Dumb luck strikes again—maybe. Recently while browsing through the English translation of the Alexanderwohl church book (Duerksen and Duerksen 1987), I stumbled upon a listing of baptisms in a supplemental section.
The list of church members baptized was not an original part of the church book per se but was created by Duerksen and Duerksen, I assume, based on the information provided in the body of the church book. That is, it appears that the translators took information from the body of the book and compiled it into an additional list, so readers could see at a glance who was baptized on a given day.
What caught my eye in this section is the list of names given for 7 June 1866.
I call your attention particularly to rows 9 and 12. The baptismal candidate listed in row 9 was named Peter Buller, son of David Buller; they lived in the village Hierschau, which was roughly a mile west of Waldheim. The candidate in row 12 was also named Peter, and his father’s name was also David; the only difference is that these two hailed from Waldheim.
One has to ask: What are the odds that two Peter Bullers were baptized on the same day, let alone two Peter Bullers born to a David Buller? I recognize that there were various Bullers associated with the Alexanderwohl church, but this still seemed somewhat curious—especially in light of the fact that our ancestor Peter D was the son of a David Buller from Waldheim.
The original entry from the Alexanderwohl church book (see here) both confirms and complicates the matter. Frame 32 shows the first Peter Buller as entry 672 and the second Peter Buller as 675. If one looks closely, however, there is a clear difference between the two entries.
The third and fourth columns of 672 identify his parents by number: 402 and 403. Turning back in the church book we learn that these numbers refer to David Buller and his wife, an unknown Wedel. The third and fourth columns of 675, on the other hand, are blank. No father or mother is listed for Peter 675.
This leads one to wonder why Duerksen and Duerksen supplied David as the name of the father of the second Peter Buller. It is not attested in the body of the church book. Was this a mistake on their part, or did they draw on information beyond the church book? More important, however they arrived at the father’s name, did they get it right? Most important of all, is this the baptismal record for Peter D Buller?
The GRANDMA database is the most likely resource for answering the last two questions. We begin with Peter D’s own entry.
The typical GRANDMA entry lists the date and location of birth (when known), followed by the date of baptism, immigration information, date and place of death, burial, and then the immediate family (spouse[s] and children). Note that no baptism information is provided for Peter D. We can be relatively certain that he was baptized, but thus far no one has been able to say when.
There are three other dates to keep in mind. Peter D was born on 11 January 1845; the baptism took place on 7 June 1866; Peter D married Sarah Siebert several months later, on 27 August 1866. If the second Peter Buller in the Alexanderwohl church book is Peter D Buller, then the sequence would be that, when Peter was twenty-one, he was baptized and became a full-fledged member of the church; several months after his baptism he wed Sarah Siebert and began to establish his own family.
I must admit that there is a certain chronological logic to this sequence, but that does not constitute proof that Peter 675 in the church book is Peter D. There may well have been other Peter Bullers who also might also qualify to be baptismal candidate number 2. A search in GRANDMA can identify them for us, so that we can judge whether any of them is more likely than Peter D.
If a person being baptized in Alexanderwohl was sixteen at the youngest and twenty-six at the oldest (few were baptized younger or older), the birth year of any potential candidate would fall sometime between 1840 and 1850. A search in GRANDMA for all Peter Bullers born between these years identifies six possibilities. One was born in Warsaw, Poland; he can be excluded. Another was reportedly baptized in Heinrichsdorf, Volhynia, on 11 February 1862; he can be excluded. Little is known of a third option: he has no year of birth or father or location; he might be considered, but he apparently married in 1862, so one would think that he was baptized before that event. The fourth option listed is our own Peter D. The fifth is the Peter Buller from Hierschau (number 672 in the church book); he has his own listing in the church book and was baptized the same day as the object of our search, so we can exclude him from consideration. The sixth and final Peter Buller in this time frame was baptized two years earlier in Alexanderwohl, on 7 June 1864; he appears as number 607 in the church book and thus cannot be the Peter Buller for whom we are looking.
Of these six candidates, Peter D is by far the most likely to have been the second Peter Buller (675) listed in the Alexanderwohl church book. Of course, there may have been other Peter Bullers born between 1840 and 1850 who lived close to Alexanderwohl in 1866, but until some other Peter Buller comes to light, the best explanation of all of the evidence is that Peter Buller 675 in the Alexanderwohl church book was none other than our own Peter D, who was baptized at the age of twenty-one and then several months later wed Sarah Siebert, oldest daughter of Johann.
Another piece of the puzzle seemingly has been found, but that is not all. The notes page across from Peter Buller’s Alexanderwohl entry contains additional information that will fill in another detail about Peter and Sarah’s life. That will, as usual, have to await the following post.
Work Cited
Duerksen, Velda Richert, and Jacob A. Duerksen, trans. 1987. Church Book of the Alexanderwohl Mennonite Church in the Molotschna Colony of South Russia. Translation of the Kirchen Buch der Gemeinde zu Alexanderwohl. Goessel, KS: Mennonite Immigrant Historical Foundation.
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