Bullers in Deutsch-Wymysle 9

The last post focused on the possible parentage of Benjamin Buller 118 and Heinrich Buller 125 (both numbers in the Deutsch-Wymysle list) and suggested that they could (!) have been the sons of Peter Buller Jr. of Brenkenhoffswalde. Whether or not that hypothesis is true or simply a crazy idea must await further evidence.

Before we leave Benjamin 118 and Heinrich 125 and their families, let us make a few additional observations.

1. The first thing we see in Benjmain’s entry is that he was married twice: first to Agatha Görtz, who died at the age of thirty-four in 1843, then to Helene Görtz, in 1846. The church book makes this clear by identifying Helene as his “II Fr.” (II Frau), or second wife. We know little else about his wives.

2. A second thing we should note is what is not in the record. According to GRANDMA, Benjamin and Agatha had two sons: Heinrich (120 above) and Wilhelm, who was born in 1839 or 1840. The evidence for Wilhelm comes not from church records but from civil records, specifically, a notice of death recorded in Deutsch-Wymysle. Thanks to a scan of the original provided by Glenn Penner, we can examine Wilhelm’s death notice for ourselves.

Although the record is written in Polish, the names are underlined, which makes them easy to spot. Line 3 clearly shows Benjamin Buller and line 8 Wilhelm Buller. In line 10 we see Benjamin again plus his wife (Wilhelm’s mother), here with the slightly variant name Agnetha nee Gertzaw (I think). Wilhelm Buller appears again in line 13, and Benjamin is not underlined in line 15. One other name is worth noting: Piotr Buller in lines 5 and 16 and the signature Peter Buller in line 17. They are the same person, of course; Peter/Piotr served as a witness.

Not only did Glenn Penner provide this and many other scans, but he has also translated a number of civil records, including the one for Wilhelm Buller. I encourage everyone to read the full document here, since the records translated provide additional context and depth—and mention several other Bullers as well. To enable easy comparison with the scan, I offer here Glenn’s translation of Wilhelm Buller’s death record:

Wymyschle 15
Death record of Wilhelm Buller 1840
Nr 5, Brześzin
It happened in the Mennonites’ commune in the village of Wymyśle Niemieckie on 16 May 1840 at 8am. Personally came Benjamin Buller, komornik [farmer who does not have his own house], 33 years old, residing in the village of Brześzin and Piotr Buller, komornik [farmer who does not have his own house], 25 years old, residing in the village of Wymyśle Niemieckie and stated that on 15 May of the current year at 8am died a male child named Wilhelm Buller, 1 year old, residing in a village of Brześzin, commune of Sannik. Son of Benjamin Buller and Agnetha nee Gertz, a married couple of Buller, komornik [farmer without his own house] in the same village. This child left behind his parents who were mentioned above. After being convinced about death of Wilhelm Buller this document was read to those presents and witnesses. The first witness Benjamin Buller is a father of this child and stated that he does not know how to write. The second witness Piotr Buller signed this document. [Signatures]. Preacher P. Ratzlaw.
[The side note stated that he died on 15 May 1840]

The village Brześzin seems to be the same as Brzeziny (see here), which was located roughly 50 miles to the east. If that identification is correct (it is possible that another Polish named Brzeziny is in view), one wonders why Benjamin Buller traveled so far to report his young son’s death (Deutsch-Wymysle is identified by the red arrow on the left, Brzeziny by that on the right).

3. Although we have gone far afield from the original Deutsch-Wymysle entry for Benjamin Buller 118 and family, there is a point to all this: it reminds us that, for all that we learn from the Deutsch-Wymysle church book, we cannot assume that those records are complete. This is especially true for this church book, which states that it contains extracts from the original, but it is also worth considering when we look at other church books, such as the one from Przechowka.

4. We do not want to ignore Heinrich 125 and family completely, but there is not a great deal to add, since we already covered this family in list 2 (here, first scan). They all went to Russia in 1858, but we do not yet know where in Molotschna they settled.

5. One last note before we move on to the next Buller families (four to go): dates of death are given for four of Benjamin 118’s family. Benjamin passed away at age forty-eight, his first wife Agatha at thirty-four, his second wife Helene at forty-seven, and his first son with Helene at five days. Adding in Wilhelm son of Benjamin 118, who died at age one, we now have the life spans for twelve male Bullers: the average is forty-one, with the following distribution:

0–9	2
10–19	1
20–29	0
30–39	1
40–49	3
50–59	2
60–69	2
70–79	1

With life spans for only four women, we cannot draw any conclusions, merely list their ages: 34, 47, 56, and 72.

