Benjamin Buller 10

A brief recap of the Benjamin Buller series before we move on to the next primary source. We began in the first post (here) with a summary of the people (our line back to Benjamin Buller) and the places (Poland, Molotschna, but primarily the place in between: Volhynia) that we will explore. The second, third, fourth, and fifth posts (here, here, here, and here) then turned to the first primary source at our disposal: an 1833 list of thirty-nine Mennonites who wished to move from Volhynia to Molotschna. There we not only found Benjamin Buller, the father of David Buller, but also learned when he had (probably) moved from Zofyovka to Ostrowka (1828) and how much his family had grown between 1820 and 1833 (from five to eleven).

After Benjamin Buller 6’s brief detour on the fact that David Buller and Helena Zielke must have married after both reached Molotschna (see here), the seventh post in the series (here) introduced another document recently made available: a list of settlers who arrived in Waldheim in 1839 who were to be assigned land the following year. Once again we identified a Benjamin Buller on the list, and the following posts (here and here) confirmed that, not only was this our ancestor, but that he was, in fact, one of Waldheim’s early landowners (no landless hicks are we!) and that his full name was Benjamin Benjamin Buller. The latter observation tells us that Benjamin’s father was likewise named Benjamin—and just like that, we extended our genealogy back another generation.

So here we are in post 10, ready to tackle another primary source. This document, like the previous one, was translated and made available by Steve Fast (here). The document itself is similar to the previous one, merely from a year later. It is titled “Mennonites Who Transferred from Volhynia to Waldheim and Were Assigned Land in 1840.”

As before, each person listed was to receive a Wirtschaft in Waldheim of 65 dessiatines (number 16 does not have an amount entered, presumably an oversight). Also as before, each person is located in the village, which is both interesting from a family perspective and informative from a historical one. to facilitate discussion, we reproduce below the essential information from Steve Fast’s translation of the list. (The numbers in the left column are of no significance other than numbering this list.)

	name	where counted and status
1	Andreas Peter Nachtigal	number 3 with the family of his father Peter Heinrich Nachtigal
2	Johann Johann Schmidt	number 1 with the family of his step-father Kornelius Johann Funk
3	Jacob Gregor Buller	number 3
4	Kornelius Kornelius Unruh	number 7 with the family of his father Kornelius David Unruh
5	Benjamin … Kornelius Unruh	number 7 with the family of his father Kornelius David Unruh
6	Samuel Martin Böse	number 21
7	Martin Martin Bayer? [Behr]	number 24
8	Heinrich Jacob Voth	number 37
9	Heinrich Peter Sperling	number 38 with the family of his father Peter Tobias Sperling
10	Andreas Andreas Schmidt	number 45
11	Benjamin Benjamin Buller	number 45 with the family of his father Benjamin Benjamin Buller
12	Peter David Schmidt	number 47
13	Jacob Heinrich Pankratz	number 52
14	Johann Kornelius Wedel	number 54? with the family of his brother Benjamin Kornelius Wedel
15	Heinrich Kornelius Wedel	number 54? with the family of his brother Benjamin Kornelius Wedel
16	David Georg Nachtigal	number 58
17	Jacob Jacob Richert	number 59

Once again we encounter a Benjamin Buller—actually, two of them. More on that later, but first we should note a new Buller: Jacob Gregor (number 3). We have not, to my knowledge, met anyone with that name before, and the name Gregor does not strike me as Mennonite. Not knowing what to make of that surprise appearance (maybe we will encounter him later and understand more), we will move on to the Benjamins.

This could become confusing, so follow along carefully. The 1839 record listed Benajamin Benjamin as residing at number 45. We concluded, rightly, that Benjamin Benjamin at number 45 was our own ancestor, father of David, grandfather of Peter D, great-grandfather of Peter P, and so on. Now, in a list from the following year, 1840, we see Benjamin Benjamin Buller listed again. If we were to stop right there we would wonder why Benjamin Benjamin Buller was listed as a settler in 1839 and again in 1840. How can one person be listed as a settler twice?

Obviously, one person cannot be listed twice—but two people with the same name can be listed two times, with one of them settling in Waldheim in 1839 and the other in 1840. In fact, this is what the right-hand column of the record indicates, when it states that Benjamin Benjamin Buller was located at Waldheim number 45 (again, not the Wirtschaft number) with the family of his father Benjamin Benjamin Buller. Huh?

Benjamin Benjamin Buller, according to the 1839 list, lived at Waldheim 45 (you can check it here for yourself); after careful examination, we concluded that this individual was, in fact, the father of David Buller. Now we read that a different Benjamin Benjamin Buller lived at Waldheim 45 with his father Benjamin Benjamin Buller. Who was that?

That is a question for another post, but I leave you with a hint: the first list of Benjamin and Helena Buller’s family known to us, from roughly two decades before: here. Let’s play a game of Where’s Benjamin? with the census listing in that post!


Work Cited

Mennonites Who Transferred from Volhynia to Waldheim and Were Assigned Land in 1840. Odessa State Archives Fond 6, Inventory 1 File 4889. Translated by Steve Fast. Available online here.

Waldheim settlers

Since we have already compared the 1839 list of arrivals in Waldheim with the 1833 list of those who wished to relocate from Ostrowka to Molotschna (i.e., Waldheim) (see here), our need to examine the list in greater detail is limited. That being said, there is one important historical witness to which we may compare the 1839 list: the 1848 Gemeindeberichte (community report) for Waldheim.

We translated and examined the Gemeindeberichte over the course of several posts (here and here), so there is no need to return to it in detail. We should point out, however, what the community says about the founding of the village:

This village was founded in 1836. That year eight landowners settled in it, twelve in the year 1838, and twenty landowners in 1840.

The 1839 list offers slightly different information. In the notes to the list (i.e., notes original to the list, not added later) we read, in Steve Fast’s translation:

In 1838, 8 families were settled in Waldheim colony and for them upon dividing already pri__d with land of 520 desiatin and received? to their possession? 13 families with their allotment of land of 845 desiatin to consist in the colony of Waldheim in general 21 families of land _______ with allotments of total land of 1365 desiatin.

Several discrepancies should be noted.

1. According to the Gemeindeberichte, the first Mennonites settled in Waldheim in 1836. The 1839 list seems to date that event to 1838. The only possible way to harmonize the two is to understand the 1839 list to be saying merely that eight families were living in Waldheim in 1838, with no indication of when they arrived. That seems a forced understanding of what the text says. Further, the following discrepancy simply cannot be harmonized, which calls into question attempts to harmonize the two documents with regard to Waldheim’s establishment date.

2. The Gemeindeberichte reports that the second group of settlers were given land in 1838; this list, which is explictly concerned with the second group (since it lists their names), dates their arrival to 1839.

3. The Gemeindeberichte claims that the second group consisted of twelve families; the 1839 record lists thirteen heads of household.

