Correction: Martin Köhn

Earlier this month Buller Time suggested that the name Martin Köhn, the twelfth person listed on our working list of 1819 emigrants, was a scribal error (see here). The logic seemed inescapable, since neither the Przechovka church book nor GRANDMA knew anyone named Martin Köhn at that time. Unfortunately, the suggestion turns out to be completely wrong. Once again, the primary sources reveal the correct answer.

The work on which we have been relying in the Przechovka Emigration series is Peter Rempel’s 2007 Mennonite Migration to Russia, 1788–1828. Although based on primary sources, this work itself is a secondary resource, since it presents to us an edited, translated summary of the original records with which Rempel was working. Those original emigration records are the only primary sources in this investigation.

The hypothesis that Martin Köhn’s name was a scribal error imagined that, during his copying of the original records, Rempel accidentally copied the name Martin from the preceding entry. This seemed the best way to explain a name (i.e., Martin Köhn) that appears nowhere else in our records.

The original records were gathered by Peter Braun (if I understand correctly) from the St. Petersburg governmental archives. The actual records found within the archives were originally microfilmed and distributed to, among others, several Mennonite archives. The Mennonite Heritage Archives (here), from which the records shown below originate, scanned these microfilms, thus giving researchers easier access to the actual lists than ever before. Thank you both to the Mennonite Heritage Archives and to Glenn Penner for sending the records related to the Przechovka Emigration series.

All this is background to our examination of an image of the actual records for several Przechovka emigrants.

A quick glance reveals the extent of Rempel’s editing of the records. The original records are set in columns; Rempel offers short narrative entries instead. For example, the first record shown, number 486, is presented at follows by Rempel:

Peter (Pierre) Unrau Mennonite from Przeckowko with his wife, 2 daughters. Passport from Marienwerder issued on July 13, 1819. (2007, 136)

The actual record presents the information in a more list-like fashion. This is not surprising; these are, after all, government records. What is surprising is the language in which the documents are written: French. It is unclear why records compiled in West Prussia/Poland, then presumably forwarded to Russia were composed in French. I realize that French was a well-established language of diplomacy, but these records were not meant to be exchanged between governments; rather, unless I am mistaken these records were created by Russian officials in West Prussia and forwarded to Russian officials in Russia. Thus the use of French for the Russian records presents a real mystery.

As for the structure and contents of the entries, after a record number (486) in the far left column, the next two columns document the date of the Russian visa’s issuance. The hash marks in those columns indicate that the same date from the prior page (20 July 1819) applies here. 

Column 4 includes all the personal information on the emigrants: Visá á Pierre Unrau Mennonite de Przeckowko avec sa femme & 2 filles. That is, the visa was issued to Peter (Pierre is the French form of the name) Unrau, a Mennonite from Przechovka, with his wife and two daughters. 

The next three columns list the location where the Prussian passport authorizing travel was issued and then the day (jour) and month (mois) it was issued. Instead of hash marks in these columns, we see what is almost certainly an abbreviation of the word dito (the abbreviation consists of a capital D with a raised letter o that has two lines and a period below it), whose English equivalent is ditto. Turning back to the previous page, we learn that Peter Unrau, like the two individuals listed before him, received a passport from Marienwerder issued 13 July 1819. 

The final column bears the heading “pour quel endroit,” or “for which place.” Turning back again to the prior pages, we read “pour Ekaterinoslaw,” or “for Ekaterinoslav.” If the name of that Russian city sounds familiar, it is because we encountered it earlier as the site of the Guardianship Committee for Foreign Settlers in the Southern Regions of Russia (see here), the Russian governmental office that had charge of all foreign colonists in that area of New Russia. Presumably the phrase “for Ekaterinoslav” indicates to which Russian regional jurisdiction an emigrant was bound.

Now that we have examined closely a typical entry, we return to the opening topic of this post. Listed below Peter Unrau we see the names Martin Knels (number 487) and Martin Köhn (488). There is no doubting or disputing this primary source: the individual listed—sans wife and children—was named Martin Köhn. 

This is, to my knowledge, the only extant evidence for Martin Köhn’s existence. Perhaps he never did marry and thus left no children to remember him. Whatever his fate might have been, we can say now that Martin Köhn did live and planned to emigrate eastward in July of 1819. The earlier hypothesis of a scribal error has been proven false. 

Work Cited

Rempel. Peter. 2007. Mennonite Migration to Russia, 1788–1828. Edited by Alfred H. Redekopp and Richard D. Thiessen. Winnepeg: Manitoba Mennonite Historical Society.

Przechovka Emigration 10

The past few posts have taken a brief detour from our progression through the list of thirty-two 1819 emigrants from the Przechovka-area, first to correct our misidentification of Peter Becker 1 and then to learn more about Peter and other of these 1819 emigrants who are named in an 1819 register of Mennonites recently arrived in Wysock, Volhnyia (here and here). This post takes a step back both to summarize what he have learned and to reflect on its significance.

Of the eight families on the 1819 register (for the original translation, see here), seven appear on our list of thirty-two. This is not an insignificant number, representing nearly a quarter of all the 1819 Przechovka emigrants. What are we to make of the fact that so many of the 1819 emigrants appeared in Volhynia?

1. From a geographical perspective, it is not surprising that a traveling party turned up in Volhynia. A map with all the relevant locations marked shows why.

The site marked 1 in the upper left is the Przechovka area; number 3 in the lower right marks where Alexanderwohl was located. The approximate location of the village Wysock in the Rovno district of Volhynia is marked by the number 2. Clearly, Volhynia in general and Wysock in particular were on, or at least probably near, one route from Przechovka to Molotschna. 

I do not know the exact route that the 1819 emigrants took on their journey. The best that we can do is to compare what we know of other parties. On the one hand, earlier Mennonites emigrating from West Prussia to Molotschna often passed through Grodno, which can be seen on the map directly east of the number 1 (slightly northeast of Bialystok), where they were registered and given funding for the remainder of the trek (see, e.g., Rempel 2007, 57–98). On the other hand, the 1820 group of Przechovka church members who established Alexanderwohl apparently took a route further south, since they were located just outside of Warsaw when they encountered Tsar Alexander I. 

Whichever route the 1819 group (or groups) took, they probably would have passed relatively near Wysock in Volhynia, where Mennonites originally from the Przechovka church had been living since 1811. Thus, it is not at all surprising to learn that some of the 1819 emigrants are located at Wysock later that year. 

2. Of the seven Przechovka emigrants named on the Wysock list, four are known to have ended up in Alexanderwohl. How do we explain this? The answer may be hinted at in the introduction to the Wysock register. There we read: “These Mennonites left the Kingdom of Prussia in the year 1819 and in the same year arrived in Wegtzin where they will spend the up-coming winter.” For some of the emigrants, Wyscock was apparently only a stop along the way, a place to spend the winter before traveling on to Molotschna in the spring. 

In fact, there was a precedent for this. According to Heinrich Goerz,

the first group of future Molotschna settlers left Prussia in the summer of 1803. The immigrants got only as far as their brothers in Chortitza where they spent the winter. Fortunately, they were in the position to pay for food, animal feed and shelter, which provided their hosts with very welcome assistance. (Goerz 1993, 5)

It seems reasonable to conclude from the precedent and the wording of the register of names (“they will spend the up-coming winter”) that some of these 1819 emigrants never settled in Volhynia but rather only wintered there from late 1819 until early 1820.

3. Does the fact that four families pressed on to Molotschna imply that the other three families on the Wysock register did likewise? This is a more difficult question to answer, due to conflicting evidence. On the one hand, the register does not distinguish between some who were only spending the winter and some who were settling there; it seems to imply that all these families were only wintering in Wysock. On the other hand, we have no evidence that the three families who are not known to have continued on ever lived in Molotschna.

