David and Helena Zielke Buller’s Children

As mentioned in late August (here), Buller Time has been contacted by various Bullers over the past four years, including a descendant of Peter D Buller’s younger sister Elisabeth. Research led to new information about Elisabeth (new to Buller Time, at least), as well as discoveries about other of Peter D’s siblings. Before this information is forgotten, we will present it in a brief series about David and Helena Zielke’s children. The Alexanderwohl series will continue alongside it, and the two together should offer some variety to blog readers.

We begin by reviewing our current state of knowledge about David and Helena’s children, drawing from both the GRANDMA entry for David Buller (below) and the Buller Family Record (BFR)—as well as a post originally published in January 2017. Keep in mind that David was married twice and had children by each wife. Although this series will focus on his children with Helena, this initial post will include the children from both wives. Finally, recall that we do not know the name of David’s second wife, or even if she was a Ratzlaff, as claimed by GRANDMA.

GRANDMA reports that David fathered nine children: five sons and four daughters; the BFR agrees. Unfortunately, the two disagree on many details. The orders of birth for both are (children of wife 2 in red):

GRANDMA	Buller Family Record
Heinrich (about 1842)	Helena (????)
Peter (1845)	Peter (1845)
Elisabeth (1847)	Elisabeth (1847)
Helena (1849)	Benjamin (1851)
Sarah (about 1850)	Maria (1853)
Benjamin (1851)	David (1855)
Maria (1853)	Heinrich (????)
David (1855)	Jacob (1864)
Jacob (1864)	Sarah (????)

The names are all the same, but the order of births and the identifications of who was the mother of whom differ, at times significantly. Fortunately, several primary sources clarify some of these matters.

1. The 1850 Heinrichsdorf census (here) proves fairly conclusively that the first three children were Helena, Peter, and Elisabeth, who were ages seven, six, and three, respectively. This corresponds more or less to birth years in 1844, 1845, and 1847, as the BFR has it. Therefore, for David’s first three children, we should follow the BFR order.

2. GM and BFR agree that Benjamin was born in 1851, Maria in 1853, and David in 1855. For now we will consider that information correct.

3. GM is obviously wrong about its placement of Heinrich: he does not appear on the 1850 census (and thus was not the firstborn), and he himself refers to his half-brothers (see here), thus indicating that he was not a son of Helena Zielke. The BFR placement of Heinrich is more correct than GM.

4. Jacob’s birth in 1864 as a son of David’s second wife seems fairly certain; it is consistent with the Molotschna school registers (here), which identify Jacob as David’s nine-year-old son in the 1873–1874 school year. The BFR may be correct that Heinrich was older than Jacob, given that Heinrich does not appear on the Molotschna school register; if this Heinrich was the father of another Buller named Heinrich who was born in 1783 (GM 73184; it is highly likely), then he was no doubt older than Jacob.

5. This leaves Sarah, whom GM dates to about 1850, the BFR to sometime after 1864. At present we cannot say which, if either, is correct.

Based on all available evidence, the most likely order of children is:

Helena: 184?
Peter: 1845
Elisabeth: 1847
Benjamin: 1851
Maria: 1853
David: 1855
Heinrich: about 1860
Jacob: 1864
Sarah: unknown

In this scheme, the first six children were Helena Zielke’s, the last three of David’s second wife. This arrangement is, of course, subject to modification should documentary evidence permit us to clarify or change some details. For the present, however, we can consider this a reliable foundation on which to proceed with this series, which we shall do shortly.