Of course, we should also note that the two sources agree that eight settlers arrived during the first year of Waldheim’s existence. It is also important to consider the internal consistency of the 1839 list. That is, the 1839 list records the number of settlers and the amount of land distributed, and all the figures provided reflect a 65-dessiatine allotment to each family: 8 x 65 = 530; 13 x 65 = 845; and 21 x 65 = 1,365.

So which of these two documents are we to believe? In my view, the document closest in time to the events it reports should be preferred. To put it bluntly, the 1839 list is correct, the Gemeindeberichte mistaken. A document written on 24 November 1839 is more reliable about the events of 1838 and 1839 than one written nearly ten years later, one that may well have relied on people’s memories, not written records. The composers of the 1839 list, Oberschultz (district mayor) Johann Regier (see the GAMEO article here) and his scribe ???? Reimer, presumably knew when the first eight settlers had arrived, and they would not have mistakenly stated that those settlers had been in Waldheim for one year when they actually had owned property in Waldheim for three years. Johann Regier was district mayor over that entire period, and he was responsible to know who received which land and when.

Likewise, Regier and Reimer list thirteen names on the 1839 list, not twelve. They obviously know who is to receive land at the beginning of the following year, and they correctly counted thirteen of them. With twenty-one landowners allotted land by the end of 1839, there remained space only for nineteen additional landowners, since the village was limited to forty Wirtschaften. Once again the Gemeindeberichte is mistaken when it states that twenty families received land in the third year of emigration.

In sum, we have every reason to trust the 1839 list of arrivals and good reason to doubt the 1848 Gemeindeberichte when it is contradicted by more reliable records. The upshot of all this is that we need to correct, I believe, the standard account of the founding of Waldheim as follows (changes in bold font):

This village was founded in 1838. That year eight landowners settled in it, thirteen in the year 1839, and nineteen [?] landowners in 1840.

We do not need to suspect everything else written in the Gemeindeberichte—unless more reliable sources give us cause to do so. If nothing else, this episode serves as an excellent reminder that we should view all of our historical reconstructions as tentative, subject to revision and correction as additional evidence requires.

Benjamin Buller 9

We pick up today where the last post left off, with the question of what we can learn about Benjamin Buller from the 1839 Waldheim list. To recap, the 1839 list of “Mennonites Who Transferred from Volhynia to Waldheim and Were Assigned Land in 1839” (here; translated by Steve Fast) records the names of heads of household who had arrived at Waldheim in 1839 and thus were eligible for a grant of land, a Wirtschaft of 65 dessiatines.

The complete entry for Benjamin includes the following information:

Number	Name and Nickname         of Mennonites	At what number they were     counted and status at census	Dessiatines of  land allotted
7	Benjamin Benjamin Buller [possibly Busher]	at number 45	65

Two important facts stand out.

1. The father of David Buller was named Benjamin Benjamin Buller. Those who have been following Buller Time for any time at all know what this means: Benjamin’s father was also named Benjamin. In other words, we have stepped back one generation. Beginning with Grandpa Chris, our family line now extends back six generations:

Cornelius (Chris) Buller

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Peter P Buller

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Peter D Buller

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David Benjamin Buller

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Benjamin Benjamin Buller

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Benjamin X Buller (X for unknown)

We know little about our earliest-identifiable ancestor Benjamin X, but we can offer a few informed guesses. First, since Benjamin X’s son had the same first name, Benjamin Benjamin was likely the firstborn son. Second, knowing that Benjamin Benjamin was born around the year 1789, we might reasonably infer that Benjamin X was born sometime between 1765 and 1770. Third, based on all that we know about the broader Buller history, we would expect that Benjamin X lived in Poland, probably in the Culm/Schwetz area. More specifically, I would imagine him being associated with Schönsee (see here). Fourth and last, thus far we have no hint that Benjamin X emigrated to Russia, so until evidence indicates otherwise, we can assume that he lived and died in Poland/Prussia (after the partition of Poland).

To be clear, the paragraph above is not known fact, merely reasonable hypothesis, as is our current view that our line of Bullers is descended from George Buller. We do not know that to be a fact, but it seems plausible. If it is true, then with the discovery of Benjamin X we are one generation closer to linking back to George.

Chris Buller (1906–1982)	—	Malinda Franz (1906–1980
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Peter P Buller (1869–1964)	—	Margaretha Epp (1870–1951)
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Peter D Buller (1845–1897)	—	Sarah Siebert (1847–1922)
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David B Buller (1818–1904)	—	Helena Zielke ????–1855?
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Benjamin Benjamin Buller (ca. 1789–????)	—	Helena  ????? (????–????)
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Benjamin X Buller ca. 1765/1770–????
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????? Buller 1730s?
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????? Buller 1700s?
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George Buller	—	????? (not Dina Thoms)

2. The second fact evident in the 1839 Waldheim list is that our ancestor Benjamin Benjamin did become a Molotschna landowner. Like other Mennonite settlers, he was assigned a Wirtschaft of 65 dessiatines.

As always, each new discovery raises another new question. In this case we must ask: If Benjamin Benjamin owned land in Waldheim, why was our ancestor David landless for much of his life in the colony? The answer to that question will come later on, after additional posts discuss other primary source documents recently made available.

For now, we must we satisfied with the knowledge that our ancestor Benjamin was both a landowner in the village of Waldheim and the son of another Buller named Benjamin. Both known facts can be added to our family timeline.

Year	Person(s)	Event
1765–1770	Benjamin X	birth (X signifies unknown middle name)
ca. 1789	Benjamin Benjamin	born to Benjamin X
1817	Benjamin B and family (4)	emigrated from Prussia to Volhynia
1818	David Benjamin	birth on 25 January to Benjamin B
1819/1820	Benjamin B, Helena, David, Dominik, nephew David	listed on census living at Zofyovka, Rovno, Volhynia
1828	Benjamin B and family (?)	moved from Zofyovka to Ostrowka, Lutsk, Volhynia
1833	Benjamin B and family (11)	expressed desire to emigrate from Ostrowka to Molotschna colony
1839	Benjamin B and family	relocated to Waldheim, Molotschna colony

Benjamin Buller 8

Our last post ended with a question: Is the Benjamin Buller named on the 1839 Waldheim list our ancestor, the father of David Buller? A comparison between the 1833 list of Mennonites who wished to relocate to Molostschna with the 1839 record of that year’s arrivals will help us form a reasonable opinion. We will keep the 1819–1820 Zofyovka (or Rovno) censuses to show how many families we can trace across these two decades. Keep in mind that there are thirteen names on the 1839 record, so that is the maximum number of matches possible.