Granted, the family headed by widow Maria Schmidt is impossible to trace in later records, since she probably remarried and thus had a different last name. However, the other two families—that of Peter Becker and Benjamin Ratzlaff—do not appear in the 1835 Molotschna census, which is fairly strong evidence that they did not live in that colony between 1819 and 1835. The case should remain open, of course, but for now the most logical explanation is that these families remained in Volhynia, perhaps even in the Wysock area.

The most significant conclusion that we can draw from this recent detour is that we should not regard all those emigrating from Przechovka as identical. Some clearly were headed to Molotschna, albeit a year earlier than the accepted history would lead us to believe. Others probably stayed in Volhynia for at least several years and even up to nearly two decades. Further, we probably should not assume that all those moving to Russia did so in a large body like that described for the 1820 Przechovka group. It appears that the 1819 emigrants traveled in smaller groups, with one as small as seven families.

The more we learn about Mennonite history, the more intricate and nuanced our picture of the past becomes. This is as it should be. Life in the early decades of the nineteenth century was as complex as life is today, so we should not try to force the facts that come to light into simplistic, cookie-cutter models and explanations. Rather, we must follow the evidence wherever it leads even when the result is not as neat and simple as we would like. 

Works Cited

Goerz, Heinrich. 1993. The Molotschna Settlement. Translated by Al Reimer and John B. Toews. Echo Historical Series. Winnipeg, MB: CMBC Publications and Manitoba Mennonite Historical Society.

Rempel. Peter. 2007. Mennonite Migration to Russia, 1788–1828. Edited by Alfred H. Redekopp and Richard D. Thiessen. Winnepeg: Manitoba Mennonite Historical Society.

Przechovka Emigration 9

We pick up where the previous post ended: by examining Peter Becker 32061 more closely. We begin with his GRANDMA entry.

Note first that Peter Becker married Anna (Ancke) Buller in 1811; we will return to her momentarily. Also significant is that the first two children do not have dates of birth listed, which often hints at a lack of information for the person listed. That is certainly true in this case, as the individual pages for the first two children provide no evidence about them and cite no sources justifying their listing with this family. Because there is no evidence at all for their existence, we may safely exclude them from consideration. This leaves the Peter and Anna Buller Becker family with one son (Benjamin) and two daughters (Anna and Helena)—exactly the family described in the visa that began this investigation (see here).  

The note toward the bottom of the Peter Becker entry is most important of all:

P336 Probably settled in Wegtzin, Revinsk district, in 1820 (Fond 383 Opis 29 Dielo 1212, St. Petersburg Archives).

The P336 is Peter Becker’s number in the Przechovka church book. The more interesting part of the note is the mention of Wegtzin, Revinsk. This name sounded familiar, so I searched for the two words Wegtzin and Revinsk in Google, which returned three results—all of them located in Buller Time, specifically in a post published 9 December 2017 (here).

That post, which was part of the Searching for Benjamin’s Father series, identified and described the brothers and sisters of Benjamin Benjamin Buller, who was the father of David, the father of Peter D, the father of Peter P, and so on. The brothers and sisters of Benjamin Benjamin were, of course, the sons and daughters of Benjamin Heinrich and Maricke Cornelsen Buller. Benjamin was our ancestor who emigrated to Alexanderwohl in 1820 (see Wirtschaft 16 here).

Why, you may be wondering, did that post mention Wegtzin, Revinsk? The answer is simple: Anna Buller, the wife of the Peter Becker we are considering here, was a daughter of Benjamin Heinrich and Maricke Cornelsen Buller, thus the sister of Benjamin Benjamin Buller, the father of David and so on. That post reads:

Ancke, daughter two, was born 12 July 1779 and baptized sometime in 1795. She married Peter Becker (336) on 23 June 1811. According to the GM entry for Peter, they “probably settled in Wegtzin, Revinsk district, in 1820 (Fond 383 Opis 29 Dielo 1212, St. Petersburg Archives).” If that is correct, it would be an interesting lead, since Wegtzin (or Wysock) is the Volhynian location where Benjamin 2 [Benjamin Benjamin] and Helena and their family arrived in 1817. The fact that both Buller families ended up in the same village several years apart proves nothing, of course, but it is an intriguing, perhaps even suggestive coincidence.

A year later, we have come full circle back to Peter and Anna Buller Becker, except now as part of the Przechovka group who was emigrating from West Prussia/Poland in 1819. Is GRANDMA correct that they probably settled in Wegtzin = Wysock (see here), the same village where Benjamin Benjamin Buller had settled two years earlier?

Thanks to a resource provided by a researcher on the Mennonite Genealogical Resources website, we can say that Peter and Anna definitely settled in Wegtzin in late 1819. The reason we cannot locate any evidence of this family in Molotschna is because they never went there (at least not prior to the 1835 census); they moved to Volhynia instead. 

The documentation supporting this could not be clearer. In a file titled “Register of Mennonites in Rovno Region, Volhynia, 1819” (Russian State Historical Archives, Fond 383, Opis 29, Dielo 1212; see here), translated by Sergei Chaiderman, we find the

first and last names of newly arrived Mennonites in the town of Wegtzin. These Mennonites left the Kingdom of Prussia in the year 1819 and in the same year arrived in Wegtzin where they will spend the up-coming winter.

The sixth family listed includes 

• Peter Becker, age 34
• his wife Anna, age 38
• son Benjamin, age 8
• daughters Anna, age 7
• Helena, age 4

This is obviously the family whose GRANDMA record is shown above. Even more important, this is the Peter Becker 1 in our 1819 list. In fact, translator Sergei Chaiderman cites the same reference that we have for this identification: Rempel 2007, 136 (plus each family member’s GM number). It may have taken us longer to get there (Chaiderman did his work over a decade ago), but it is nice to know that we arrived at the same result. We can now positively identify Peter Becker 1 in the 1819 list as PCB 336/GM 32061 and note that he journeyed to Wyscock, Volhynia, the same village as our ancestor Benjamin Benjamin Buller.

Our story does not end, however, with the identification of Peter Becker. Seven other families appear on the 1819 register of Mennonite families, all but one of whom also came from the Przechovka area. Again, Chaiderman has already made the identification: 

1. The first family listed included Benjamin Ratzlaff (age 38), his wife Helena (26), son Heinrich (1), and daughters Anna (4) and Eva (3). We will meet this family as number 27 on our 1819 list.

2. Then follows Heinrich Unruh and his wife Anna (both 23). Chaiderman identifies this Volhynian couple as part of the Przechovka group (i.e., he cites the Rempel entry); we earlier identified them as Heinrich and Anna Schmidt Unrau, number 3 in the 1819 list (here) and settlers of Alexanderwohl 14. Which is correct? Did number 3 in our version of the Rempel list go to Volhynia (so Chaiderman) or to Molotschna (so Buller Time)? 

Is it possible that both are correct, that Heinrich Unruh and family first went to Volhynia, then later moved south to Alexanderwohl? Given the ages listed on the 1819 Volhnynia register, Chaiderman seems to have identified the right couple; however, we can positively identify the same couple at Alexanderwohl 14 in the 1835 census. The most likely explanation, then, is that this couple first went to Volhynia, then moved to Molotschna, perhaps in 1820 or 1821, at roughly the same time or after the Wedel-led party founded the village of Alexanderwohl.

3. Family 3 on the list includes Andreas Schmidt (30), his wife Helena (25), and their sons Jacob (2) and Heinrich (1). Chaiderman identifies this Volhynian family as part of the Przechovka group (citing the entry on Rempel 2007, 137); earlier we identified the same family as number 16 on our 1819 list and located them in Alexanderwohl (Wirtschaft 20). Both Chaiderman’s and our identifications appear to be correct, so once again we seem to have a case of a family going to Volhynia in 1819, then moving to Alexanderwohl not long after.

