Bullers in Deutsch-Wymysle 8

Thus far our survey of list 3 in the Deutsch-Wymysle church records has covered three families: Heinrich 97 and Helene (Unruh) 98, Peter 104 and Helene (Buller) 105, and Tobias 110 and Anna 111 (Foth). All were born in Brenkenhoffswalde.

The two Bullers who are the subject of this post also were born in Brenkenhoffswalde: Benjamin 118 (p. 29 here) and Heinrich 125 (p. 30 here).

Although both Bullers were born in Brenkenhoffswalde (in 1806 and 1808, respectively), their wives were not. Rather, Heinrich and Benjamin met their wives in Deutsch-Wymysle; this is not surprising, since both boys were not yet in their teen years when their families moved from Brenkenhoffwalde.

This does set these two Bullers apart from the first four (Heinrich, Peter, Helene, and Tobias) whom we surveyed. Those four married in Brenkenhoffswalde before they moved to Deutsch-Wymysle; these latter two married in Deutsch-Wymysle after the move. Presumably all six of these Bullers were of the same generation, with Heinrich, Peter, Helene, and Tobias being the older members of that generation and Benjamin 118 and Heinrich 125 being the younger members of the same generation.

This prompts an important question: Who brought the adolescents Benjamin 118 and Heinrich 125 to Deutsch-Wymysle? Did they come with their parents? If so, who were their parents, and why are they not listed in the church records? Or did they come with other Buller families for some reason (maybe their parents had passed away)? Given the limited evidence available to us, we cannot offer any sort of certain opinion on this—although it is fun to think through the possibilities.

Our earlier investigations of Brenkenhoffswalde (here) identified four Buller families in that village: Peter son of Peter 351 (aka Peter Sr.), his son Peter Jr., his son (or so we think) Heinrich, and a Buller named Johann. We are fairly certain that Peter Sr. died before 1805, since he disappears from the land tax register; if so, Peter Sr. could not have been the father of Benjamin 118 and Heinrich 125.

We have already suggested that Peter Sr.’s son Heinrich (Peter Jr’s brother) was the father of Heinrich 97 in Deutsch-Wymysle (see the chart here), which makes it highly unlikely that he was the father of Heinrich 125 above, since no father would give two living sons the same name. It is conceivable that Heinrich son of Peter Sr. was the father of Benjamin 118. We simply do not know.

This leaves Peter Jr. and the mysterious Johann as the potential fathers of Heinrich 125. The problem with suggesting Johann as the father is his disappearance from the Brenkenhoffswalde land registers after 1805. Unless he stayed in Brenkenhoffswalde as a nonfarming resident, he was probably not the father of Heinrich 125.

By the process of elimination, Peter Jr. seems the most likely candidate. Unfortunately, Peter Jr’s life is a blank after 1806, so all we can do is suggest and guess—all of which should regarded with great skepticism. With those warnings, here we go …

Let us assume for the sake of simplicity that Benjamin 118 and Heinrich 125 were brothers; it does not matter in the end, but it will be easier to think through this if we treat them as a single unit. It is conceivable that both were the sons of Peter Jr., which would mean that they were members of the Heinrich, Peter, Helene, and Tobias generation. We can say more specifically that they were cousins to Heinrich (DWCB 97) and siblings to either Peter or Helene and cousins to whichever one was not their sibling (recall that Peter and Helene were first cousins who married).

These younger sons of Peter Jr. were born fifteen to seventeen years after his first child, which means they would have been adolescents when their older siblings married and began their own families. If Benjamin 118 and Heinrich 125’s father Peter Jr. (or both parents) died in Brenkenhoffswalde, one would imagine that these adolescent boys would have been taken in by their sibling (Peter/Helene or perhaps Tobias), who also would have brought the boys with them to Deutsch-Wymysle. This would explain why Benjamin 118 and Heinrich 125 are listed in the church records but no parents make an appearance.

Of course, another explanation is that the boys came with their birth families but the names of their parents were neither recorded nor remembered. Which of these two explanations is correct (if either) is impossible to tell. That being said, I tend to find the notion that Peter Jr. passed away before the families came to Deutsch-Wymysle slightly more likely. It is consistent with Mennonite practice of that day and makes sense of all the data (limited though it may be) available to us.