	1839 Waldheim list		1833 Ostrowka list	1819–1820  Zofyovka Censuses
9	Benjamin Cornelius Wedel	1	Benjamin Wedel	Dominik Wedel
		2	Heinrich Wedel	Heinrich Wedel
		3	Johann Wedel
10	Cornelius Cornelius Wedel	4	Cornelius Wedel	Karl Wedel
12	Heinrich Johann Dirks	5	Heinrich Dirks	Heinrich Dirks
		6	Michael Teske	Michael Teske
13	David Heinrich Dirks	7	David Dirks	David Dirks
		8	David Nachtigal	David Nachtigal
		9	George Nachtigal
7	Benjamin Benjamin Buller	10	Benjamin Buller	Benjamin Buller
3	David Jacob Kohn	11	David Koehn	David Koehn
2	Peter Johann Schmidt	12	Peter Schmidt	Peter Schmidt
		13	Peter Becker	Peter Becker
		14	Benjamin Ratzlaff	Benjamin Ratzlaff
		15	Cornelius Balzer	Karl Baltzer
		16	Johann Werbel
		17	Jacob Pankratz	Jacob Pankratz
		18	Friedrich Kunkel
		19	Jacob Wedel	Jacob Wedel

Seven out of the thirteen 1839 settlers can be identified on the 1833 list (and the 1819–1820 censuses as well). However, the number is actually higher than that when we look more closely at the six 1839 names that are not direct matches with the 1833 list:

1. *Jacob Aron Klas [Klassen]
4. David David Kohn? [or Kol"]
5. Tobias David Dirks
6. Johann Heinrich Ewert
8. Peter Jacob Pankratz
11. Cornelius Cornelius Wedel

Number 4, David David Kohn, is probably the son of number 3 in the 1839 list: David Jacob Kohn, since David David’s middle name indicates that his father was named David. If David David was the son of David Jacob, then he presumably appeared on the 1833 list as part of his father’s family. Now, six years later, the son is of age and eligible to establish his own household.

The same might be said of number 5, Tobias David Dirks, the apparent son of number 13 on the 1833 list, David Heinrich Dirks. Likewise number 8 on the 1839 Waldheim record: Peter Jacob Pankratz; his father was presumably number 17 on the 1833 list: Jacob Pankratz. Finally, number 11, Cornelius Cornelius Wedel, is reported to be “at No. 55 with family of his father Cornelius Cornelius Wedel.” So, number 11 is clearly the son of number 10, which means that he, like the others, was included on the earlier list as a member of his father’s household.

It is no stretch to conclude that eleven out of the thirteen individuals on the 1839 Waldheim list were also included, either explicitly or implicitly as members of a father’s household, on the 1833 list of those Volhynian Mennonites who wished to move to Molotschna.

Of course, we did not compare these lists out of curiosity. We compared them to determine whether the Benjamin Buller in the 1839 Waldheim list is our ancestor. Given the close association between the 1839 and 1833 lists, it is safe to conclude that the Benjamin Buller in both lists is the same—and since 1833 Benjamin is our ancestor, so is 1839 Benjamin. We have another line to add to our family timeline.

We also now know several more key facts about our family history. Do you know what they are?

Year	Person(s)	Event
1817	Benjamin and family (4)	emigrated from Prussia to Volhynia
1818	David Benjamin	birth on 25 January
1819/1820	Benjamin, Helena, David, Dominik, nephew David	listed on census living at Zofyovka, Rovno, Volhynia
1828	Benjamin and family (?)	moved from Zofyovka to Ostrowka, Lutsk, Volhynia
1833	Benjamin and family (11)	expressed desire to emigrate from Ostrowka to Molotschna colony
1839	Benjamin and family	relocated to Waldheim, Molotschna colony

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* It is interesting that number 1 in the 1839 list, Jacob Aron Klassen, appears in another part of the 1833 list of Volhynian Mennonites who wished to relocate to Molotschna, as number 8 in the second group of names: Jacob Klaassen. He lived in the unknown village of Wolla but ended up in Waldheim with the others listed above. In the end, only number 6 on the 1839 Waldheim list, Johann Heinrich Ewert, does not appear on the earlier record.

Benjamin Buller 7

Having thoroughly dissected the first document posted by Mennonite researchers (thanks to Glenn Penner for that), we are ready to turn to the second one: “Mennonites Who Transferred from Volhynia to Waldheim and Were Assigned Land in 1839” (here; thanks to Steve Fast for translating and posting this source). I encourage you to open that file in a separate tab or browser window.

The first document was from 1833, and it listed the names of heads of household in three Volhynian villages (Ostrowka, Wolla, and Doschidorf) who wished to emigrate to Molotschna colony. The document under examination now was six years later, from 1839. Another difference worth noting is that the 1833 document was compiled in Volhynia; this one was composed after those Mennonites listed in 1833 had moved to the village of Waldheim in Molotschna and who were to be assigned their Wirtschaft (land-holding) of 65 dissiatines (ca. 175 acres).

The 1839 list includes the names of thirteen heads of households (copying directly from Steve Fast’s list):

1. Jacob Aron Klas [Klassen]
2. Peter Johann Schmidt
3. David Jacob Kohn
4. David David Kohn? [or Kol"]
5. Tobias David Dirks
6. Johann Heinrich Ewert
7. Benjamin Benjamin Buller [possibly Busher]
8. Peter Jacob Pankratz
9. Benjamin Cornelius Wedel
10. Cornelius Cornelius Wedel
11. Cornelius Cornelius Wedel
12. Heinrich Johann Dirks
13. David Heinrich Dirks

Each person is located within Waldheim. For example, number 11 is reported “at no. 55 with family of his father Cornelius Cornelius Wedel.” Benjamin Benjamin Buller is simply “at no. 45.” These are not Wirtschaft numbers (of which there were only forty at that time) but rather some other identifying designation, perhaps merely a census number assigned to the family.

Each of these thirteen was to receive the promised 65 dissiatines and then to be “burdened” with the land assessment from the beginning of 1840.

We will return to this document again in the future, but for now we want to focus, obviously, on the seventh person listed: Benjamin Benjamin Buller. The question that naturally arises is whether this is our ancestor Benjamin, father of David Buller. What do you think?

Work Cited

Mennonites Who Transferred from Volhynia to Waldheim and Were Assigned Land in 1839. Odessa State Archives Fond 6, Inventory 1 File 4889. Translated by Steve Fast. Available online here.

Michael Teske

I promise we will return to Benjamin Buller, but sometimes it is interesting to wander a bit. The list of Mennonites who wished to move from Volhynia to Molotschna in 1833 includes Michael Teske (see here). The same individual appears on the 1819–1820 Rovno register (see here and our analysis here).

If you look closely at the listing in the Rovno register, you will notice that family 9 consists of three brothers and their mother, no one else. Michael was the youngest of the three, age twenty-one, which would put his year of birth in 1799 or thereabouts.

The Grandma database offers more information. There are only two Michael Teskes listed, and only one was born in 1799, so finding the right one is easy. Sure enough, this Michael Teske had two older brothers named Christian and Samuel. The listing for their father below shows all three boys and their mother Anna Marie Wert Teske.

But something odd stands out. Their father, Christian Teske Sr., did not pass away until 1847, twenty-seven years after the Rovno census was taken. In addition, there are also two younger brothers listed as a part of the family.

One wonders why the Rovno register lists only the three oldest sons and their mother but not their father, who seems to have been living in Germany, or their two younger brothers. Did this family break up, with some sons and their mother moving to Volhynia and the other sons and their father remaining in Germany? Certainly there is a story waiting to be told, and one wonders if that story perhaps involves conversion and a resulting division.