4. The Chaiderman list has another Schmidt in the fourth position: Jacob Schmidt (24), his wife Anna (20), and their daughter Anna (1). Jacob and the Andreas Schmidt listed above were brothers. We have not yet covered this family, since they appear as number 23 on our 1819 emigration list. At this point we should not be surprised that the family eventually settled in Alexanderwohl 18.

5. Yet another Schmidt family appears next: Heinrich Schmidt (26), his wife Maria (24), and their son Heinrich (1). Heinrich was brother to Andreas and Jacob; Maria was a Buller, although not from our direct family line. We will return to this family in due course (they are number 24 on the 1819 list), where we will find them settling in Alexanderwohl 5.

6. Peter Becker and family are listed sixth.

7. With the seventh name we finally encounter someone not from Przechovka (as far as we know): George Tzeevka (38), his wife Frezina (24), son Ivan (2), and daughters Maria (7) and Elisa (5). We know nothing further about this family.

8. Eighth and last are Maria Schmidt, a widow (35), her daughter Anna, and a name that Chaiderman cannot positively identify but suggests is Peter? Pankratz? (18). Maria Schmidt is presumably the number 13 emigrant on our 1819 list (see here).  The name of her daughter Anna does not help us to identify this person. One wonders if the Peter Pankratz possibly listed was not Maria’s son, as the visa has it, but rather a driver. One further thought: Peter Pankratz GM 86937 was born in 1800, so he would have been close to the age given for this individual. Peter Pankratz 86937 later turns up at Waldheim, which would not be surprising for someone who previously lived in Volhynia. Of course, the identification of that Peter Pankratz with the person listed is nothing more than an interesting notion.

We started with Peter Becker but quickly encountered a number of his 1819 emigrant partners. Now that we have all the known evidence before us, we are ready to reflect on what we learn from it. That will be the task of the next post—after which we will return to our progression through the list of the thirty-two 1819 emigrants from the Przechovka area.

Work Cited

Rempel. Peter. 2007. Mennonite Migration to Russia, 1788–1828. Edited by Alfred H. Redekopp and Richard D. Thiessen. Winnepeg: Manitoba Mennonite Historical Society.

Przechovka Emigration 8

During the writing of the previous post (here), I discovered that one of the earlier identifications of an 1819 emigrant, the first one on our list of thirty-two, was incorrect. This post returns to the person previously misidentified in order to correct that error.

1. Peter Becker is identified as a farmer from Przechovka with a wife, one son, and two daughters (Rempel 2007, 136). As noted earlier, two other individuals in this group shared the same name: numbers 19 and 30 in the 1819 list (Rempel 2007, 137). Rempel does not list any other Peter Beckers as emigrants in 1820 or later, so we have reason to think that only three Przechovka-area Mennonites emigrated during that time period.

Given the information provided, we can distinguish these three Peter Beckers as follows (the number is the persons’s position on our list):

• Peter Becker 1 had a wife, one son, and two daughters.
• Peter Becker 19 had a wife and five daughters.
• Peter Becker 30 had a wife and a daughter.

Rempel provides three settlement reports that correspond to two of these Peter Beckers:

Peter Becker (Петр Бекер), whose family consists of 1 male and 2 females. Settled in Russia in the year 1819. They had with them 400 rubles cash, furniture valued at 170 rubles 60 kopeks, I wagon, 1 horse, 2 head of cattle; wagon, horse or head of cattle cost 207 rubles. The local administration suggested providing financial aid for the purchase of 1 horse at a sum of 50 rubles, and also for building a house and establishing the household, at a sum of 189 rubles. (Rempel 2007, 141)

Peter Becker (Петр Бекер), whose family consists of 2 males and 6 females. Settled in Russia in the year 1819. They had no cash. They brought possessions valued at 250 rubles 60 kopeks, no wagon, l horse and no cattle; wagon, horse or head of cattle cost 60 rubles. The local administration suggested providing financial aid for the purchase of 1 wagon, 1 horse, 2 head of cattle, at a sum of 220 rubles, and also for building a house and establishing the household, at a sum of 589 rubles. (Rempel 2007, 141)

Peter Becker (Петр Бекер), whose family consists of 2 males and 6 females. On their move to Russia they brought 50 rubles cash, horses valued at 80 rubles and possessions valued at 100 rubles. They arrived in Russia in 1819 and settled in Franztal, Molotschna. (Rempel 2007, 157)

Based on the numbers of males and females given, we can assign the first settlement report to Peter Becker 30: Peter + a wife + a daughter = one male and two females. We can assign the second and third to Peter Becker 19, whose son was apparently born after the visa issuance but before settlement: Peter + a son + a wife + five daughters = two males and six females. Peter Becker 1 lacks a settlement report, which could mean that he never settled or that he did settle but that the report was unavailable to Rempel.

In addition to the Rempel information, we should also consider evidence from the 1835 Molotschna census, which lists four Peter Beckers:

• Becker, Peter Peter (b. ca.1766): Franztal 17
• Becker, Peter Peter (b. ca.1791): Franztal 26
• Becker, Peter Jacob (b. ca.1804): Franztal 24
• Becker, Peter Johann (b. ca. —): Rudnerweide 25

Using GRANDMA, we can learn more about each of these Peter Beckers and match some of them with the list of three 1819 emigrants.

1. We already identified the first Peter Peter Becker listed (born circa 1766) as GM 32099 and number 19 on the 1819 list of emigrants (see here). This is the Peter Becker who had a wife, a son, and five daughters when he settled.

2. The second Peter Peter Becker listed (born circa 1791) is actually the son of the first Peter Peter Becker. We will encounter him later as the number 30 emigrant, so for now we note only that he lived at Franztal 26 (see GM 32122).

3. Peter Jacob Becker was born in 1804 and thus was too young to have a wife and children in 1819. However, according to the 1835 census, Peter Jacob Becker (GM 32012) was an 1819 emigrant: the fifteen-year-old son of Jacob Becker, the seventh emigrant whom we identified (see here). Peter’s father, as we learned, died, and Peter’s widowed mother married Tobias Schmidt, whom we will address as emigrant 28.

4. This leaves only Peter Johann Becker, whose birth year is not included above because no age is listed in the census. The reason for this is simple: this Peter Becker died before the census was taken, in 1831, to be exact. By searching for Peter Johann in the census and GRANDMA, we learn that he was born in 1802 (GM 32066); he was thus seventeen in 1819 and an unlikely candidate for having a wife, one son, and two daughters, as Peter Becker 1 is reported to have had.

Before leaving Peter Johann Becker, we should note that he, too, was an 1819 emigrant who settled in Franztal. Upon the death of Peter’s father, his mother Anna Richerts married Benjamin Ratzlaff, so this new blended family (whomever it included) was part of the 1819 emigrant group (see here).

In the end, the information from the census does not match the situation of Peter Becker 1. Our only hope of identifying Peter Becker 1 is to find someone whose family in 1819 matches what the visa describes: a husband and wife with one son and two daughters. Searching GRANDMA for any Peter Becker born between 1760 and 1800 reveals twelve candidates:

1.    13 Sep 1764 to 1 Mar 1842 — Peter Becker, GM 2519
2.    13 Sep 1765 to 1842 — Peter Becker, GM 32099
3.    18 Nov 1771 to ?  — Peter Becker, GM 31996
4.    26 Jan 1774 to ?  — Peter Becker, GM 32107
5.    1 Jan 1786 to ?  — Peter Becker, GM 32061
6.    11 Aug 1787 to ?  — Peter Becker, GM 32115
7.    1 Nov 1787 to 21 Dec 1787 — Peter Becker, GM 32120
8.     26 Aug 1792 to ?  — Peter Becker, GM 32122
9.     28 Jan 1793 to ?  — Peter Becker, GM 32002
10.   24 Aug 1793 to ?  — Peter Becker, GM 32117
11.   Abt 1798 to ?  — Peter Peter Becker, GM 809665
12.   Abt 1800 to 1874 — Peter Becker, GM 103878

We can trim the list by excluding candidates whom we know or strongly suspect were not Peter Becker 1. For example, we already identified numbers 2 (32099) and 8 (32122) as different Peter Beckers. Further, number 7 (32120) died as an infant. Number 12 (103878) was nineteen in 1819 and thus probably too young to have three children. Numbers 9 (32002) and 11 (809665) apparently lived in Volhynia in 1819 so were not part of this group. 