Bullers in Deutsch-Wymysle 8

Thus far our survey of list 3 in the Deutsch-Wymysle church records has covered three families: Heinrich 97 and Helene (Unruh) 98, Peter 104 and Helene (Buller) 105, and Tobias 110 and Anna 111 (Foth). All were born in Brenkenhoffswalde.

The two Bullers who are the subject of this post also were born in Brenkenhoffswalde: Benjamin 118 (p. 29 here) and Heinrich 125 (p. 30 here).

Although both Bullers were born in Brenkenhoffswalde (in 1806 and 1808, respectively), their wives were not. Rather, Heinrich and Benjamin met their wives in Deutsch-Wymysle; this is not surprising, since both boys were not yet in their teen years when their families moved from Brenkenhoffwalde.

This does set these two Bullers apart from the first four (Heinrich, Peter, Helene, and Tobias) whom we surveyed. Those four married in Brenkenhoffswalde before they moved to Deutsch-Wymysle; these latter two married in Deutsch-Wymysle after the move. Presumably all six of these Bullers were of the same generation, with Heinrich, Peter, Helene, and Tobias being the older members of that generation and Benjamin 118 and Heinrich 125 being the younger members of the same generation.

This prompts an important question: Who brought the adolescents Benjamin 118 and Heinrich 125 to Deutsch-Wymysle? Did they come with their parents? If so, who were their parents, and why are they not listed in the church records? Or did they come with other Buller families for some reason (maybe their parents had passed away)? Given the limited evidence available to us, we cannot offer any sort of certain opinion on this—although it is fun to think through the possibilities.

Our earlier investigations of Brenkenhoffswalde (here) identified four Buller families in that village: Peter son of Peter 351 (aka Peter Sr.), his son Peter Jr., his son (or so we think) Heinrich, and a Buller named Johann. We are fairly certain that Peter Sr. died before 1805, since he disappears from the land tax register; if so, Peter Sr. could not have been the father of Benjamin 118 and Heinrich 125.

We have already suggested that Peter Sr.’s son Heinrich (Peter Jr’s brother) was the father of Heinrich 97 in Deutsch-Wymysle (see the chart here), which makes it highly unlikely that he was the father of Heinrich 125 above, since no father would give two living sons the same name. It is conceivable that Heinrich son of Peter Sr. was the father of Benjamin 118. We simply do not know.

This leaves Peter Jr. and the mysterious Johann as the potential fathers of Heinrich 125. The problem with suggesting Johann as the father is his disappearance from the Brenkenhoffswalde land registers after 1805. Unless he stayed in Brenkenhoffswalde as a nonfarming resident, he was probably not the father of Heinrich 125.

By the process of elimination, Peter Jr. seems the most likely candidate. Unfortunately, Peter Jr’s life is a blank after 1806, so all we can do is suggest and guess—all of which should regarded with great skepticism. With those warnings, here we go …

Let us assume for the sake of simplicity that Benjamin 118 and Heinrich 125 were brothers; it does not matter in the end, but it will be easier to think through this if we treat them as a single unit. It is conceivable that both were the sons of Peter Jr., which would mean that they were members of the Heinrich, Peter, Helene, and Tobias generation. We can say more specifically that they were cousins to Heinrich (DWCB 97) and siblings to either Peter or Helene and cousins to whichever one was not their sibling (recall that Peter and Helene were first cousins who married).

These younger sons of Peter Jr. were born fifteen to seventeen years after his first child, which means they would have been adolescents when their older siblings married and began their own families. If Benjamin 118 and Heinrich 125’s father Peter Jr. (or both parents) died in Brenkenhoffswalde, one would imagine that these adolescent boys would have been taken in by their sibling (Peter/Helene or perhaps Tobias), who also would have brought the boys with them to Deutsch-Wymysle. This would explain why Benjamin 118 and Heinrich 125 are listed in the church records but no parents make an appearance.

Of course, another explanation is that the boys came with their birth families but the names of their parents were neither recorded nor remembered. Which of these two explanations is correct (if either) is impossible to tell. That being said, I tend to find the notion that Peter Jr. passed away before the families came to Deutsch-Wymysle slightly more likely. It is consistent with Mennonite practice of that day and makes sense of all the data (limited though it may be) available to us.

