We have often drawn information about our Buller ancestors and other Mennonites from the 1835 Molotschna census, and once we even presented a scanned page from a handwritten translation of it (see here). However, we have never looked closely at a page from the census, only glanced quickly at it in a picture taken by Ken Ratzlaff (see here). Thanks to Glenn Penner, we now have a digital photo of one page of the census that we can examine with a little more care.
The original census is currently held in the Peter Braun Collection in Fund 89, File 357, at the Odessa Archives in Odessa, Ukraine. It has been microfilmed twice (most recently in 2013, I believe) and, as we know, reproduced in a handwritten translation. The census is available for public viewing, which is how Ken Ratzlaff and a Ukrainian researcher colleague of Glenn Penner were able to photograph pages. With that background, we are ready to examine the example page, which is, of course, written entirely in Russian.
1. In the upper right of the page the number 255 has been crossed out and 221 written instead. This is the page number of the census, which totaled around 775 pages. The page number 221 enables us to identify this as a page from the Ohrloff census.
2. The heading across the top of the page reads РЕВИЗСКАЯ СКАЗКА, which Google Translate renders “audit tale.” The meaning of this wooden translation is clear enough: this is the record of the population audit, otherwise known as a census.
3. Below the heading and to the left is the date of the record, which is 1835, January 28. Additional column headings appear below that to indicate the family number (far left), the name and relation of each person being counted (more on that below), additional information (e.g., year of death or village from which or which someone moved), and the person’s age at the time of the census. Note especially that the second line of the column 2 heading identifies the people being recorded as Mennonites. That information was written in by hand, so presumably other ethnic (or religious?) groups were labeled in their censuses as well.
4. At the bottom of the page is a count of the number of living people listed. This page, for example, lists thirteen person.
The curve of the page into the spine of the book (left) makes it difficult to decipher the first column, but page 221 contains the continuation of Ohrloff Wirtschaft 20 and Wirstschaften 21–22. Looking more closely at the page confirms that those are the numbers in the left-hand column.
The heading of the second column identifies this as a page for listing females. You may recall from earlier discussions that Russian censuses (and some church books in Russia) listed males on left-hand pages and females on right-hand pages. Thus the left-hand page corresponding to this right-hand page listing females would have listed the male family members (head of household first) who were domiciled with these females.
In fact, adult females were often identified in relation to the male head of household. For example, in the record of Reimer families living at Ohrloff 20, the first line in the page above translated literally is: Heinrich Jacob’s wife (жена) Elizabeth. Below that his daughters Anna and Maria are listed. The next line names Aaron Jacob’s wife Katharina.
Column 3 on female pages rarely contains any notation of death or any other noteworthy event. The male pages reflect the greater significance that the census held for recording these sorts of details for the male residents. In general, significant information such as emigration date, relocation, and death was associated with and recorded for males, especially a male head of household.
As the photograph above makes clear, the census was a relatively simple record of who lived where and how old each household member was in 1835. However, because the census was a relatively complete record of the Mennonite population’s residency and movements, we are able to draw useful information from it in our reconstruction of the Molotschna world in which our ancestors lived.
2. The heading across the top of the page reads РЕВИЗСКАЯ СКАЗКА, which Google Translate renders “audit tale.” The meaning of this wooden translation is clear enough: this is the record of the population audit, otherwise known as a census.
3. Below the heading and to the left is the date of the record, which is 1835, January 28. Additional column headings appear below that to indicate the family number (far left), the name and relation of each person being counted (more on that below), additional information (e.g., year of death or village from which or which someone moved), and the person’s age at the time of the census. Note especially that the second line of the column 2 heading identifies the people being recorded as Mennonites. That information was written in by hand, so presumably other ethnic (or religious?) groups were labeled in their censuses as well.
4. At the bottom of the page is a count of the number of living people listed. This page, for example, lists thirteen person.
The curve of the page into the spine of the book (left) makes it difficult to decipher the first column, but page 221 contains the continuation of Ohrloff Wirtschaft 20 and Wirstschaften 21–22. Looking more closely at the page confirms that those are the numbers in the left-hand column.
The heading of the second column identifies this as a page for listing females. You may recall from earlier discussions that Russian censuses (and some church books in Russia) listed males on left-hand pages and females on right-hand pages. Thus the left-hand page corresponding to this right-hand page listing females would have listed the male family members (head of household first) who were domiciled with these females.
In fact, adult females were often identified in relation to the male head of household. For example, in the record of Reimer families living at Ohrloff 20, the first line in the page above translated literally is: Heinrich Jacob’s wife (жена) Elizabeth. Below that his daughters Anna and Maria are listed. The next line names Aaron Jacob’s wife Katharina.
Column 3 on female pages rarely contains any notation of death or any other noteworthy event. The male pages reflect the greater significance that the census held for recording these sorts of details for the male residents. In general, significant information such as emigration date, relocation, and death was associated with and recorded for males, especially a male head of household.
As the photograph above makes clear, the census was a relatively simple record of who lived where and how old each household member was in 1835. However, because the census was a relatively complete record of the Mennonite population’s residency and movements, we are able to draw useful information from it in our reconstruction of the Molotschna world in which our ancestors lived.
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