This leaves us with six possibilities. According to GRANDMA, number 1 (2519) had no children in 1819. Unfortunately, there is almost no information beyond date of birth and parents for four of these individuals: 3 (31996), 4 (32107), 6 (32115), and 10 (32117). We cannot exclude these four, to be sure, but we have no evidence in their favor.

Only one Peter Becker remains: number 5, the Peter Becker who was born 1 January 1786 and whose GRANDMA number is 32061. This Peter Becker deserves careful consideration, not only because GRANDMA offers full information about him, but also because a Buller is involved, a Buller whom we briefly discussed some time ago. We will pick up the story here in the next post, where we will discover how GRANDMA, Google, and another Mennonite genealogy resource help us to solve the question of the identity of Peter Becker 1.

Work Cited

Rempel. Peter. 2007. Mennonite Migration to Russia, 1788–1828. Edited by Alfred H. Redekopp and Richard D. Thiessen. Winnepeg: Manitoba Mennonite Historical Society.

Przechovka Emigration 7

The first six posts in this series have offered significant support for the hypothesis that the 1820 group of emigrants from Przechovka, the one credited with settling Alexanderwohl, was neither the first nor the largest group of emigrants from that West Prussian/Polish church. Nevertheless, we should keep an open mind about the question as we work through the second half of the list of thirty-two 1819 emigrant families. We continue with the next group  of four.

17. Peter Frey was a farmer from Jeziorka whose family included a wife and two daughters. We find only four Peter Freys in the entire Przechovka church book, three of whom were deceased in 1819. GRANDMA offers the same information, which leads us tentatively to identify this emigrant as PCB 1351/GM 35807.

The evidence on the number of Peter Frey’s daughters at this time is mixed. GRANDMA lists only one, which would seem to conflict with the visa statement that Peter and his wife had two daughters. However, two later settlement reports (Rempel 2007, 145, 158) state that there were only two females in the family, which probably indicates that one daughter had died in the interim so that only mother  (her name is unknown) and one daughter remained.

The settlement report is also valuable for telling us where Peter Frey and family settled:

Peter Frey (Петр Фрей), whose family consists of 1 male and 2 females. On their move to Russia they brought 114 rubles cash, horses valued at 20 rubles and possessions valued at 80 rubles. They arrived in Russia in 1819 and settled in Franztal, Molotschna. (Rempel 2007, 158)

The Franztal portion of the 1835 Molotschna census agrees that Peter Frey settled there (Wirtschaft 27) but adds that he and his family moved to Alexanderwohl in 1821. The Alexanderwohl entry for Peter Frey (Wirtschaft 22) adds yet further information: that he emigrated in 1819 and that his first wife had died (apparently in 1820 or 1821) and he had remarried and had more children. 

Peter Frey thus demonstrates all the patterns that we have seen develop through the first half of this investigation: a member of the Przechovka church, he emigrated in 1819 and settled first in Franztal. However, in 1821 he moved to Alexanderwohl, where the majority of the 1820 Przechovka church emigrants had settled.

18. Jacob Ratzlaff, a Mennonite from Przechovka, was accompanied to Molotschna by his wife, one son, and one daughter. The Przechovka church book lists eleven men by this name (another is crossed out), six of whom can be excluded as deceased or too young to have a family in 1819. Unfortunately, none of the five remaining Peter Ratzlaffs seems to be the person on this visa (birth year in parentheses):

• GM 47812 (1765) emigrated in 1820 (Rempel 2007, 173).
• GM 47820 (1765) emigrated in 1822, according to records for his son (see next; see also Rempel 2007, 184).
• GM 47841 (1799) emigrated in 1822, according to the Friedensdorf 11 census entry.
• GM 47739 (1771) was associated with the Deutsch-Wymysle church.
• GM 47848 (1802) was associated with the Deutsch-Wymysle church.

Three additional men named Jacob Ratzlaff from this time period also fail as candidates:

• GM 112574 (1765) apparently was born and lived in the Neumark area.
• GM 31774 (about 1780) was associated with the Deutsch-Wymysle church.
• GM 47848 (1802) was associated with the Deutsch-Wymysle church.

This emigrant must remain unidentified for the time being. That he was from Przechovka is clear, but we cannot say anything further about him.

19. Peter Becker was a Mennonite from Konopath; he and his wife had five daughters. According to Rempel, this is the same individual for whom we have two settlement reports (2007, 141, 157), the latter of which is reproduced here.

Peter Becker (Петр Бекер), whose family consists of 2 males and 6 females. On their move to Russia they brought 50 rubles cash, horses valued at 80 rubles and possessions valued at 100 rubles. They arrived in Russia in 1819 and settled in Franztal, Molotschna.

The listing of two males would imply either that the visa was incorrect or that a son was born to the family between the issuing of the visa and the later settlement.

What is important about this listing is that it apparently reveals an error with an earlier identification, in fact, with the very first one made: Peter Becker 1 (here). If you recall, we noted then that there were three Peter Beckers in this party of thirty-two households. After investigating further, I am now convinced that the one identified earlier is actually this emigrant. That obviously raises the question of the identity of number 1; we will return to that in the next post. For now, the task is to explain why Peter Becker PCB 321/GM 32099 should be identified as number 19 on this list. 

As noted above, the Peter Becker in view here had a wife and five daughters according to the visa but a wife, five daughters, and a son according to the settlement reports. This actually accords fairly well with what we know of Peter Becker GM 32099. According to the 1835 census (Franztal 17), he still had three daughters at home: Katherina and Cornelia by his fourth (and current) wife; Elizabeth by his third wife (this daughter is missing in GRANDMA). Becker also had daughters by his second wife, and according to GRANDMA two of them were apparently alive and at home in 1819 (as best as we can tell).

In addition, Peter Becker’s son Jacob was born around 1819 (the precise date is not known), which would correspond to the notion that was not born until after the visa application but sometime before the settlement later that year.

Because Peter Becker GM 32099 fits the facts of this emigrant so closely, we should retract the earlier identification and assign him to this individual.

20. Kornelius Richert was a Mennonite from Przechovka whose family included a wife, one son, and two daughters; his brother-in-law Peter Pankratz is also listed as a member of the traveling party. The listing of his brother-in-law helps us to identify this individual, since it reveals his wife’s maiden name. Thus we can state with reasonable confidence that this person was PCB 1251/GM 48300.

Born in 1787, Kornelius Richert married Helena (Lehnke) Pankratz in 1809. It is not clear how many of their children were still living in 1819 (Jacob 6951 complicates matters), but the most reasonable count is a son and two daughters. (See below on brother-in-law Peter Pankratz.)

Rempel cross-references two settlement reports (2007, 142, 159), but they complicate matters further, since they disagree on the gender distribution in the family: two males and three females (what we expect) versus one male and four females. The discrepancy may be a clerical error, although we cannot be certain. The one thing both settlement reports confirm is that Kornelius Richert emigrated in 1819.

Further, the 1835 Molotschna census locates this family at Franztal 11 (the second settlement report mentioned above agrees), which is not surprising, given what we have seen throughout with other emigrants on the list. The census confirms the 1819 emigration date and the names of the children known to us.

In the end, this family follows the pattern we have previously observed: a member of the Przechovka church emigrated to Molotschna in 1819 and settled in Franztal. Out of the four individuals covered in this post, three adhere to that same pattern.