Bullers in Deutsch-Wymysle 7

Having fully explored the family of Heinrich Buller (DWCB 97) and family (98–103), we are ready to move on. This post will focus on the next two families listed. Their information appears on page 29 of the original records (see here for a full-page scan); the relevant portion is excerpted below. For a reminder of what information appears in the columns, see here.

A few things about these families are worthy of special attention.

1. Heinrich 108 was the last person born in Brenkenhoffwalde, on 14 March 1817. Assuming that all the Bullers of Brenkenhoffswalde moved to Deutsch-Wymysle at the same time (a reasonable but by no means certain assumption), then we can narrow the time of their move further. The earlier post on the Heinrich 97 family had left the time frame at sometime between September 1816 and July 1819; now we can narrow it further to sometime between April 1817 and July 1819.

2. Worth noting is that these entries list both birth villages (Brenkenhoffswalde, Deutsch-Wymysle) and where the families resided, written vertically down the right of the same column. The Peter 104 family lived in Deutsch-Wymysle plot 13; the Tobias 110 family lived in Leonow plot 3.

3. Interesting also is the fact that the dates of death are listed for eight of the fourteen Bullers; they are lacking mostly for those who emigrated elsewhere. This allows us to add to our collection of life-span data:

• Peter 104: 71
• Helene 105: 56
• Tobias 106: 47
• Peter 107: 42
• Heinrich 108: 54
• Tobias 110: 50
• Anna Foth 111: 72
• Jakob 113: 15

4. Either a date of marriage or the name of the spouse is listed for twelve of the fourteen. The average age at marriage for the males was 27.3 (23, 25, 25, 31, 26, 34); for females, 25.7 (22, 31.24).

5. It appears that all of the Peter and Helene Buller family remained in the Deutsch-Wymysle church, but four of the six children of Tobias and Anna Foth Buller moved elsewhere. Our old friend Karl 112 went to Volhynia, while Anna 114, Karoline 115, and Julianna 117 emigrated to the United States with their husbands.

6. Karoline 115 married her first cousin Benjamin Foth, the son of Karoline’s mother Anna’s brother Bernhard (see GRANDMA 20328). This is noted only to lead into the following observation.

7. Peter Buller (104) married a woman named Helene Buller (105). Both were born in Brenkenhoffswalde, the small Neumark village that, as far as we know, contained only two Buller families, which were presumably headed by brothers Peter Jr. and Heinrich. It stands to reason, then, that Peter 104 and Helene 105 were cousins who married, just as other members of the family did the following generation.

It was earlier suggested that Heinrich Buller 97 in the Deutsch-Wymysle church records was the son of Heinrich, since he was the oldest of this generation and it would make sense that he would bear the same name as his father. It is tempting to apply the same reasoning process to Peter and Helene, but this is a little trickier.

That is, one would like to think that Peter 104 was the firstborn son of Peter Jr. (given the shared first name), but Peter 104 could just as easily have been the second-born son of Heinrich who was named Peter in honor of his grandfather. There is no way to know. All we can safely conclude is that Peter 104 was the child of one of the Brenkenhoffswalde Bullers and that Helene 105 was the child of the other.

Finally, Tobias Buller 110 was also born in Brenkenhoffswalde about the same time (Heinrich, Peter, Helene, and Tobias were born within a five-year time frame but without any shared years of birth), so presumably he was also a child of one of the Brenkenhoffswalde Bullers. Until we uncover evidence that reveals the precise relationships, all we really know is that these four Bullers were closely related (a mix of siblings and cousins) and of the same generation (6), the descendants of George–Dina > Hans > George > Peter 351 > and Peter Jr. and Heinrich.

GRANDMA reports that Tobias and Anna Foth Buller had one more child, but that seems to be a mistake. For now, we can leave behind these two families and move on to the next two Buller families in Deutsch-Wymysle, which will again take us back to Brenkenhoffwalde.

Mennonite illegitimate births

As should be evident by now, Buller Time’s interests extend beyond genealogy or even family history broadly conceived. This blog is also curious about matters of history, geography, and various aspects of the social sciences, including birth rates, demography, life expectancy, and even social mores and practices. So it is that we take a moment to observe two instances of children born out of wedlock in Buller families of the mid-nineteenth century, to observe what is similar and what is different about them.