One final observation relates to Michael’s own Grandma entry.

The source of information for the date of his death is the Heinrichsdorf church book. Remember that church name; it will become important to us Bullers in future posts.

From Zofyovka to Ostrowka

We will return to the Benjamin Buller series shortly, but first a slight detour to examine the 1833 list as a whole in more detail. If you recall, Martin H. Schrag (1959) argues that the original inhabitants of the village Zofyovka (Rovno/Rivne region) moved in 1828 to a new locale and founded a village named Ostrova (or Ostrowa or Ostrowka):

The group left Zofyovka in 1828 and established “Ostrova” which is identical with Jozefin, 20 miles northeast of Luck, Volhynia. They also settled in the neigh­boring village that they again named Zofyovka. Here they were on the land of Count Michael Bichkovski.

If this is correct, then we should see some correspondence between the names of the 1819–1820 censuses for Zofyovka and the Ostrowka part of the 1833 list. Thanks to the Mennonite researchers who have made these documents available (see the 1819 Zofyovka census here [census 1], the 1819–1820 Zofyovka census here [census 2], and the 1833 Ostrowka list here), we can look for ourselves.

We begin with the latest document, a “List of Mennonites Wishing to Leave Volhynia and Settle with Their Brethren in the Tauridian Governorate, 1833” (translated by Glenn Penner). The first nineteen persons on the list all lived in Ostrowka.

	1833	list
1	Benjamin	Wedel
2	Heinrich	Wedel
3	Johann	Wedel
4	Cornelius	Wedel
5	Heinrich	Dirks
6	Michael	Teske
7	David	Dirks
8	David	Nachtigal
9	George	Nachtigal
10	Benjamin	Buller
11	David	Koehn
12	Peter	Schmidt
13	Peter	Becker
14	Benjamin	Ratzlaff
15	Cornelius	Balzer
16	Johann	Werbel
17	Jacob	Pankratz
18	Friedrich	Kunkel
19	Jacob	Wedel

As noted above, there were two censuses taken of the Zofyovka Mennonites: one in 1819 of families who had just arrived, and one in 1819 or 1820 of families who had been on the land anywhere from two to ten years. The table that follows uses labels to identify the census, family number, and person in the family. For example, Michael Teske is labeled 2.9c, which indicates that he appears on census 2, family 9, and is the third member (c) of his family listed.

Because all of the nineteen individuals listed above were male heads of household, only those males in the two censuses who would have been twenty years of age in 1833 have been considered possible matches. With that background, we offer the 1833 list (left) plus names that correspond from the two Zofyovka censuses (an asterisk indicates that an explanation follows):

	1833	list	Zofyovka	censuses	label
1	Benjamin	Wedel	*Dominik	Wedel	2.14i
2	Heinrich	Wedel	Heinrich	Wedel	*2.14e/g
3	Johann	Wedel
4	Cornelius	Wedel	*Karl	Wedel	2.14
5	Heinrich	Dirks	Heinrich	Dirks	2.1
6	Michael	Teske	Michael	Teske	2.9c
7	David	Dirks	David	Dirks	2.1c
8	David	Nachtigal	David	Nachtigal	2.4
9	George	Nachtigal
10	Benjamin	Buller	Benjamin	Buller	2.18
11	David	Koehn	David	Koehn	2.15
12	Peter	Schmidt	Peter	Schmidt	2.16
13	Peter	Becker	Peter	Becker	1.6
14	Benjamin	Ratzlaff	Benjamin	Ratzlaff	1.1
15	Cornelius	Balzer	*Karl	Baltzer	2.11
16	Johann	Werbel
17	Jacob	Pankratz	Jacob	Pankratz	2.17
18	Friedrich	Kunkel
19	Jacob	Wedel	Jacob	Wedel	2.14k

If all of the matches above are correct  (15 out of 19), then that is impressive evidence in support of the association between Zofyovka and Ostrowka. However, we need to discuss several of the names supplied.

1. The equation of Benjamin Wedel and Dominik Wedel depends on the likely but unproven notion that the compiler of census 2 sometimes substituted Russian Dominik for Benjamin. Glenn Penner explains that such substitutions are seen with other Mennonite names in government records, where Theresa is used for Sarah. For reasons that will become clear later on, I believe that is what happened in this case, and Dominik Wedel in census 2 is Benjamin Wedel in the 1833 list.

2. Another proposed equation is between Cornelius in the 1833 list and Karl in census 2. This affects both Cornelius/Karl Wedel and Cornelius/Karl Balzer/Baltzer. I know of no clear evidence for such an equation of Cornelius and Karl, but it strikes me as entirely plausible, especially because it seems to have taken place twice.

3. The final explanation is merely that census 2 had two Heinrich Wedels listed, so we cannot know which one was on the 1833 list.

At worst, we have matches on twelve out of nineteen names; at best, fifteen out of nineteen. In either case we have strong evidence for the association of Zofyovka and Ostrowka.

Worth noting is that two of the four persons on the 1833 list who are not on the earlier censuses have family names that appear nowhere on the Zofyovka documents: Johann Werbel and Friedrich Kunkel. In fact, Werbel is otherwise unknown as a Mennonite name, so one wonders if he was a convert from another church.

If Friedrich Kunkel is Grandma 31763, then he was married to Wilhelmina Sperling, and their first children were born in Volhynia. They lived in Hierschau (next to Waldheim) in Molotschna colony in 1858 and emigrated to the U.S. in 1877 on the same voyage that brought Margaretha Epp (Peter P’s wife) and family to the U.S.

Those are interesting side notes, but we should not lose sight of the fact that Martin Schrag’s association of Zofyovka and Ostrowka is in the main correct. That being said, we should be careful not to assume a direct correspondence between the two villages.

1. Although up to fifteen out of the nineteen heads of household identified on the 1833 list did move there from Zofyovka, four, or 21 percent, apparently did not. Thus Ostrowka included Mennonites from other locations and other family groups (e.g., Werbel and Kunkel).

2. On the other hand, not all of the former residents of Zofyovka relocated to Ostrowka. The earlier (1819 and 1820) censuses list more people who did not move to Ostrowka than those who did. That list potentially includes (all heads of households or males who would have been at least twenty years of age in 1833):

1. Heinrich Unruh
2. Andreas Schmidt
3. David Schmidt
4. Jacob Schmidt
5. Heinrich Schmidt
6. Benjamin Becker
7. George Tzeevka
8. Maria Schmidt
9. Andreas Buller
10. Jacob Richert
11. Jacob Richert
12. Jacob Nachtigal
13. Jacob Zielke
14. Johan Zielke
15. David Foth
16. Martin Beyer
17. Heinrich Sperling
18. Christian Teske
19. Samuel Teske
20. Philip Beyer
21. Karl Baltzer
22. Johan Nickel
23. Andrew Nickel
24. Erdman Nickel
25. Samuel Nickel
26. Peter Nickel
27. Karl Wedel
28. Peter Wedel
29. Dominik Wedel
30. David Buller (nephew of Benjamin)

Granting that some of these persons probably died in the interim and that some were no doubt still living with their parents, there still remains a large number of Zofyovka residents who did not move to Ostrowka.