***

If the name Peter Pankratz sounds familiar, it is because it has arisen at least three times previously in this series: once as emigrant number 15 and twice as a driver on the journey (numbers 6 and 15). It is interesting to note now that brother-in-law Peter Pankratz is listed on the Kornelius Richert visa but apparently was not part of the settlement party for that family, since the settlement reports list at most two males, which were Kornelius and his son. 

This raises the question whether the Peter Pankratz who was Helena Pankratz’s brother (i.e., brother-in-law to Kornelius Richert) ended up as the driver for one of the other parties (either 6 or 15). We have no evidence to support or disprove this notion (it does not even rise to the level of a hypothesis), but it is interesting to think of the possibilities.

One thing we do know: according to the 1835 census, the Peter Pankratz who was Helena Pankratz’s brother later owned Wirtschaft 4 in Franztal (see earlier comments about Peter here). The connections between this group of 1819 emigrants and Franztal continue to increase.

	Name	PCB/GM	Comment
1	Peter Becker	??	originally misidentified
2	Jacob Wedel	276/106688	based on association with Glugowko
3	Heinrich Unrau	1149/86839	settled at Alexanderwohl 14
4	Peter Wedel	??	perhaps PCB 262/GM 81631, a Przechovka elder
5	Heinrich Ratzlaff	141/47821	settled at Franztal 25
6	Anna Pankratz	140/43100	widow and sister to number 5 above
7	Jacob Becker	334/32008	Jacob passed away; his widow married Tobias Schmidt (number 28)
8	Adam Ratzlaff	192/4327	settled at Franztal 19
9	George Nachtigal	662/42260	settled at Franztal 3
10	Peter Unrau	1322/61701	settled at  Franztal 22
11	Martin Cornelsen	1250/33801	emigrated in 1820; settled at Alexanderwohl 1
12	Martin Köhn	??	first name probably an error
13	Maria Schmidt	??	probably from Przechovka
14	Benjamin Ratzlaff	1320/47884	settled first in Franztal
15	Peter Pankratz	??	destination unknown
16	Andreas Schmidt	1272/43155	settled at Alexanderwohl 14
17	Peter Frey	1351/35807	settled first in Franztal; moved to Alexanderwohl in 1821
18	Jacob Ratzlaff	??	Mennonite from Przechovka
19	Peter Becker	321/32099	settled at Franztal 17
20	Kornelius Richert	1251/48300	settled at Franztal 11

Work Cited

Rempel. Peter. 2007. Mennonite Migration to Russia, 1788–1828. Edited by Alfred H. Redekopp and Richard D. Thiessen. Winnepeg: Manitoba Mennonite Historical Society.

Przechovka Emigration 6

With this post we will be halfway through our list of thirty-two 1819 emigrants. For background to and the rationale for this entire series, see here and here.

13. Maria Schmidt was a Mennonite widow from Przechovka with one son and one daughter. As we noted before (Anna Pankratz here), identifying a widow is more difficult than identifying the other names on this list. 

However, thanks to GRANDMA’s search capabilities (which I just discovered), we have at least one candidate to consider. Generally one searches GRANDMA by birth name, but one can also search by a woman’s married name by using a { character in front of the husband’s surname. Using that search form for this person (i.e., searching for Maria in the Given Name field and {Schmidt in the Surname field) and setting the birth year at 1780 +/– 20 (i.e., to capture all women whose married name was Maria Schmidt who were born between 1760 and 1800), GRANDMA returns fifteen possibilities.

Checking all of the possibilities to see if anyone’s husband died before 1819 leads to two candidates: Maria (Maricke) Köhn (PCB 623/GM 40861) and Maria Schmidt (PCB 829/GM 100100). Both women had, as far as we know, one son and one daughter. However, we cannot really suggest one or the other, given the spottiness of our information. Maria Köhn Schmidt’s children apparently ended up in Volhynia, so this may indicate that Maria herself went there as well. We have almost no solid information about Maria Schmidt Schmidt, the other possibility, and there is a hint that her son ended up in Neumark, where Maria’s husband was seemingly born. In other words, we cannot link either woman to Molotschna.

In the end, this 1819 emigrant must remain unspecified. In all likelihood she was part of the Przechovka church, but we cannot say anything beyond that.

14. Benjamin Ratzlaff was a Mennonite from Jeziorka whose family included a wife, two sons, and two daughters. We are on firmer ground with this emigrant, although the identification is not without questions. Rempel cross-references this entry to two later settlement reports (2007, 152, 158). The second one offers the most information:

Benjamin Ratzlaff (Бениамин Рацлав), whose family consists of 3 males and 2 females. On their move to Russia they brought 1000 rubles cash, horses valued at 85 rubles and possessions valued at 200 rubles. They arrived in Russia in 1819 and settled in Franztal, Molotschna.

Two elements of the settlement report merit special attention. First, the report has two sons and only one daughter (i.e., father + two sons = three males; mother + one daughter = two females). Because the other settlement report agrees with these numbers, we can assume that the visa entry is mistaken in stating that the family had two daughters. Second, the settlement report locates the Ratzlaff family in Franztal, which, consulting the 1835 Molotschna census, helps us to identify the individual in view with relative certainty: he was Benjamin Peter Ratzlaff (GM 1320/GM 47884).

Born in 1791, Benjamin Ratzlaff married Anna Richerts, widow of Hans Becker, in 1813. According to GRANDMA, Anna bore six children to her first husband: five sons and one daughter. She also bore two daughters to Benjamin Ratzlaff, both of whom died before 1819. Clearly, Anna’s daughter by Hans Becker was still alive at that time and made the journey to Franztal. The complication is that three of their sons were also alive, which does not match the two sons identified on the visa and the settlement report. Perhaps the oldest son, who turned seventeen in 1819, was serving as a servant in  someone else’s family?

Details aside, it is almost certain that we have identified the correct family. Benjamin Peter Ratzlaff, as we noted, did settle first in Franztal, then in 1827 moved to Rudnerweide, where he apparently lived until he emigrated again, this time to the United States. The place of his death is given as York, Nebraska, but the GRANDMA note about him passing away in the immigrant house clearly leaves no doubt that he actually died near present-day Henderson. He is buried at the Bethesda Cemetery (see here for a brief biography).

15. Peter Pankratz, a Mennonite from Przechovka, traveled with his wife, three daughters, a driver named Peter Pankratz, and a servant named Katharina Ratzlaff.

The Przechovka church book lists nine males named Peter Pankratz, but only three of them are candidates to be this individual. Unfortunately, we know too little about these three to suggest one over another—or over anyone else, for that matter. Further, the 1835 census does not list this Peter Pankratz anywhere, so his identity must remain a mystery to us.

One additional curiosity should be noted: this is the second time a driver named Peter Pankratz has been listed (see number 6, Anna Pankratz). No doubt these were two separate individuals, but beyond that we can say little about their identities. We do know that one Peter Jacob Pankratz, born in 1806, owned Wirtschaft 4 in Franztal in 1835. As difficult as it might be for us to imagine today, it probably was not unreasonable to think that a thirteen-year-old boy might have served as driver of a wagon on the journey. Since the 1835 census states that Peter Jacob Pankratz emigrated in 1819, it seems that this boy was the driver either for Peter Pankratz number 15 or Anna Pankratz number 6. This does not help us identify Peter Pankratz number 15, of course, but the fact that the road led to Franztal once again is striking.

16. Andreas Schmidt was a farmer from Przechovka whose family included a wife, two sons, and his mother.

Instead of starting with the Przechovka church book or GRANDMA, in this case we begin with the 1835 census, which lists an Andreas David Schmidt who emigrated from Prussia in 1819. Since we know of no other Andreas Schmidt who left that year (two other men named Andreas Schmidt made the journey in 1820), we can safely assume that the one identified in the census is the same one as is listed on this visa.

Andreas David Schmidt (PCB 1272/GM 43155) was born in 1788 and married Helena Schmidt in 1815; they had two sons when the visa was issued and a daughter on the way when the party left for Molotschna. Andreas’s mother Anna Unrau Schmidt accompanied the family but apparently passed away before the 1835 census.

