Franztal in Neumark 2

This second post in the Franztal series takes us from 1767 to 1793. Thus far we have learned that one Buller family was among the original (or at least early) settlers in this small Neumark village: George Buller and his wife plus their daughter and son. As mentioned earlier, George (350 in the Przechowka church book) was the brother of Peter (351), one of the early inhabitants of Brenkenhoffswalde. The proximity of the two villages (and thus the two brothers) is evident in the 1936 map below.

Franztal was roughly 2 miles east of Brenkenhoffswalde, the other Mennonite village in the Neumark area.

With that recap and visual reminder as background, we are ready to compare the village lists from 1767 and 1993 (Goertz 2001, 49).

	1767	1793
1	Andres Vood	Heinr. olim George Buller und der von Sack
2	George Buller	Hein. Voot, Peter Voot, Joh. Schmidt: olim Hans Becker
3	Salomon Schmidt	Heinr. Buller, Cornel. Voot, Jacob Richert: olim Tobias Sperling Sr.
4	Tobias Sperling	Tens Voot
5	Hans Ratzlaff	David olim Jerd Dircks, Heinrich Dirck
6	William Vood	Carl Ludwig Hinze olim Heinr. Voot, Berend Retzlaff
7	Peter Ratzlaff I	Berend Retzlaff
8	Tens Vood	Wilh. Voot
9	George Ratzlaff	Tens Voot Jr., olim Jacob Jans
10	Hans Türcks	Martin Schmidt, olim Wilh. Voot Sr.
11	Lieb Schmidt	Martin Schmidt, Hein. Dircks
12	Gerd Türcks	Peter Jans
13	Hans Becker	13a. David olim Andr. Voot, Jacob Becker
		13b. David Voot olim Johann Funcke
14		Andr. Buller olim Hans Becker
15		Jacob Becker, Benjamin Karnecke, Frantzenitz
16		Joh. Becker olim Dircks
17		Peter Jans olim Tobias Sperling, Hein. Voot
18		Tobias Voot olim Hans Unruh
19		Jacob Vot, Peter Becker, olim George Unruh

Seeing these two lists side by side reveals one thing in a hurry: the continuity that we saw earlier for Brenkenhoffswalde is completely absent here. With Brenenhoffswalde, between 1767 and 1793 the names stayed largely the same for the sixteen village lots. For Franztal, not only has the number of plots grown from thirteen to nineteen, but not one of the named lease-holders in 1767 is associated with the same plot number in 1793.

Further, of the thirteen named lease-holders in 1767, only two are reported as holding a lease in 1793: Tens Voth (plot 8 in 1767 = 4 in 1793), and William Voth (6 = 8). Five or six other 1767 individuals are listed only as olim (former owners) in 1793: Andres Voth (1 = 13a), George Buller (2 = 1), Tobias Sperling (4 = 3 and/or 17), Gerd Dircks (12 = 5), Hans Becker (13 = 2 and/or 14), and perhaps Hans Dircks (10 may = 16). Five of the original settlers are not mentioned at all: Salomon Schmidt (3), Hans Ratzlaff (5), Peter Ratzlaff I (7), George Ratzlaff (9), and Lieb Schmidt (11).

If the two lists are taken as accurate records of the division and assignment of plots within Franztal, then something significant happened during the twenty-six years between the two registers. The most likely explanation is that the land associated with the village was expanded, which led to a complete reorganization (and renumbering) of the village plots. So, for example, George Buller’s plot 2 in 1767 became plot 1 in 1793. It is also worth noting that six plots have no former lease-holder listed, which might reflect the fact that six new plots were added after the original founding of the village (i.e., 13 + 6 = 19).

All that is of some interest, but our focus really is on the three Bullers listed: George, Heinrich, and Andreas.

1. George is listed only as the former owner of 1793 plot 1. This is probably a sign that George had turned over the family farm to one of his children or had passed away, which led to the same result. We know that George’s brother Peter 351 was still alive in 1793 but died sometime before 1805 (see here). Since George is listed before Peter in the Przechowka church book and has the same name as their father George (342), it seems reasonable to think that this George (350) was the older of the two brothers. It may be that he passed away sometime during the twenty-six-year period between 1767 and 1793.

2. Heinrich Buller is recorded as taking over George Buller’s Franztal property. This is a strong hint of a father–son relationship, and it makes it plausible that Heinrich was George’s firstborn son, likely the unnamed son recorded in the 1767 register. If he was, then Heinrich was at least twenty-six years old and no doubt establishing his own family by then.

Not to be overlooked is a Heinrich’s joint lease (with Cornelius Voth and Jacob Richert) of 1793 plot 3, the land formerly farmed by Tobias Sperling (1767 plot 4). If this is the same Heinrich identified above, it might hint that Heinrich was enjoying a certain level of success.

3. Andreas is the last Buller mentioned, the one about whom we can say the least. We know from this list that he farmed 1793 plot 14, which was presumably the 1767 plot 13 held by Hans Becker. One might imagine that Andreas was a second son of George, but this is nothing more than a guess, reasonable though it may be.

Just as we saw with Brenkenhoffswalde, so also in Franztal an original Buller inhabitant in 1767 was followed by two additional Buller families in 1793. Although it seems reasonable to think that these new families were closely related to (probably the children of) the the original settler, we should not confuse this working hypothesis with demonstrable fact.

Work Cited

Goertz, Adalbert. 2001. Mennonites in Amt Driesen of the Neumark, Brandenburg, Prussia. Mennonite Family History 20:47–51.