Combining this additional evidence with what we have learned from other posts, one might justifiably revise Schrag’s statement: 

Schrag: The group left Zofyovka in 1828 and established “Ostrova” [or Ostrowka] which is identical with Jozefin, 20 miles northeast of Luck, Volhynia. They also settled in the neigh­boring village that they again named Zofyovka. Here they were on the land of Count Michael Bichkovski.

Buller Time: Members of the group left Zofyovka in 1828, with some relocating in Ostrowka (which may have been identical with Jozefin, 20 miles northeast of Luck, Volhynia) and a village nearby that they renamed after their former home: Zofyovka. Both villages were on the land of Count Michael Bichkovski. Other Zofyovka residents apparently moved elsewhere; at present we do not know where.

Work Cited

Schrag, Martin H. 1959. Volhynia (Ukraine). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Available online here.

Benjamin Buller 6

Back when we first discovered that David Buller’s parents were Benjamin and Helena, we noticed that Helena Zielke’s family lived in the same village as the Bullers: Zofyovka, a mile north of the town of Wysock (see here, middle and lower in the post). At the time I remember thinking that this explained why David Buller and Helena Zielke later married: they resided in the same village.

Of course, learning that David’s family moved to another location, to Ostrowka, in or around 1828 throws a wrench into that theory, since David and Helena were too young to be married at that time—or even later in 1833: when David was merely fifteen and Helena was fourteen. It seems clear, in light of all this, that David and Helena met again and married after both had moved to Waldheim, perhaps in 1838, when David was twenty and Helena ninetten.

The bigger mystery revolves around when Helena’s family moved to Waldheim in Molotschna, as well as where in Volhynia they lived before moving to Waldheim. Not one of the thirty-nine families recorded in the “List of Mennonites Wishing to Leave Volhynia and Settle with Their Brethren in the Tauridian Governorate, 1833” (here) is a Zielke.

There are six Wedel families, four Nachtigal, four Ratzlaff, three Dirks, three Schmidt, two Richert, two Sperling, two Unrau, two Voth, and one each of Becker, Balzer, Boese, Buller, Funk, Klaassen, Koehn, Kunkel, Pankratz, Teske, and Werbel—but no Zielke.

We will want to be on the lookout for Zielkes as we examine the newly available documents in the posts to come. For now, all we can conclude is that David Buller and Helena Zielke married once both were in Waldheim. What route Helena and her family took to get there is currently unknown.

Benjamin Buller 5

We are still processing the information found in the “List of Mennonites Wishing to Leave Volhynia and Settle with Their Brethren in the Tauridian Governorate, 1833” (here). In the first post (here) we noted that Benjamin Buller and family were number 10 on that list. The second post (here) answered the question of when Benjamin and family had likely moved from Zofyovka in the Rovno district to Ostrowka in the “Lutzki region” (whatever that might signify). A third and following correction post asked but could not answer questions related to the tax status of Benjamin Buller and Michael Bischkowsky’s other tenants (here and here). So we come to a final Benjamin-related question in this post.

In 1819/1820 the family included four males (Benjamin, David, Dominik, nephew David) and one female (Helena). According to the 1833 list, the family included five males and six females. Who were they?

To think through the possible answers to that question, we start with the 1819/1820 Rovno census.

Although we are not certain whether this census was taken in 1819 or 1820, we will work from the latter date for the sake of simplicity—and also because that makes the census consistent with David’s year of birth: 1818.

The Cyrillic cursive (the script in which this Russian is written) is as difficult to decipher as ever (for more detail, see here), but we know what the entry says based on our earlier work. The columns after the names gives the ages of the family members, males in the left column, females in the right. The table below summarizes and extrapolates from the information presented in the census:

Name	Age		Year of Birth (Approximate)
Benjamin Buller	31		1789
Helena (wife)	25		1795
David (son)	2		1818
“Dominik”	4		1816
David (nephew)	15		1805

The question, then, is how this family grew from four males and one female in 1820 to five males and six females in 1833.

1. In 1833, the year of our current list, Benjamin and Helena’s two sons David and “Dominik” (the scare quotes will make sense a little later on) would have been fifteen and seventeen, respectively. It is improbable that they had married by then, so we should not imagine their wives joining the family.

2. Nephew David, on the other hand, was twenty-eight and probably married in 1833. He may even have had several children of his own. Of course, he may also have established his own household (or joined his wife’s family). We cannot assume that he was even part of Benjamin and Helena’s family at this time.

3. Helana and Benjamin were young enough that one would expect them to have had more children, so the increase in number may reflect the birth of at least another son and five daughters—if nephew David had left the household, then two more sons and five daughters would have filled out the total. This is entirely within the realm of possibility: a total of eight or nine children would not be unusual for a family in that time and place.

In sum, we cannot tell at this point precisely how Benjamin and Helena’s family grew. The increase certainly involved the birth of children, but whose children we are unable to say. Helena presumably bore additional children, but nephew David’s wife may have added to the number as well (if they stayed with Benjamin and Helena’s family). Either way, it seems safe to conclude that our ancestor David had both brothers and sisters. Who they were is a discovery yet to be made.

Year	Person(s)	Event
1817	Benjamin and family (4)	emigrated from Prussia to Volhynia
1818	David Benjamin	birth on 25 January
1819/1820	Benjamin, Helena, David, Dominik, nephew David	listed on census living at Zofyovka, Rovno, Volhynia
1820–????	additional children	birth of up to two additional sons and five daughters; total of five males and six females in family by 1833
1828	Benjamin and family (?)	moved from Zofyovka to Ostrowka, Lutsk, Volhynia
1833	Benjamin and family (11)	expressed desire to emigrate from Ostrowka to Molotschna colony

Benjamin Buller correction

Didn’t take long for a correction to become necessary, eh? Thankfully, it does not involve anything directly related to our family, merely the background and history of Ostrowka.

Several posts in this series have noted that, although Benjamin Buller still enjoyed a tax-free status, the first nine families from Ostrowka (families 1–9 here) had been paying taxes since 1818. From that I carelessly deduced that families 1–9 lived in Ostrowka and leased land from Michael Bischkowsky well before 1818. The rationale was that they must have received a tax exemption from Bischkowsky that expired in 1818, which rather strongly implies that they had moved there earlier.

There is only one problem with this theory: it is contradicted by other evidence that we will consider in the near future. Suffice it to say for now that none of the nine families lived in Ostrowka in 1818 or even several years after. In fact, they still lived in Zofyovka in 1820. In all likelihood, they moved to Bischkowsky’s land in 1828 along with the other families (including Benjamin Buller), exactly as Martin Schrag states.

However, a bigger question now arises: Why had these families been paying taxes since 1818 (and to whom) but the other ten families still enjoyed a tax-free status? Some background will both explain and complicate the question.