Two pieces of information about this family deserve special mention. First, Andreas Schmidt settled at Alexanderwohl 20, and in our earlier discussion we identified him as one of that village’s original settlers (here). Once again we encounter an 1819 emigrant settling first in Alexanderwohl; we will certainly return to what this implies at the end of our initial examination. Second, Andreas Schmidt accepted into his household Jacob Heinrich Köhn, whom we tentatively suggested might be the actual person listed on visa number 12 (not Martin Köhn; see here). This suggestion is admittedly little more than a hunch, but it worth keeping in mind until additional evidence surfaces either supporting or disproving it.

***

This group of four presented a number of complications, but we were able to identify two of the emigrant families and follow one to Franztal and the other to Alexanderwohl. Through the first half of the 1819 list, we have been able to identify with relative certainty twelve of the sixteen emigrants named. Of those twelve, we have traced three to Alexanderwohl and six to Franztal. Only time will tell if this pattern continues for the second half of the list of thirty-two.

	Name	PCB/GM	Comment
1	Peter Becker	321/32099	settled at Franztal 17
2	Jacob Wedel	276/106688	based on association with Glugowko
3	Heinrich Unrau	1149/86839	settled at Alexanderwohl 14
4	Peter Wedel	??	perhaps PCB 262/GM 81631, a Przechovka elder
5	Heinrich Ratzlaff	141/47821	settled at Franztal 25
6	Anna Pankratz	140/43100	widow and sister to number 5 above
7	Jacob Becker	334/32008	Jacob passed away; his widow married Tobias Schmidt (number 28)
8	Adam Ratzlaff	192/4327	settled at Franztal 19
9	George Nachtigal	662/42260	settled at Franztal 3
10	Peter Unrau	1322/61701	settled at  Franztal 22
11	Martin Cornelsen	1250/33801	emigrated in 1820; settled at Alexanderwohl 1
12	Martin Köhn	??	first name probably an error
13	Maria Schmidt	??	probably from Przechovka
14	Benjamin Ratzlaff	1320/47884	settled first in Franztal
15	Peter Pankratz	??	destination unknown
16	Andreas Schmidt	1272/43155	settled at Alexanderwohl 14

Beckersitz

This brief post supplements the second post in the Przechovka Emigration series (here), which stated the following about one of the villages listed:

• The spelling of Bek(e/o)rntz is uncertain; Beckersitz, whose precise location is unknown, is probably meant.

Thanks to a tip from Manuel Janz, we can locate this village more precisely and confirm that the Mennonites living there would have been members of the Przechovka church. 

Manuel pointed to a map by Fritz Schultz at the site Familienforschung in Westpreußen (here). The village Beckersitz can be seen on the map just to the northeast of Wintersdorf, the German name for Przechovka.

Had I viewed the full map that appears in the earlier post, instead of using an already-cropped version, I would have found the village in the same spot.

A minor mystery is solved: Beckersitz was located less than a mile from the Przechovka church. For additional information about the village, see here.

Przechovka Emigration 5

This series has a simple goal: to test the hypothesis that the 1820 group of Przechovka emigrants who founded the village Alexanderwohl were not the first group from that church to journey to and settle in Molotschna. The impression that the 1848 Alexanderwohl Gemeindebericht, or community report, conveys is that the entire church made the trek from West Prussia to New Russia in 1820 under the leadership of Elder Peter Wedel. If the hypothesis turns out to be true, if there was another group who made the journey before 1820, then the simple account of the received history will need to be revised somewhat to accommodate the more complex reality. 

Thus far we have discovered that the evidence from the first eight families examined offers support for the hypothesis that a group from the Przechovka church emigrated to and settled in Molotschna in 1819. We pick up the examination with the ninth family in Rempel’s listing of visas.

9. George Nachtigal’s village is not listed, nor is he identified by occupation or as a Mennonite; the visa reports simply that he had a wife, three sons, and two daughters. Because his name is not all that common—GRANDMA lists only twenty by that name over three centuries, and the Przechovka church book has only six—we are able to identify him relatively easily as George (Jeorgen) Jacob Nachtigal: PCB 662/GM 42260. 

In 1819 George and his wife Trincke Richerts had three sons and two daughters (one daughter had already died), a perfect match with the visa. Rempel cross-references from this visa to two settlement reports (Rempel 2007, 150, 158), which confirms that the family consisted of four males and three females and that they arrived in Molotschna in 1819. The second report states that the family settled in Franztal, and we find them there, in Wirtschaft 3, in the 1835 Molotschna census—another family from Przechovka who emigrated in 1819 and settled in Franztal.

10. Peter Unrau is identified as a Mennonite from Przechovka who had a wife and two daughters. The name is relatively common, appearing twelve times in the Przechovka church book (431 times in GRANDMA, if one counts both Unrau and Unruh). Of these twelve, only three are possibilities. One candidate is known to have emigrated in 1820; it is not known if the second ever emigrated at all. The third possibility, Peter Peter Unrau, appears much more promising, since his brother Heinrich Unrau (number 3 in this list) was a part of the 1819 group, and the 1835 census lists Peter Peter Unrau in Franztal 22 as an 1819 emigrant.

The only problem is that the number of this Peter Unrau’s children does not match. According to GRANDMA, in 1819 he and his wife Anna Bekker had only one daughter, not two, as stated on the visa. To complicate matters further, of the two settlement reports that almost certainly relate to this same family, one lists two daughters and another three (Rempel 2007, 154, 159). Perhaps Anna had another child after the first report, or maybe the reports are simply in error.

Whatever the explanation for these discrepancies, the census’s identification of Peter Peter Unrau as an 1819 settler in Franztal leaves little doubt about the identification. Therefore we can identify the man on the visa as Peter Unrau: PCB 1322/GM 61701. His brother Heinrich Peter Unrau also made the trip in 1819, then the two went in different directions, with Heinrich settling Alexanderwohl 14 (see further here) and Peter settling Franztal 22.

11. Martin Cornelsen was a Mennonite from Deutsch-Konopath whose family included a wife, two sons, and three daughters. Martin presents an interesting case, not due to any difficulty identifying him, but rather because he and his family did not emigrate in 1819. They had a passport and a visa to do; about that there is no question. However, as we discussed earlier (here), the family emigrated to Molotschna with the 1820 group, as recorded in a second visa dated 17 August 1820:

Martin Kornelsen from Konopath, his wife Anna 32 (b. ca. 1788), step-sons Peter Buller 11 (b. ca. 1809), David Buller 7 (b. ca. 1813), step-daughter Anna Buller 9 (b. ca. 1811), daughter Maria 5 (b. ca. 1815), Helena 1 (b. ca. 1819). Passport from Marienwerder issued on July 11, 1820. (Rempel 2007, 172)

Thus we know without doubt that this person was Martin Jacob Cornelsen, PCB 1250/GM 33801. He and his family, which included three children from his wife Anna Unrau’s first marriage to David Buller, settled Alexanderwohl 1.

As we noted in the post linked above, this situation reveals important information about the passport and visa system. Clearly, the documents authorizing travel within Prussia (passport) and entrance into Russia (visa) had some sort of expiration date, probably a year. Therefore, when the Cornelsen family delayed their move to 1820, they had to go through the process once again. To my knowledge, they were the only family of the 1819 group to do this.

Not to be missed in all this is that this is further confirmation that a group from Przechovka planned to emigrate in 1819; the only difference is that this family delayed their plans until 1820.

12. Martin Köhn was a Mennonite from Przechovka. The visa records no further details about him. Our usual sources offer little help in this case. GRANDMA lists only ten Martin Köhns, and not one of them was born before 1900. The Przechovka church book lists only five males named Martin in the entire church record of over 1,500 names, and four of the five are from the Cornelsen family (the other is a Nachtigal). 