The first instance involved Heinrich Bulller the younger of Brenkenhoffswalde, the son of Helena Voth, an unmarried woman in her early twenties who lived with her parents Benjamin and Susanne (here). Heinrich the younger is clearly identified as illegitimate in several records; it is also evident that he was with his mother as a part of his grandparents’ larger household. The fact that he bore the last name Buller pointed in the direction of Heinrich Buller the elder as his father.

The second instance was recently covered (here). Anna Buller, dauther of Heinrich 97 and Helene 98 in the Deutsch-Wymysle church records, has two sons listed: Wilhelm, born when Anna was twenty-seven; and Heinrich, born when she was thirty-four. Both boys are identified as Anna’s sons, and no father is listed. Because the boys have Buller as a last name, we can safely conclude that they were born to Anna out of wedlock (if Anna had been married, the boys would have retained their father’s last name). As with the first case, the illegitimate children lived, or so it seems, with their mother in the house of their grandparents.

The fact that the illegitimate children and their mothers lived with the mother’s parents is consistent with what appears to have been the most common custom in Mennonite communities (although not without exception, of course). Presumably a child was thought best served by being with its mother, and she, being unmarried, typically lived with her parents.

What is strikingly different in the two cases is the last name given to the illegitimate child. Helene Voth’s son Heinrich was a Buller, a clear indication of parentage. Anna Buller’s two sons, however, were not given the last name of their father(s) (we have no idea if they had the same father). They were born Bullers and remained so the rest of their lives (the second son appears later in list 3 of the Deutsch-Wymysle records).

This raises the question of why Anna Buller gave her boys the last name of Buller. Did she not know who the father was? That is possible, but it seems more likely that she, for some reason, did not want her boys identified with their father(s). Helene Voth, by contrast, seems to have wanted everyone to know who had fathered her child; to make it crystal clear, she gave the boy the same first and last name as his father. One wonders if other illegitimate births in the Mennonite community also display this variation in naming practices.

Finally, to bring matters around full circle, it seems a bit ironic that the Heinrich Buller of Brenkenhoffswalde who was the presumed father of Heinrich the younger was a direct ancestor of the illegitimate sons of Anna Buller of Deutsch-Wymysle. If our reconstructed family tree here is accurate, Heinrich the elder was, in fact, the great-grandfather of Anna’s boys Wilhelm and Heinrich. You see, Heinrich 97 of Deutsch-Wymysle was likely Heinrich the elder’s firstborn son, which would make Anna Heinrich the elder’s granddaughter and her two boys his great-grandsons.

One final irony: when Heinrich the elder and the rest of the Brenkenhoffswalde company emigrated to Molotschna in 1834, they stopped over in Deutsch-Wymysle. Heinrich the elder no doubt saw his first son (Heinrich 97) and his family there, and they no doubt became aware of Heinrich the younger. Although some of the Brenkenhoffswalde group decided to stay and settle in Deutsch-Wymysle, as far as we know both Heinrich the elder and the younger continued on to Gnadenfeld in Molotschna colony. Perhaps some day we will discover one or both of the Heinrichs there.

Bullers in Deutsch-Wymysle 6: Heinrich

Several future posts will list the descendants of the Heinrich who was born in Brenkenhoffswalde in 1787. For now we stop to look back, to trace Heinrich’s ancestors to the extent that we are able. The discussion that follows will use several abbreviations:

• PCB = Prezcheowka church book
• DW = Deutsch-Wymysle
• DWCB = Deutsch-Wymysle church book

A number of previous posts have referenced the Buller family chart (see full version here), which presents schematically the descendants of George and Dina Thoms Buller, the earliest Bullers known to us in the PCB. Specifically, the chart traces for three more generations the lines of the three sons of George and Dina: Hans, George Jr., and Peter.

From the evidence of the PCB, we know that George and Dina’s son Hans (PCB 340) had a son (thus grandson to George and Dina) named George (PCB 342); we also read in the PCB that George 342 had a son named Peter (PCB 351). Some time back we were able to correlate the evidence from the PCB and the Neumark land tax records and identify Peter 351 as a resident in Brenkenhoffswalde as early as 1767 (here) and as late as 1793 (here). The 1793 records also listed two other Bullers in that village: Peter Jr. and Heinrich. That much we know.

