Saturday, June 4, 2016

Shifting plots, a concluding note

If the explanation in the previous post is correct—that Andreas Sr. passed plot 14 on to Andreas Jr. to exempt Jr. from military service on the gamble that the now-nonexempt Sr. would not be conscripted due to his age—then it helps us date Jr’s assumption of the lease for plot 14 a little more precisely.

The loophole was closed in 1802, which implies that Jr. took over the lease in 1801 at the latest. So, we are probably safe to think that Andreas Andreas Buller took over the lease between 1794 (Sr. was the lease holder in 1793) and 1801, when he was between twenty-one and twenty-eight years old. Once again, the history of that time and place (early nineteenth-century Prussia) does help us refine our family history a little more precisely.

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