There are Köhns listed in the Przechovka church book, to be sure: twenty-nine males and thirty-five females. Thus it is not surprising to find a Köhn listed with this group. The Przechovka Köhns are named Andreas, Bernd, David, Ehrenst, Hans, Harrem, Heinrich, Jacob, Peter, and Willem—nothing remotely close to Martin. The attempt to find Martin Köhn seems hopeless.

The problem, I suspect, is not that our usual sources are inadequate but that the source listing this name (Rempel 2007) is in error. What are the odds that, with only five males named Martin in the entire history of the Przechovka church, a history that encompassed over 1,500 names, two Martins would appear one after another in a list of thirty-two names? I imagine some reader could calculate the odds, but it strikes me as more than coincidental that we find at the top of page 137 of Rempel 2007 two men named Martin.

This strikes me as a scribal error, a matter of Rempel, or whoever composed the pages of his book, accidentally looking at the entry above, spelled Kornelsen in Rempel, when supplying the name of the Köhn entry. Biblical textual critics are quite familiar with this phenomenon, which they refer to as dittography: repeating a word when one’s eye jumps up or back a line. It would be easy to do, since both last names begin Ko-. Perhaps there is another explanation that will come to light. For the time being, this strikes me as a scribal mistake, which means we have no idea who the visa names. 

That this person was a Köhn is certain; which Köhn is a matter of speculation. The only Przechovka Köhn listed in the 1835 census is, I think, Jacob Heinrich Köhn (GM 60420; see also 41124), who was “accepted into the household” of Andreas David Schmidt, who himself emigrated to Molotschna in 1819 (see number 16 in the next post in this series). Could it be that the Köhn listed is actually Jacob Heinrich, who was apparently single at the time (thus the absence of wife and children in the visa entry) and was accepted into the household of another 1819 emigrant? The notion is intriguing but awaits some sort of evidence that moves it up the scale of plausibility.

***

This group of four has presented interesting challenges, with one person unidentified and another family planning to emigrate but then delaying for a year. In the end, however, we can link all of the emigrants to the Przechovka church, and we can identify two them within Franztal. The pattern that we have seen develop continues on both counts. 

——————————————————————————————————————————————

	Name	PCB/GM	Comment
1	Peter Becker	321/32099	settled at Franztal 17
2	Jacob Wedel	276/106688	based on association with Glugowko
3	Heinrich Unrau	1149/86839	settled at Alexanderwohl 14
4	Peter Wedel	??	perhaps PCB 262/GM 81631, a Przechovka elder
5	Heinrich Ratzlaff	141/47821	settled at Franztal 25
6	Anna Pankratz	140/43100	widow and sister to number 5 above
7	Jacob Becker	334/32008	Jacob passed away; his widow married Tobias Schmidt (number 28)
8	Adam Ratzlaff	192/4327	settled at Franztal 19
9	George Nachtigal	662/42260	settled at Franztal 3
10	Peter Unrau	1322/61701	settled at  Franztal 22
11	Martin Cornelsen	1250/33801	emigrated in 1820; settled at Alexanderwohl 1
12	Martin Köhn	??	first name probably an error

Work Cited

Rempel. Peter. 2007. Mennonite Migration to Russia, 1788–1828. Edited by Alfred H. Redekopp and Richard D. Thiessen. Winnepeg: Manitoba Mennonite Historical Society.

Peter Becker Supplement

As we have noted from time to time, Mennonite researchers have made a large number of historical records available online. There are, in fact, so many available resources that it is easy to overlook one or another when pursuing a particular investigation. That is precisely what has happened with the initial part of the Przechovka Emigration 3 series.

The neglected resource is a 1810 Mennonite Census of the Schwetz Region of West Prussia that was transcribed and translated by Esther Patkau and Glenn Penner (see here). The title of the resource is self-explanatory: this is an 1810 census of the Schwetz region, which was, of course, the area in which the Przechovka church was located. Thus it is not surprising to see listed in the census not only a number of families from Przechovka but also families from other villages associated with the church.

 Of immediate interest in the census is the sixth family listed for Przechovka: Peter Becker. 

If you recall, Peter Becker was the name of the first of the 1819 emigrants in our list (see here). We identified that Peter Becker as PCB 321/GM 32099 based on the fact that in 1819 he and his wife had, as far as we can tell, one son and two daughters still at home. The 1810 census offers additional information about the family, especially when viewed alongside Peter Becker’s GRANDMA entry.

1. Becker was born 13 September 1765, so his age is correctly given as forty-four in the March 1810 census.

2. Note that he was married first to Maria (Maricke) Unrau, then to Maria Schmidt; the latter is the wife Maria listed on the census. It seems that her age is understated by about five years on the census. She died later that year, on 12 November 1810.

3. Peter Becker had fathered eleven children by March 1810 (number twelve was born the following month). The census lists only five, four of whom we can identify in GRANDMA:

• Peter, age eighteen, so born circa 1792 = GM 32122
• Maria, age fifteen (error?) = GM 32121?
• Anna, age fifteen, so born circa 1795  = GM 32123 (Ancke)
• Eva, age ten, so born circa 1800 = GM 32128 (Efa)
• Helena, age nine, so born circa 1801 = GM 32129 (Lehncke)

The listing of Maria and Anna as both aged fifteen is apparently an error, since Maria (Maricke) was born 16 August 1789 and thus was twenty.

4. The remaining six children had all died before 1810:

• Ancke: born 1786, died 1792
• Peter: born 1787, died 1787
• Lehnke: born 1796, died 1796
• Else: born 1804, died 1807
• Jacob: born 1806, died 1809
• Andreas: born 1806, died 1806

5. Note, finally, the German note in the comments section: “Hat es nach dem Gericht Erbungsweise am 20. Juni 1794 fuer 1166 g. ? Von Heinrich Unrausche Erben uebernommen, ohne Concession.” Not all of the details are intelligible (e.g., the meaning of “1166 g.” and “without concession”), but the main point is clear: the note reports that Peter Becker inherited his property on 20 June 1794 from Heinrch Unrau.

What is particularly interesting about this—and what begs for additional explanation—is the apparent course of the inheritance. Heinrich Unrau was the father of Peter Becker’s first wife. According to GRANDMA, Heinrich Unrau died 13 September 1793. What complicates the issue is that Maria Unrau Becker, who was Heinrich’s daughter and Peter’s wife, died the following year, on 10 May 1794—before the date of the inheritance. Did the property pass first from Heinrich to his daughter Maria, then to Peter, or was probate still in process when Maria died in May 1794, so that it passed directly to her heir, her husband Peter? If the latter, is that related to the use of “without concession”?

Apart from the inheritance issue, the census raises one additional issue: When Peter Becker prepared to leave in 1819, to whom did he sell the circa 33 acres that he had inherited from his father-in-law? Other land transfers are recorded for this time and place (see here), but Peter Becker does not appear in that set of records.

Thanks to the efforts of Mennonite researchers we are able to fill out the picture of this 1819 emigrant quite a bit. Perhaps in time the transcription of additional historical records will enable us to answer the few questions that remain.

Przechovka Emigration 4

We continue our series on the 1819 emigration of Przechovka-area Mennonites to Molotschna, testing the hypothesis that the 1820 group under Elder Peter Wedel was neither the first nor the largest group of Przechovka church members to emigrate to Molotschna. We pick up with the fifth family listed in Rempel (families 5–8 are all listed on Rempel 2007, 136).

5. Heinrich Ratzlaff is listed as a Mennonite from Deutsch-Konopath with a wife, a son, and a daughter. His traveling party also contained a servant named Johann Ratzlaff. The latter detail illustrates well that visas could cover more than simply the nuclear family.

