1. Family Names
As mentioned previously, the list of Deutsch-Wymysle members who came from the Neumark and Schwetz areas numbered 234. Of that total, sixteen were named Buller (seventeen were born Bullers, but we are counting names now). The list also contains the following surnames:
- Balzer: 3
- Bartel: 3
- Block: 7
- Dirks: 3
- Dyck: 1
- Ediger: 1
- Ekkert: 2
- Ewert: 4
- Foth: 23
- Frey: 2
- Funk: 6
- Geddert: 1
- Gerbrand: 1
- Gertz: 3
- Görtz: 8
- Heier: 3
- Jantz: 2
- Kasper: 2
- Kliewer: 19
- Konke: 3
- Kornelius: 1
- Kraft: 1
- Kurzweg: 1
- Kühn: 2
- Luther: 3
- Lyhrmann: 2
- Nachtigal: 8
- Nehring: 1
- Nickel: 5
- Pauls: 8
- Penner: 7
- Ratzlaff: 24
- Rosenfeld: 1
- Schmidt: 15
- Schroeder: 13
- Unruh: 21
- Wedel: 5
- Wilms: 3
Ratzlaffs (24), Foths (23), Unruhs (21) Kliewers (19), Bullers (16), and Schmidts (15) accounted for 50.4 percent of the group; the remaining 49.6 percent was spread across thirty-two family names. It would be interesting and probably instructive to explore how this distribution of names compares with other Mennonite congregations of the same time and region.
2. Establishment of the Congregation
A second way of viewing the information is by decade of birth. If, for example, the congregation was formed in 1762, as Robert Foth claims, one would expect at least some additions to the congregation who had been born prior to that time and immediately after. The birth years in the church records, however, paint a different picture:
- 1770s: 3
- 1780s: 8
- 1790s: 30
- 1800s: 27
- 1810s: 39
- 1820s: 33
- 1830s: 35
- 1840s: 12
- 1850s: 8
Clearly, the largest influx was of Mennonites born in the 1790s through the 1830s. This already tells us a great deal about when these Mennonites joined the church. Since the church records would not show the addition of children without parents (there was no sudden influx of orphans), we can assume that these earliest-born persons were adults when they joined the church. To be specific, those born during the 1790s would have been at least in their twenties when they joined, which would imply a date of joining in the 1810s and 1820s.
One might argue, in response, that the church records are incomplete, that the records began only in the 1810s even though the church was established fifty years earlier. This is possible, of course, but hardly a positive argument in favor of an otherwise-unattested claim. Taking the data at face value, one would naturally conclude that the church actually began in or relatively close to the 1810s.
In fact, this is precisely what others conclude based on all the evidence at hand. According to Erich Ratzlaff, the Mennonitische Lexikon (1913 ed.) reports that the Mennonite congregation (actually, “colony”) at Deutsch-Wymysle was established in the second decade of the nineteenth century (that is, the 1810s) and elected its first preacher, Jacob Pankratz, in 1813 (Ratzlaff 1971, 36). Wojciech Marchlewski (1986) concurs, as does the author of the Nowe Wymyśle article in the Catalogue of Monuments of Dutch Colonization in Poland, who writes:
Although the village initially was settled by the Evangelical colonists it constituted one of the three most important Mennonite centers in Mazowsze for many decades. The Mennonite community was established in 1813 by settlers who moved here from villages located near the Vistula (e.g. Sady). … In ca. 1829, the village had approx. 50 Mennonite families, approx. 50 Evangelical families, and 60 families of unknown denomination. (here)
Although it is certainly possible, perhaps even likely, that a few Mennonites lived in the village of Deutsch-Wymysle before 1813, all the evidence available to date supports the conclusion that there was no Mennonite congregation per se until around 1813.
3. From Brenkenhoffswalde to Deutsch-Wymysle
Several posts ago we noted that, of the fifteen Bullers with a birthplace recorded, thirteen had been born in Brenkenhoffswalde. Erich Ratzlaff notes further that a total of twenty-two Deutsch-Wymysle congregants come from that village, which means that, not only did most of the Bullers who moved to Deutsch-Wymysle came from Brenkenhoffswalde, but, conversely, most of the Mennonites who came to Deutsch-Wymysle from Brenkenhoffswalde were Bullers. The only other Mennonites from Brenkenhoffswalde were named Schmidt (five), Unruh (three), and Janzen (one).
Interestingly, although we know Bullers also lived in Franztal as late as 1806 but left before 1826, not one of those Franztal Bullers shows up in Deutsch-Wymysle. Fifteen other Mennonites from Franztal moved to Deutsch-Wymysle (six Foths, three Konkes, three Wedels, one Funk, one Kurzweg, one Schmidt), but not one Buller. Where the Franztal Bullers moved between 1806 and 1826 remains a mystery.
Adding the numbers for both villages together, we can calculate that approximately 18 percent of the Deutsch-Wymysle congregation moved there from the Neumark (not Ratzlaff’s 25 percent). The rest came mostly from Przechowka and the surrounding (Schwetz) area.
Another interesting analysis would be of all villages around Deutsch-Wymysle where congregants lived. Since the hour is late and this post is already long, that will need to wait for another time.
Works Cited
Marchlewski, Wojciech. 1986. Mennonici w Polsce (o powstaniu społeczności mennonitów Wymyśla Nowego) [The Mennonites in Poland (The Origins of the Mennonite Community in Wymyśle Nowe)]. Etnografia Polska 30:129–46. Available online here.
Ratzlaff, Erich L. 1971. Im Weichselbogen: Mennonitensiedlungen in Zentralpolen. Winnipeg: Christian Press.
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