Searching for Benjamin’s Father 7

Thus far we have learned a considerable amount of information about Benjamin Heinrich Buller. We know that he was probably born in the mid-1750s, was baptized in the Przechovka Mennonite church on 31 August 1772, married Maricke Cornelsen on 30 June 1774, and raised a family with her in the village of Klein Konopath of at least five daughters and two sons. We also confirmed Glenn Penner’s suggestion that two Benjamin Bullers listed in the GRANDMA database (60393 and 32139) are, in fact the same person—Benjamin Heinrich Buller. We then discovered that by 1815 Benjamin had buried his wife Maricke, two sons, and one daughter. Finally, most recently we came to realize that Benjamin was on the low end of land-owning Mennonites in Deutsch Konopath, with only 4 acres that he could call his own (compared with an average of 30.6 acres).

What we have not yet considered is whether Benjamin Heinrich Buller is in our direct family line. That is the question of real interest. We will soon take up that question, but first we should trace more of Benjamin’s life, to the extent that we are able.

Glenn Penner’s earlier statement (here) mentions that Benjamin Heinrich, Glenn believes, “left for South Russia with his daughter Catharina and her husband Johann Ratzlaff (and the majority of the Przechowka congregation).” What is the basis of this suggestion? Several listings within the 1835 Molotschna census. We looked briefly at that census three years ago (here), but it deserves a closer examination. (For additional background to the Russian census, see the post by Steve Fast on his blog Mennonite Genealogy Forum  here.)

Although nothing beats looking at the original records, for now we can rely on several indexes that Richard D. Thiessen has posted online. The first (here) lists all the Mennonite “male household heads, married males, adopted males, males accepted into households, and step-sons” in alphabetical order by last name. Thirteen Bullers are identified:

Buller, Abram Abram	(b. ca. –)	Prangenau	14
Buller, Benjamin Benjamin	(b. ca. –)	Alexanderwohl	16
Buller, David David	(b. ca.1812)	Alexanderwohl	1
Buller, Heinrich Jakob	(b. ca.1787)	Alexanderwohl	26
Buller, Heinrich Peter	(b. ca.1811)	Alexanderwohl	30
Buller, Jakob Jakob	(b. ca.1795)	Franztal	5
Buller, Jakob Jakob	(b. ca.1795)	Alexanderwohl	15
Buller, Jakob Peter	(b. ca.1758)	Alexanderwohl	9
Buller, Jakob Wilhelm	(b. ca.1809)	Lindenau	23
Buller, Peter David	(b. ca.1809)	Liebenau	3
Buller, Peter David	(b. ca.1809)	Alexanderwohl	1
Buller, Peter Peter	(b. ca.1807)	Alexanderwohl	30
Buller, Wilhelm Abram	(b. ca. 1766)	Lindenau	23

Modern Svetloye; formerly Alexanderwohl.

Before we focus on the Buller of most interest to us, two things are worthy of note. First, eight of the thirteen lived in Alexanderwohl, which was the Molotschna village settled by the members of the Przechovka church who emigrated to Molotschna. Given the close association of Bullers with that church in Poland/West Prussia, it is not surprising to see a concentration of Bullers in the Molotschna village where the church members settled.

Second, one should note that some of the household heads occupied the same Wirtschaft (plot). So, for example, David David and Peter David both inhabited Alexanderwohl number 1; likewise, Peter Peter and Heinrich Peter both lived in Alexanderwohl 30, and Peter David and Wilhelm Abram both lived in Lindenau 23. This will become significant for our purposes a little later on.

Of course, given the title of this series, our interest lies with the Buller named Benjamin, who lived at Alexanderwohl 16. Attentive readers will notice immediately that his middle name is incorrect; we have been following the life of Benjamin Heinrich Buller, not Benjamin Benjamin Buller. The only Benjamin Benjamin we have encountered thus far is from the next generation (David Buller’s father) and the one after that (David Buller’s older brother). The person living at Alexanderwohl 16 cannot be either of those, and we simply know of no other Benjamin Benjamin Buller who might have lived in Alexanderwohl at this time.

Before we go further we need to add one more piece of information to the mix. According to the 1835 census (as recorded in the GRANDMA database), Benjamin Benjamin died in 1830, so he was not alive when the census was taken. Nevertheless, the 1835 census included information about him, presumably to update the government’s records, since it was known that he had moved to New Russia in 1820.

We have previously concluded that Benjamin Benjamin (GM 60393) is the same person as Benjamin Heinrich (GM 32139), but how can two men with different middle names be the same person? Glenn Penner explains as follows:

The only inconsistency here is that 60393 is given the patronymic Benjamin in the 1835 census and 32139 is known to be the son of Heinrich Buller. This ties in with some work I have been doing on the 1835 census. I have found that many of the men who died between the 1816 and 1835 censuses were given the same patronymic as their first names in the 1835 census and that some of these are incorrect. This is particularly true for those men who were older when they died (their fathers would have died in Prussia and their children never knew these grandfathers). This would be the case for Benjamin 1. It is likely that none of his survivors in Alexanderwohl knew the name of Benjamin 1’s father. It seems to me that whenever this was the case for the 1835 census the census taker simply repeated the deceased man’s name as the middle name patronymic.

To state matters simply, whenever family members did not know the name of the father of a deceased male such as Benjamin, the census taker repeated that male’s first name as his middle name. In this case, daughter Katharina (aka Trincke) may have never known her grandfather Heinrich Buller—he may well have been deceased when she was born, although we cannot say that for certain—which makes it reasonable to think that she could not supply his name. Also possible is that the census taker spoke not with her but with her husband Johann Ratzlaff, who certainly would not have known the name of his grandfather-in-law.

Although certainty may never be within our grasp, Glenn’s explanation makes the best sense of this apparently contradictory information. The earlier identification of the two Benjamin Bullers as the same person stands, and we can proceed under that assumption until other evidence proves decisively otherwise. Thus we can safely say that, born in the area of Jeziorka (we think) in the mid-1750s, Benjamin Heinrich Buller lived into his mid-seventies before passing away in the village of Alexanderwohl in the year 1830.

One more piece of documentary evidence merits examination before we turn seriously to the question of whether Benjamin Heinrich Buller stands in our direct family line. That document, of course, will be the topic of the following post.