The PCB lists fifteen men named Heinrich Ratzlaff, but one has his name crossed out as an error, and ten others were either deceased or too young to have a family. Of the four remaining candidates (141, 155, 164, 1147), Heinrich Jacob Ratzlaff (PCB 141/GM 47821) seems the most likely. Born in 1767, in 1819 he and his wife Efcke Köhn had a son Peter and a daughter Maria, just as the visa record reports.

We find this family at Franztal 25 in the 1835 Molotschna census. This corresponds to Rempel’s cross-referenced listing of this family’s settlement report:

Heinrich Ratzlaff (Геинрих Рацлав), whose family consists of 3 males and 2 females. On their move to Russia they did not have cash. They did not bring with them horses, and possessions. They arrived in Russia in 1819 and settled in Franztal, Molotschna. (Rempel 2007, 158)

Interestingly, the census states that Heinrich’s younger (by twelve years) brother Johann lived with them. This is presumably the same Johann Ratzlaff identified as a servant on the visa. If so, then Johann was a forty-year-old servant in his brother’s house, which does not fit the normal pattern as I understand it.

At any rate, we can confidently conclude that this emigrant family was from the Przechovka church and settled in the Molotschna village of Franztal. 

6. Anna Pankratz is identified as a widow Mennonite from Przechovka who was accompanied by her daughter and a driver, or coachman, named Peter Pankratz. Identifying Anna Pankratz is a bit more complex than usual because we cannot be certain whether Pankratz was her maiden or married name. The latter seems the most likely, so we will begin with that assumption.

A GRANDMA search for couples in which the husband’s last name is Pankratz and the wife’s first name is Anna returns sixty-six possibilities. However, only six of these fit the proper time frame. Of these, one particular candidate stands out. 

Heinrich Jacob Pankratz (PCB 710/GM 43068) married Anna Pankratz in 1779, but she passed away in 1786, after bearing him one son: Peter. The following year Heinrich married another woman named Anna, Anna Ratzlaff, and she bore him five children, including a daughter in 1804, nearly a decade after the other children were born. Heinrich died in 1809, leaving Anna a widow the rest of her life (as far as we know). She and her daughter were all that remained of the nuclear family, the other children being either married or deceased.

Although we cannot be certain of this identification, Heinrich’s second wife, Anna Ratzlaff (PCB 140/GM 43100), fits the visa description. Further, her brother Heinrich (see number 6 above) was also a member of this emigration group, which only increases the likelihood of our identification. It is tempting to suggest that Heinrich Pankratz’s son Peter by his first wife served as her driver. Peter’s own wife had passed away by that time, but he apparently had an eight-year-old daughter. Because we do not know what happened to Peter or his daughter, it is best not to speculate too much.

In the end, it seems far more likely than not that the Anna Pankratz listed was the widow of Heinrich Jacob Pankratz. That the family belonged to the Przechovka church is even more likely, given the strong association of the Pankratz family with that congregation.

7. Jacob Becker was a Mennonite from Przechovka with a wife, three sons, and two daughters. Of the ten Jacob Beckers listed in the Przechovka church book, one stands out as a match: PCB 334/GM 32008. 

Jacob Hans Becker was born in 1778, married Anna Schmidt (PCB 1244/GM 32011) in 1804, and had four sons and three daughters with her. As frequently happened at that time, two children died, leaving the couple with three sons and two daughters in 1819. Thus we can identify Jacob Hans Becker as the person listed on the 1819 visa (GRANDMA agrees).

Unfortunately, Jacob passed away later that year, on 17 December, apparently in Molotschna. Jacob’s widow then married another member of this traveling party, Tobias Schmidt (number 28), and they are found together at Franztal 8 in the 1835 Molotschna census. We will take up Tobias in turn, but for now we can confidently conclude that Jacob and Anna Schmidt Becker were both members of the Przechovka church who emigrated to Molotschna in 1819.

8. Adam Ratzlaff is listed as a Mennonite from Deutsch-Konopath whose family included a wife, three sons, and three daughters. The Przechovka church book lists eight Adam Ratzlaffs, five of whom were certainly or probably deceased and one who was still an adolescent in 1819. Of the two remaining candidates, one (PCB 146) does not fit at all. 

The other is a possible match, being questionable only because the numbers of children differ. Adam Adam Ratzlaff (PCB 192/GM 4327) and his wife Lehncke Schmidt (PCB 1214/GM 4328) had twelve children, but four were reportedly born after the move to Molotschna. Of the eight other children (three boys, five girls), years of birth are known for only four.

The visa above reports three sons and three daughters; the number of sons is correct, but there are two extra daughters. It may well be that two of the couple’s daughters died before 1819; if so, then the information in the visa would match this family’s history. The likelihood of this explanation is bolstered by the fact that this same family appears in the 1835 census with all the children except two daughters listed. Thus it seems highly likely that we have identified the correct family.

Where in the census does Adam Adam Ratzlaff and his family appear? Like others in this group, in Franztal, specifically at Wirtschaft 19. Once again we have a family from the Przechovka church who emigrated to Molotschna in 1819 and settled in Franztal. The larger hypothesis we are testing remains plausible.

——————————————————————————————————————————————

	Name	PCB/GM	Comment
1	Peter Becker	321/32099	settled at Franztal 17
2	Jacob Wedel	276/106688	based on association with Glugowko
3	Heinrich Unrau	1149/86839	settled at Alexanderwohl 14
4	Peter Wedel	??	perhaps PCB 262/GM 81631, a Przechovka elder
5	Heinrich Ratzlaff	141/47821	settled at Franztal 25
6	Anna Pankratz	140/43100	widow and sister to number 5 above
7	Jacob Becker	334/32008	Jacob passed away; his widow married Tobias Schmidt (number 28)
8	Adam Ratzlaff	192/4327	settled at Franztal 19

Work Cited

Rempel. Peter. 2007. Mennonite Migration to Russia, 1788–1828. Edited by Alfred H. Redekopp and Richard D. Thiessen. Winnepeg: Manitoba Mennonite Historical Society.

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Excursus on Adam Ratzlaff

Rempel (2007, 136) cross-references the entry for Adam Ratzlaff to pages 152 and 158 in his work. There one finds parallel or complementary settlement reports:

Adam Ratzlaff (Адам Рацлав), whose family consists of 5 males and 4 females. Settled in Russia in the year 1819. They had no cash. They brought possessions valued at 30 rubles 20 kopeks, 1 wagon, 2 horses and no cattle; wagon, horse or head of cattle cost 50 rubles. The local administration suggested providing financial aid for the purchase of 2 head of cattle at a sum of 110 rubles, and also for building a house and establishing the household, at a sum of 589 rubles.

Adam Ratzlaff (Адам Рацлав), whose family consists of 5 males and 4 females. On their move to Russia they brought 60 rubles cash, horses valued at 60 rubles and possessions valued at 50 rubles. They arrived in Russia in 1819 and settled in Franztal, Molotschna.

Leaving aside the discrepancy on the amount of cash the family had in hand and the value of their possessions, this seems to be the same family, and it seems to be the family we have identified as Adam Ratzlaff above. How, then, did the family have five males (father + four sons) upon arrival but four males on the visa?

The key appears to be with the age of son Heinrich, whom GRANDMA (4330) has being born on 28 February 1820. No source for that date is listed, so we should regard it as open to question. Further, the 1835 Molotschna census lists his age as seventeen and his brother Peter’s age as fourteen. This implies that Heinrich was born in 1818 (possibly 1819) and thus emigrated to Molotschna with the rest of the family.

It seems certain that the visa and settlement reports are referring to the same family, and that family was Adam Adam Ratzlaff of Deutsch-Konopath. One wonders how long the process of securing the proper documents took: first applying for and receiving a passport from the Prussian government, then receiving a travel visa from the Russian government. Is it possible that Heinrich was born after the application was first made but before the family actually emigrated? Or is this simply an instance of a lack of precision on one or another government record, as we observe, for example, with the discrepancies between the two settlement reports?