When Catherine the Great first invited Mennonites to settle in Russia, she promised those willing to relocate certain benefits and privileges. Among those benefits was a grant of 65 dessiatines (= ca. 175 acres) of land and freedom from taxes for ten years—in the Chortitza (or Khortitsa or Chortiza) and Molotschna colonies.

The obvious problems with understanding any of these Mennonite families paying taxes are twofold: (1) these families did not own any land but rather leased land; (2) these Mennonites lived in Volhynia, not Chortitza or Molotschna.

There is also a third problem. As we will discover shortly, those of families 1–9 whom we can trace originally settled in Volhynia in 1811, while those of families 10–19 settled in 1817–1819. If families 1–9 began paying taxes in 1818, their tax-free period was no more than seven years. If the same rules applied to families 10–19, they should have started paying taxes in 1824–1826. However, even as late as 1833 families 10–19 enjoyed a tax-free status. Why did families 10–19 apparently receive a longer period of no taxation than families 1–9?

Putting all this information together leads to only one possible conclusion: we have no idea how to explain the statements that families 1–9 had been paying taxes since 1818 (when they still lived in Zofyovka) and families 10–19 not being subject to taxation as late as 1833. None of the details fits nicely: the Mennonites involved were tenants, not owners, so we do not know what taxes they might have been liable for; they were in Volhynia, not Chortitza or Molotschna, so the Catherine-promised governmental exemption from taxes did not apply; even the individual groups were treated differently, with some being liable for taxes after only seven years but others enjoying tax-free status after sixteen years of Volhynian life.

If someone can offer background to or an explanation of all this, please send it our way.

Work Cited

Schrag, Martin H. 1959. Volhynia (Ukraine). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Available online here.

Benjamin Buller 4

Having answered as best we can at this time the question of why Benjamin Buller was in a different location in 1833 from when we last saw him in 1819/1820 (see here), we are ready to turn to the next question that arose from the “List of Mennonites Wishing to Leave Volhynia and Settle with Their Brethren in the Tauridian Governorate, 1833” translated by Glenn Penner (here):

Why had some of the Mennonites on the list been paying taxes since 1818 but Benjamin still enjoyed a tax-free status as of 1833? How many years would a new tenant enjoy freedom from taxation, and what might this tell us about when Benjamin began renting Bischkowsky’s land?

Unfortunately, there is little that we can say about this. It seems that there was no common template behind the leases; each landlord could offer and accept whatever terms he wished. So, for example, Waclav Borejko’s lease with the original settlers in Zofyovka (see here), where Benjamin, Helena, and family lived before Ostrowka, stated:

The aforementioned Mennonites and their descendants shall be forever free of taxes and seignorial duties, as well as of money payments in lieu of these, except for the land rent stipulated in this contract. They shall not be subject to compensation payments  of  any  kind;  shall  not  be required  to  provide  quarters  for  soldiers  or  make  money  payments  in  lieu  thereof,  at  the behest of their lord; shall not be required to furnish army recruits, as their lord's subjects have to do, or make money payments in lieu thereof; and shall enjoy also all the rights and privileges conferred on Mennonites in the Emperor’s Privilegium

That was not the terms offered by to the Ostrowka Mennonites by Michael Bischkowsky, since some of the tenants already paid taxes and others would do so eventually, after their tax-free years expired. (They were presumably free from any military service or support.) So, the question of how long a tenant on Michael Bischkowsky’s land might remain tax-free remains unanswered.

All we can deduce from the evidence is what we have already observed, that the leases for nine of the families on the list had been signed earlier than the leases for the other ten. The fact that the first nine were already paying taxes while the second ten were not allows for no other conclusion. I guess there is not much more to say beyond that—and certainly nothing to add to the family timeline.

Work Cited

Giesinger,  Adam. 1977. A Volhynian German Contract. American Historical Society of Germans from Russia Work Paper 25:13–15. Available online here.

Benjamin Buller 3

Although we were able to identify Benjamin and the ten other members of his family among those who, in 1833, wanted to emigrate from Volhynia to Molotschna, we still have questions to answer. We begin with the first:

The last we knew (the 1819/1820 census), Benjamin rented his land from a Polish noble named Waclav Borejko and lived near the village of Zofyovka. Why is he now located at a different village renting land from a different person?

We actually answered this question nine months ago—except we did not realize at that time that our answer also related to Benjamin and family. If you recall, during a series of posts on Waldheim, the village where David eventually lived in Molotschna colony, we examined the 1848 Gemeindebericht (community report) for Waldheim, which began with a brief history of the village’s origins (see here and here). The report noted particularly the areas where Waldheim’s original settlers had previously lived.

(1) from the village Ostrowa in the Lutzkischen district on the estates of the nobleman Michael Bitschkowskij, where they had come from the Rokonosch district not far from the town Wissotzk from the manor of the nobleman Watzlaf Vorainy; (2) from the village Wolla on the estates of the nobleman Ignat Bitschkowskij, where they had come from the manor of Count Olisarow near they town of Rawalowka in the Lutzkischen district, and (3) from the district Novograd Volhynsk from the estate of Prince Ljubomirskij.

Compare this with the locations of the 1833 Mennonites who wished to move to Molotschna:

1. Currently residing on the estate of Michael Bischkowsky in the Lutzki region in the colony Ostrowka
2. Currently residing on the estate of Ignatz Bischkowsky in the Lutzkiregion in the colony Wolla
3. Currently living on the estate of the Prince Joseph Ljubomirsky in the colony Doschidorf

Both lists agree that one group came from Ostrowa, that another came from Wolla, and that a third came from the land of Prince Ljubomirsky/Ljubomirskij. The only substantive difference is that the 1833 list identifies the village in which Joseph Ljubomirsky’s tenants lived: Doschidorf.

What is important for us is that Gemeindebericht clarifies an important detail about the first group, which is the group of which Benjamin was a member: the members of that group had come to the village of Ostrowa from the Rokonosch district not far from the town Wissotzk from the manor of the nobleman Watzlaf Vorainy. To put that in the terms we have been using, the first group came from the Rovno district in Volhynia, near the town of Wysock (actually in the village Zofyovka, a mile or so north of Wysock), where they had farmed the land of Waclav Borejko/Watzlaf Vorainy (presumably variant spellings of the same name).





So, the short answer to our question is that in 1833 Benjamin and family were located in a different place because they had moved from their original (1817) Volhynian location to a new one. But that is not all. Martin H. Schrag offers additional detail. According to Schrag:

The group left Zofyovka in 1828 and established “Ostrova” [or Ostrowa] which is identical with Jozefin, 20 miles northeast of Luck, Volhynia. They also settled in the neigh­boring village that they again named Zofyovka. Here they were on the land of Count Michael Bichkovski.

In the map above, Zofyovka is located just left of center in the top third of Volhynia. The villages of Ostrowa/Jozefin and Zofyovka II were to the southwest near the river to the northeast of Lutsk (see also the map below, which does not show Zofyovka I but does show the Lutsk villages).

Schrag’s 1828 date for the move from Zofyovka in Rovno to Ostrowa in Lutsk finds support in the fact that Waclav Borejko wrote leases with new settlers—Germans but not Mennonites—in that same year (see Giesinger 1977, 14).