What we strongly suspect but cannot demonstrate from documentary evidence is that Peter Jr. and Heinrich were the sons of Peter 351. Our reasons for suspecting that are: the 1767 land tax register states that Peter 351 had two sons; there were no other Buller families in Brenkenhoffswald at the time (as far as we can tell); the listing of a Peter Jr. implies the existence of a Peter Sr., which could only be Peter 351; the listing of a second Buller (Heinrich) of roughly the same age as Peter implies rather strongly that this second Buller is Peter 351’s second son. Until evidence indicates otherwise, then, we will work with the hypothesis that the Peter and Heinrich in the 1793 Brenkenhoffswalde land registers were the sons of Peter 351.

With that as background, we are ready to draw the lines between DW and Brenkenhoffswalde. We begin with the Heinrich (DWCB 97) who was the subject of the last post. The DWCB states that he was born in Brenkenhoffswalde in 1787. Since there were in the village only two Buller families in their child-bearing years (Peter and Heinrich), Heinrich DWCB 97 must have been the son of one or the other. It seems Heinrich 97 was the oldest male of this generation in the village of Brenkenhoffswalde, so one would not be surprised if he had been named after his father: Heinrich son of Peter 351. We do not know this for certain, but this hypothesis accounts for all the evidence that we have and accords well with Mennonite practice of that time.

If all this is correct, then we are now able to trace one line of George and Dina’s descendants for six generations (and beyond, given the later evidence of the DWCB). The entire line of descent can be represented schematically as follows (question marks indicate connections that we suspect but cannot prove):

George and Dina were the father of Hans 340, who was the father of George 342, who was the father of Peter 351 of Brenkenhoffswalde, father of Peter Jr. and Heinrich, the latter of whom was the father of Heinrich 97, the first Buller listed in the DW list of families in the congregation. Where Heinrich 97’s line led and ended up we do not yet know, but at least we have a reasonable idea of where they originated.

Bullers in Deutsch-Wymysle 5

At long last we are ready to dive into the third Deutsch-Wymysle list, by far the longest of them all. The list includes nine Buller families—some already known, others not previously encountered—who will occupy most of our attention over the next few posts. We being, however, with a few words of background.

The book titles this list “Auszüge aus dem alten Familienbuch der Mennonitengemeinde Deutsch-Wymyschle, Polen,” that is, “Excerpts from the Old Family Book of the Mennonite Congregation of Deutsch-Wymysle, Poland.” Why is the title important? It tells readers what to expect—and what not to expect. List 3 is not the complete list of Mennonites associated with the church; rather, list 3 offers excerpts from, or parts of, the list of Deutsch-Wymysle congregants.

A second word in the title also deserves special mention: Familienbuch. As we will see shortly, list 3 is organized not by person but by family; it records nuclear families, thus revealing who was related to whom. Even further, the list is organized by family groups: all the Bullers are together, right after the Bartels and immediately before the Foths. The list of Bullers covers most of three pages, which makes it easy to see both the big picture and the growth of a particular line over time.

Although the posts will include snippets of the pages under discussion, readers can see the original pages for themselves at the following links:

• page 29
• page 30
• page 31

Notice also that clicking on the page zooms in for a real closeup. Go ahead, take some time simply to look around.

A few final comments before we examine several Bullers more closely. It is interesting to note that the list skips a few numbers (278, 279, 622) but also uses the same base number (126) plus the letters a, b, c, d, e, f, and g for an entire family. This means that one cannot equate the last number (941) with the number of people listed. It appears that there are 945 people listed; it is probably safest to say that the records list nearly 950 people.

The time span of the listings is not stated (anywhere that I can find), but it seems that the earliest date of birth is 1780, that of Rosine Kraft Unruh (783). The latest date of birth appears to be 1920, for the birth of Leonhard Schröder (642). The latest date of death recorded is Julianna Schmidt in 1965 (!), which seems odd, given that this copy of the church records was made in 1949. It will be interesting to see if there are other late dates like this one. At any rate, since the earliest-born person on the list (Rosine Kraft Unruh) did not come to Deutsch-Wymysle until around 1810 (based on the places of birth for the Unruh children), we can reasonably assume that this list contains many, probably even most, of the members of the church between 1810 and the early decades of the 1900s.

With those “few” words of background, we are ready to investigate the first Buller family listed (on page 29, linked above).

The columns are fairly straightforward; since we will see them on all the pages, it will be worthwhile to identify them now. The two columns on the left have the heading “Siehe,” which in context means “See” or “Refer.” The column on the left is “Seite” (page); the one on the right is the abbreviation “Nr.” (number). Thus, the two columns indicate that Heinrich Buller is also listed as number 20 on page 9 (see here).

