• What happened to his family?

The answer: in late 1803 or early 1804, George and his family packed up their household and moved some 300 miles east to a new region governed by a new authority. As far as we know thus far, they were the first Bullers to move to Volhynia. That being said, we should not be surprised if some other Buller who emigrated slightly earlier someday comes into view.

Third, a final note about something that we do not know (yet?): where in Volhynia George and Peter and their families settled. The request that they filed was to leave Prussia, not a request to enter Russia. If there was a request to enter Russia, we would likely know where they settled when they arrived. As it is, we can only form an educated guess, which we will attempt to do at some point down the line (possibly even in the next post).