Przechovka Emigration 12

Eight more families remain in our survey of thirty-two 1819 emigrants from the Przechovka area. After identifying as many of them as possible, we will draw whatever conclusions the facts permit.

25. Peter Wedel, a Mennonite from Glugowko, emigrated along with his wife and their five sons and two daughters. The Przechovka church book lists twenty-one males by this name; nine of them were deceased by 1819, and another six were too young to have a family this large at that time. This leaves us six possibilities for this Peter Wedel—assuming he was a member of that church and was listed in the church book.

Unfortunately, not one of these candidates clearly matches the circumstances given for Peter Wedel. In fact, we face the same problem that arose when we tried to identify the first Peter Wedel, who appeared as number 4 on our list (here). At that time I suggested that this Peter Wedel (number 25) might be PCB 284 (Peter Jacob Wedel; GM 106695), but it turns out that his first three children died at a young age, so he does not fit the visa profile. Further, I have since learned that he settled in Volhynia, not Molotschna, as indicated in the 1819 Ostrog, Volhynia, census (here), which lists Peter, his wife Maria, son Jacob, and daughters Maria and Helena. Clearly, PCB 284 was not the person listed on the 1819 visa.

Peter Wedel PCB 287/GM 106697 is another intriguing possibility, but we may not have a complete record of his children. GRANDMA lists one son born in 1809 and another in 1813 but no other children. This Peter Wedel also appears in an 1810 census of Mennonites living in the Schwetz region (here, in Dworzisko). He, his wife Catherine, and their one-year-old son Jacob were living with her parents. It is conceivable that they had four more sons and two daughters by 1819, children who are not listed in the Przechovka church book. However, there is no evidence pointing in that direction, so we are best off to admit that we do not know who this Peter Wedel was or what happened to him, since the only Peter Wedel mentioned in the 1835 Molotschna census emigrated in 1820 and so was not this person. We are at a dead end with this Peter Wedel, just as we were with number 4 on our list.

26. Peter Block was a Mennonite from Deutsch Konopath whose visa lists a wife, five sons, and three daughters. Rempel’s listing helps us to identify this individual, since he cross-references to two other entries (2007, 141, 157). The second settlement entry is the key:

Peter Block (Петр Блок), whose family consists of 6 males and 4 females. On their move to Russia they brought 126 rubles cash, horses valued at 50 rubles and possessions valued at 190 rubles. They arrived in Russia in 1819 and settled in Franztal, Molotschna.

The number of males and females in the family matches the visa, as does the year of settlement: 1819. Thus we have no reason to doubt the correlation between the visa and the settlement reports, especially since the second settlement report locates Peter Block and family at Franztal, where so many other of the 1819 emigrants settled. 

According to the 1835 census, only one Peter Block lived in Franztal, at Wirtschaft 14, Checking the census further, we learn that he emigrated in 1819. This must be the person in view here. Although he died in 1831, we now know his full name (Peter Peter Block) and the name of his sons (his daughters are not listed presumably because either they had died or they had married and were raising their own families). This enables us to identify him with certainty as GM 32253 and his wife Sara Jantzen (32254).

Peter Block is not listed in the Przechovka church book; his family was associated with the Montau Mennonite congregation, which was located roughly 17 miles northeast of the Przechovka church (here). As we have seen previously, Block was not a surname generally associated with Przechovka; in fact, only four Blocks are listed in the entire Przechovka church book. Importantly, however, two of them are Peter and Sara’s children. Note in the extract from the church book below that number 1574 is Jacob Block, born on 28 October 1812. The entry above (1573: Jacob Richert) has numbers in the columns immediately after the name; they list the number of the father and mother. For Jacob Block, however, the name of his father Peter Block is written in one column and that of his mother Sara Jantzen in the other. Because Peter and Sara were not entered in the church book and thus had no numbers, their names were written next to their children, who were entered in the book.

In other words, when the Peter Blocks moved from the Montau area to Przechovka (likely between 1801 and 1809, based on the children’s birth years), they became part of the Przechovka church. Thus although Block is not a typical Przechovka name, this family was associated with that church. Putting all the pieces together, the Peter Block family fits the most common pattern for our group: a family associated with the Przechovka church emigrated in 1819 and settled in Franztal, Molotschna colony.

27.  Benjamin Ratzlaff was a Mennonite from Przechovka with a wife, two daughters, and a son. We have already mentioned this family in our discussion of the Wysock, Volhynia, census (see family 1 here). We learn from that census (here) that Benjamin was thirty-eight in 1819, which puts his birth year around 1781. Unfortunately, although the Przechovka church book lists eight males with this name, not one of them fits the time frame of this Benjamin Ratzlaff.

Further, GRANDMA does not include a Benjamin Ratzlaff who fits the profile given in the visa and the Volhynia census list. Consequently, we can say little definitively about this individual beyond the facts of the visa and census list. He was a Mennonite from Przechovka so probably a member of that church (it is conceivable that daughter Eva is PCB 1665/GM 107026, but that is nothing more than a wild guess). Because we find him in Volhynia but never in Molotschna (the 1835 census does not list him), we can tentatively conclude that he probably remained in Volhynia; he thus deviates from the usual pattern of the 1819 emigrants journeying all the way to Molotschna.

28. Tobias Schmidt, another Mennonite from Przechovka, had a wife, one son, and five daughters. Our first order of business is to correct Rempel (2007, 137), who omits the son. The original record is clear, however; Tobias journeyed “avec sa femme 1 fils & 5 filles,” that is, “with his wife, one son, and five daughters.”

The Przechovka church book lists four Tobias Schmidts, but two died before 1819. Of the two remaining possibilities, one seems a likely candidate, although there is some uncertainty about the number of children he had in 1819: Tobias Peter Schmidt (PCB 833/GM 61594).

Clear evidence favoring this Tobias Schmidt as the man on the visa comes from the 1835 Molotschna census, which lists Tobias Peter Schmidt at Franztal 8, where he had settled in 1819. In addition, the census lists a daughter Eva with a birth year of circa 1815 who does not appear in GRANDMA (another daughter named Eva was born and died in 1814), which seems to solve the problem of the number of children in 1819 and adds further confirmation to this identification.

In spite of a few uncertain details, we can confidently identify this Tobias Schmidt as PCB 833/GM 61594. Like so many others, this Przechovka church member emigrated in 1819 and settled that same year in the Molotschna village of Franztal.

***

Of the four families covered in this post, one remains unknown (Peter Wedel), and one is known but remained in Volhynia (Benjamin Ratzlaff). The other two both followed the most common pattern of settling in Franztal. It will be interesting, when all is said and done, to determine which Molotschna village ended up with the largest number of former Przechovka residents: Alexanderwohl or Franztal.

	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	??	probably from Przechovka
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
21	Peter Ratzlaff	111/47815	settled at Franztal 6
22	Daniel Unrau	??	identification uncertain; possibly 1000/106834
23	Jacob Schmidt	1302/32895	settled at Alexanderwohl 18
24	Heinrich Schmidt	1345/32966	settled at Alexanderwohl 5
25	Peter Wedel	??	identification unknown
26	Peter Block	Montau/32253	settled at Franztal 14
27	Benjamin Ratzlaff	??	remained in Volhynia
28	Tobias Schmidt	833/61594	settled at Franztal 8

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.