However, Schrag’s statement that the group left Zofyovka in 1828 and established Ostrowa seems at odds with the evidence of our 1833 list. The 1833 list clearly distinguishes between settlers who had emigrated early and thus had been paying taxes since 1818 and those who were still tax-free at the time of the list. Most obviously, if nine Mennonite families had been paying taxes since 1818, they did not arrive ten years later, in 1828. Perhaps Ostrowa was not founded until 1828, but I would feel better if Schrag cited his evidence or source for stating that.

Furthermore, it is hard to imagine that groups emigrating at the same time would have been subject to different lease terms. A better explanation is that the first nine families in group 1 of the list (the ones who paid taxes) entered their leases before the second ten families (the ones who still enjoyed their free years) did. It seems most plausible to conclude that these nineteen families did not move to the Ostrowa area all at the same time, that there was at least an early group and a later (1828) group.

Since Benjamin was still tax-free, he presumably did emigrate from Zofyovka to Ostrowa in 1828. If so, then the period of freedom from taxes extended at least five years. In spite of these other uncertainties, we can now supply (tentatively) the actual year of Benjamin and family’s move in our family timeline.

Year	Person(s)	Event
1817	Benjamin and family (4)	emigrated from Prussia to Volhynia
1818	David Benjamin	birth on 25 January
1819/1820	Benjamin, Helena, David, Dominik, nephew David	listed on census living at Zofyovka, Rovno, Volhynia
1828	Benjamin and family (?)	moved from Zofyovka to Ostrowka, Lutsk, Volhynia
1833	Benjamin and family (11)	expressed desire to emigrate from Ostrowka to Molotschna colony

***

I am troubled by the fact that, as far as I can tell, there was no village named Ostrowka in Lutsk. The village name was quite common in Volhynia, and the Society for German Genealogy in Eastern Europe Volhynian Gazetteer records twenty different villages named Ostrow, Ostrowje, Ostrowka, Ostrowki, Ostrowok, Ostrowsk, Ostrowy, and Ostrowzy in various Volhynian provinces. Not one of the twenty, however, is located in Lutsk. The gazetteer does identify a Jozefin in Lutsk but does not give an alternate name as Ostrowa.

This makes me wonder if Schrag and others might be misconstruing references to the region of Lutzki or Lutzkischen. The association with Lutsk would seem to be clear enough. However, do we know that at that time the term referred to the what we would regard as Lutsk proper, specifically the district or province of Lutsk? The question seems legitimate for at least two reasons.

First, of the twenty Volhynian villages whose name is a variant of Ostrow, one seems a particularly likely candidate for locating Benjamin’s group of Mennonites. The Russian place name Острозька, which would be transliterated Ostrowka, is the name of a city now known as Ostroh. Its Polish name was Ostrog. If the latter name sounds vaguely familiar, it is because several posts discussed the Mennonite presence in villages near Ostrog (here and here). The problem here is that Ostrog was in Rovno district, not Lutsk. However …

Second, there is at least one piece of obscure evidence suggesting that the term Lutzkischen referred to a region much larger than the Lutsk district narrowly defined. Thanks to Google, we have access to a German book published in Warsaw, Poland, in 1797 (so reasonably close to the same time frame) that may shed light on this mystery. The book, Polens Ende: Historisch, statistisch und geographisch beschrieben, contains the following list (Hübner, 1797, 370):

The introductory phrase (“Die zu dieser Ordination gehörigen Städte, ohne die vielen Dorfer, sind folgende”) can be translated “The towns belonging to this ordination without many villages are the following.” Then the author lists towns “Im Lutzkischen District,” a phrase that means just what it looks like: Ostrog, Stepan, Klewan, Dubno, and Dereznia (?). The last city cannot be located, but the other four are cities in the Rovno/Rivne district of Volhynia. Because the book was published in Warsaw, one would think that it refers to what was former Polish territory with some degree of accuracy. Could it be that Lutzkischen actually encompassed the territory of Ostrog/Ostroh, where we know Mennonites lived, in the terminology of that day?

This evidence is admittedly slender, but it at least raises the question whether Schrag has properly located the village of Ostrowka. If he has evidence for identifying it with Jozefin, it would be nice to know what it is. What little evidence we have seems to point in a different direction. In any event, we should treat the identification of Ostrowka as an open question, not as a settled fact.


Works Cited

Giesinger,  Adam. 1977. A Volhynian German Contract. American Historical Society of Germans from Russia Work Paper 25:13–15. Available online here.

Hübner, Carl Joseph. 1797. Polens Ende: Historisch, statistisch und geographisch beschrieben. Warsaw, n.p. Available online here.

Schrag, Martin H. 1959. Volhynia (Ukraine). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Available online here.

Stewner, Frank. 2012. SGGEE Volhynian Gazetteer. Society for German Genealogy in Eastern Europe. Available online here.

Benjamin Buller 2

As noted in the previous post, Mennonite researchers have made available transcriptions of nine historical documents—each one a primary resource—of a variety of types. All nine are linked from a PDF created by Glenn Penner  and Steve Fast here. The document, titled “Waldheim, Molotschna and Heinrichsdorf, Volhynia: 1833-1851,” provides not only links to the sources but also an introduction to the problem that anyone interested in the history of Waldheim faces:

Those who are trying to trace their ancestry though the early years of the village of Waldheim in the Molotschna colony face several problems. The village was founded just after the 1835 census. Those who founded Waldheim around 1836–39 came from areas in Volhynia for which we have no pre-1836 church records and very few other records of genealogical use. The available records for Waldheim such as voter lists and school records were only started after over half the population packed up and returned to Volhynia and founded the village of Heinrichsdorf (1845).

This paragraph summarizes the situation well: due to the timing of Waldheim’s founding (after the 1835 Molotschna census), the lack of early records from Volhynia (from where the Waldheim settlers came), and the move of the greater part of the population back to Volhynia from Waldheim in Molotschna colony, records of who lived where and when are scarce and sketchy.

Nevertheless, some records have been transcribed that begin to shine light not only on the broader Volhynia–Waldheim–Volhynia migrations but also on the individual Mennonites who participated in those moves—which included members of our family.

We begin with the first document linked from the PDF: Glenn Penner’s translation of a “List of Mennonites Wishing to Leave Volhynia and Settle with Their Brethren in the Tauridian Governorate, 1833” (here; I encourage you to open the linked file in a new tab or window so you can see all that it contains).

The significance of the title becomes a bit clearer once we define one of its terms. The term Tauridian Governorate refers to the province of Taurida within the Russian Empire (both Taurida and Volhynia were governorates, what we would call provinces today). The location of Taurida (see below) tells us at a glance the significance of this place.

Taurida is the area below the red line, including the Crimean peninsula. As you can see, Taurida encompassed the Molotschna colony, which was located inland north of the Sea of Azov on the east side of the map (red X). What this means, then, is that the 1833 document lists those Mennonites in Volhynia who wanted to move nearly 500 miles southeast to Molotschna instead.

