Heinrich son of Heinrich son of David

One of the four Rundschau letters that we examined revealed that David Buller’s son Heinrich had a son named Heinrich, who married Elisabeth Unruh of Hierschau in Molotschna colony (see further here). Fortunately, the Grandma database allows one to search not just for individuals but also for pairs, such as a husband and wife. Searching for Heinrich Buller and Elisabeth Unruh returns only one match, but one is all we need, in this case.

There are several things to note about the entry for Heinrich Buller, number 73184. First, he was born in Waldheim, the same village in which David, Heinrich 1 (father), and Heinrich 2 (son) are located in the Rundschau letters. Second, the names of several of Heinrich and Elisabeth’s children are attested in the generations of Bullers prior to theirs. Aganetha, for example, was the name of Heinrich 1’s wife, and David, of course, was the name of Heinrich 1’s father, that is, Heinrich 2’s grandfather. Third, the chronology seems to fit well: Grandma has Heinrich and Elisabeth marrying about 1908 (based on, apparently, the birth of a daughter in 1909); the Rundshau letter says that they actually married on 19 February 1906.

Every indication is that this is Heinrich son of Heinrich son of David. An additional piece of evidence only strengthens the case.

The Grandma entry for Elisabeth (73162) records that she was born in Hierschau, which is precisely what we expect, based on the Rundschau letter discussed earlier. There is really no doubt: this Heinrich and Elisabeth are descendants of David Buller, in a family branch parallel to Peter P:

Peter D > Peter P

David

Heinrich > Heinrich

Now that we know who Heinrich and Elisabeth are, we are ready to make several enlightening observations.

1. Comparing Heinrich’s Grandma entry with Elisabeth’s, we note that Elisabeth has information that is not provided in Heinrich’s Grandma entry: the names of his father and mother. However, we know the names of Heinrich’s father and mother, namely, Heinrich and Aganetha, so we can now supply that information to the Grandma database.

2. A second point worth noting is that Elisabeth was married twice, first to Heinrich Buller and then to Heinrich Ratzlaff. Looking up at Heinrich’s entry, we see that he passed away sometime in 1915 (or thereabouts). Grandma does not know precisely when or where, but 1915 is a fair deduction from the available evidence.

3. What jumps out of Elisabeth’s entry is where she died: Miloradovka, Pavlodar, Kazakhstan. That is a long way from Molotschna colony, and it begs for explanation.

The distance from Molotschna colony (star) to Miloradovka, Pavlodar, Kazakhstan (red pin) is nearly 2,500 miles.

A hint is found in the Buller Family Record, which reports: “After David Buller had died, Mrs. Buller [David Buller’s second wife, whose name is unknown] together with son Heinrich and family, moved to Siberia, Russia, where both also died. Mrs. Buller reached an age of 98 years.”

The term Siberia refers to the vast region of Russia stretching across the north, and it was often used to refer to modern Kazakhstan. Thus, one might rephrase the BFR note more precisely as follows: David Buller’s widow and Heinrich 1 and his family migrated east several thousand miles to establish (or join) a Mennonite colony in central Asia.

Determining when this migration took place is difficult, but a preliminary guess might be sometime after Heinrich 2 passed away (ca. 1915) and Elisabeth married Heinrich Ratzlaff (1917). Ratzlaff was born and raised in Waldheim (see Grandma 73185), so it makes sense that Heinrich Ratzlaff married the widow Elisabeth while both resided in Waldheim and then migrated to Kazakhstan along with the rest of Elisabeth’s former family by marriage. But that is nothing more than a guess awaiting further evidence. (Some additional Rundschau letters currently on order may well shed further light on the Bullers in Pavlodar.)

In any event, Grandma reports that Heinrich Ratzlaff died in the Pavlodar region of Kazakhstan in 1937, and Elisabeth passed away nearly thirty years later in the same locale.

Although none of this has any direct relevance for our particular branch of the family tree, we now understand better what the Buller Family Record means when it reports that David’s widow and son Heinrich moved east after his death. When and why they moved must remain a mystery for the time being.

Work Consulted

Podoprigora, Yulia I. 2012.  The Formation and Development of the Mennonite Congregations in Kazakhstan: From the End of the Nineteenth Century to the Early Twenty First Century. Journal of Mennonite Studies 30:37–44.