B efore we turn to the actual list, we should stop for a moment to think about the dates. The list was compiled in 1833, and Waldheim was founded in 1836 by Volhynian settlers. Clearly, the move from Volhynia to Waldheim was not a spur-of-the-moment act. It was in the works for at least three years (probably more) and no doubt involved securing permission from the government to move, disposing of whatever obligations (land leases?) and property could not be taken with the colonists, and making all those preparations necessary for a relocation of this magnitude. For the time being, all we need to note is that this move was not based on a whim.

But the list is the real center of attention. In it we find the names of thirty-nine Mennonites who had expressed a desire to move from Volhynia to Molotschna: nineteen of them were tenants on the land of Michael Bischkowsky in the Lutzki region in the colony (or village) Ostrowka, sixteen of Ignatz Bischkowsky in the Lutzki region in the colony Wolla, and four of Prince Joseph Ljubomirsky in the colony Doschidorf. These thirty-nine families comprised 276 adults and children (an average of 7.1 persons per family).

Obviously, if you are looking at the list, number 10 of the Ostrowka group jumps out:

10

Benjamin Buller

5

6

11

Landwirth (landowner/farmer)

This Benjamin Buller, as will become clear later on, was almost certainly our ancestor, the father of David Buller, the grandfather of Peter D, the great-grandfather of Peter P,  and so on. So, what do we learn about Benjamin from this list?

1. Unlike some others in the group, who earned a living as a shepherd, clock maker, wood-lathe operator, wagon maker, or linen weaver, Benjamin was a farmer.

2. Benjamin and his family were among the tenants of Michael Bischkowsky in the Lutzki region in the village Ostrowka.

3. Benjamin was one of the tenants who still enjoyed his tax-free years.

4. Benjamin’s family included five males and six females.

All that seems relatively straightforward, but several key questions remain unanswered.

1. The last we knew (the 1819/1820 census), Benjamin rented his land from a Polish noble named Waclav Borejko and lived near the village of Zofyovka (summarized here, but see also here, here, here, and here). Why is he now located at a different village renting land from a different person?

2. Why had some of the Mennonites been paying taxes since 1818 but Benjamin still enjoyed a tax-free status as of 1833? How many years would a new tenant enjoy freedom from taxation, and what might this tell us about when Benjamin began renting Bischkowsky’s land?

3. In 1819/1820 the family included four males (Benjamin, David, Dominik, nephew David) and one female (Helena). In 1833 the family included five males and six females. Who were they?

Each question will be taken up in turn in the posts that follow, and we may even devote a post or two to examining the list as a whole. For now, we can begin to construct a timeline of datable events in our family history, so we do not lose sight of the bigger picture while we work our way through all the minutiae that lies ahead. We will add to this timeline as we are able.

Year	Person(s)	Event
1817	Benjamin and family (4)	emigrated from Prussia to Volhynia
1818	David Benjamin	birth on 25 January
1819/1820	Benjamin, Helena, David, Dominik, nephew David	listed on census living at Zofyovka, Rovno, Volhynia
????	Benjamin and family (?)	moved from Zofyovka to Ostrowka, Lutsk, Volhynia
1833	Benjamin and family (11)	expressed desire to emigrate from Ostrowka to Molotschna colony

Benjamin Buller 1

So it is we begin a new adventure. Before we immerse ourselves in recently transcribed documents with direct relevance to our family, we should reorient ourselves to the Old World and reacquaint ourselves with certain people and particular places that will help us navigate well the new territory we are about to explore.

1. The people

The primary people of interest, of course, are the five known generations of our ancestors, from Chris and Malinda all the way back to Benjamin and Helena.

Chris Buller (1906–1982)	—	Malinda Franz (1906–1980
|
Peter P Buller (1869–1964)	—	Margaretha Epp (1870–1951)
|
Peter D Buller (1845–1897)	—	Sarah Siebert (1847–1922)
|
David B Buller (1818–1904)	—	Helena Zielke ????–1855?
|
Benjamin Buller (????–????)	—	Helena  ????? (????–????)
|
????? Buller 1760s?
|
????? Buller 1730s?
|
????? Buller 1700s?
|
George Buller	—	????? (not Dina Thoms)

For the time being, we cannot supply Helena Zielke’s year of birth or any dates for Benjamin and Helena (whose maiden name we not know know) Buller. That being said, we can safely assume that Benjamin was born sometime around 1790, since he had a son David in 1818.

If (!) we are descended from George Buller—and that is only a hypothesis at this point; we have no documentary evidence indicating that we are—then one might posit three generations between our known ancestor Benjamin and George Buller of Przechovka, with an average age at fathering a child of thirty. It seems unlikely that there is room for four generations, unless four successive generations of male Bullers fathered a male child in our line of ancestry in their early twenties.

Although it is helpful to keep all these generations in mind, our focus in the upcoming posts will be on three: (1) David and Helena; (2) Benjamin and Helena; and (3) and the generation before them.

2. The places

We will introduce no new places, merely revisit some of those with which we have become familiar in our journey thus far.

George Buller lived in the Culm area and eventually became a member of the Przechovka church (number 1 in the map below), but our earliest certainly known ancestor Benjamin first appears in the region of Volhynia (number 2), so that is where we will begin. We first encountered Benjamin and Helena two to three years after they emigrated to Volhynia (from where we do not know), in an 1819/1820 census (see here, here, here, and here, as well as other posts in that time frame).

We learned that Benjamin and Helena became tenants on the land of a Polish noble named Waclav Borejko in 1817, the year before their son David (our ancestor) was born. We also discovered that at some point at least a part of the family decided to leave Volhynia, since David turns up in the village of Waldheim in Molotschna colony (number 3; see here and other posts in that time frame).

Because the village was founded in 1836, we know that David moved there later than that, perhaps in the first wave of settlers, sixty-eight families in all, according to government records, by the end of 1940. We guessed on that basis that David and Helena’s son Peter D was born in Waldheim (his year of birth was 1845), although we do not know that for certain. Eventually Peter left Waldheim to marry Sarah Siebert and live with her family (matrilocality!); David remained in Waldheim until he passed on at age eighty-six in 1904.

Enough background: suffice it to say that we will focus on the generations of David and Helena, Benjamin and Helena, and the generation before them and that our story will unfold in two distinct locations: Volhynia (beginning in the village of Wysock but ending up in yet a different village) and Molotschna colony in the village of Waldheim.

As mentioned previously, Mennonite historians and researchers have recently transcribed a number of historical sources that will guide our journey: nine pertaining to the Volhynia–Waldheim connection, seven of which have direct relevance for our family. By “direct relevance” I mean that one or more of our ancestors appear in those primary sources.

This series is likely to become complicated, so buckle up and hold on. We will work slowly, systematically, and thoroughly through each Buller-relevant document in turn, beginning with the earliest (1833) and working our forward in time. I do not know how many posts this will take, but each one in the series will recall our earliest identifiable ancestor: Benjamin Buller. You will understand why a little more fully as time goes on.