The next two columns to the right provide the ”Familie” number (each family has its own number) and then what is clearly the consecutive numbering of the individuals, although the cryptic “Lfol.” abbreviation is unclear (unless it is a combination of Liste and Folge, thus list sequence or something similar).

After the Name column we have the “Geburtsdatum” (date of birth) and the “Geburts- und Wohnart” (place of birth and residence). The last two columns share the word -“zeit”: the first is the “Trauzeit” (wedding date); the second is the “Sterbezeit” (death date).

So, for example, from the Heinrich Buller line we know that he is also listed as number 20 on page 9, that he is the head of Deutsch-Wymysle family 14, and that he is number 97 in list 3; he was born 4 December 1787 in Brenkenhoffswalde (Neumark) and married Helene Unruh on 20 January 1815. He died at the age of sixty-seven on his fortieth anniversary, 20 January 1855.

A few additional observations will bring this post to a close.

1. Heinrich and Helene’s first child, Anna, was born in 1816 in Brenkenhoffswalde. Their next child, Andreas, was born three years later in Deutsch-Wymysle. Upon the basis of these two dates, we can narrow the window of when the Heinrich Buller family emigrated from the Neumark to Deutsch-Wymysle considerably: it was sometime between September 1816 and July 1819.

2.  A date of death is known for only three of the seven family members: Heinrich, Andreas, and Johann. The latter two died at the ages of thirty-five and sixty-two. We will track the life spans of other Bullers and Mennonites from this list, to see what insight that might give us into the lives of these people.

3. Of the five children listed, the last two were born quite a bit after the first three, with a space of twenty-two years between the third and fourth. The fourth, Wilhelm, was born in Swiniary, and the fifth, Heinrich, was born back in Deutsch-Wymysle. The long gap between children is provided an explanation across the marriage column: “Anna ihr Sohn,” literally “Anna her son.” In other words, the records are clarifying that Wilhelm and Heinrich were the sons of daughter Anna, not the sons of Heinrich the elder and Helene. The fact that Wilhelm and Heinrich the younger have the last name Buller and no identifiable father leaves little doubt but that these two boys were born out of wedlock.

There is little more that can be gleaned from this family entry on its own, but the next few posts will take what we have here and place it in the larger context of what we know about both the Bullers and the Mennonites of that time frame.

Schwetz 1810 and Deutsch-Wymysle 2

Before we move on to the third list in the Deutsch-Wymysle church records, we should probably close the book on the correspondences between the 1810 Schwetz-area census and the Deutsch-Wymysle material.

Looking through the list of people who came to Deutsch-Wymsyle, one can easily spot those who were born before 1810 (when the census was taken) and who came from the Schwetz area. A total of fourteen people fit that profile. The question then becomes how many of them can also be identified on the 1810 census posted here.

1. We concluded in the previous post that Helene Buller Nachtigall should be identified with Helena Buller daughter of Jacob and Maria Buller of Ostrower Kämpe. We also noted that neither the parents nor Helene’s older sisters appear in the church records.

2. Another resident of Ostrower Kämpe seems to appear in both records as well: Helene Nachtigal, the daughter of Jacob and Sara. The years of birth do not agree between the two lists, but since the dates are reasonably close and there was no other Nachtigal family in Ostrower Kämpe at this time, the identification of the two is reasonable. GRANDMA agrees that both records refer to the same person (number 11 in the database).

Worth noting is that Helene married Jacob Foth shortly after the census, on 4 August 1810. If the Deutsch-Wymysle records have her birth year correct, she was seventeen at the time. In light of the fact that Helene and Jacob’s first four children were born in Ostrower Kämpe (the latest in 1819), we know that they moved to Deutsch-Wymysle sometime after that.

3. Peter Frey, the thirteen-year-old son of Peter and Eva Frey of Glugowko in the 1810 census, is almost certainly the Peter Frey born in late 1796 in the same village according to the church records. GRANDMA agrees with the identification (number 35845). Peter the elder died in 1813, and we do not know when his mother died—or when Peter Jr. moved to Deutsch-Wymysle, except that it was sometime before 1822, when he married Anna Janzen of Brenkenhoffswalde (i.e., since they came from different areas, they presumably met only when both were in Deutsch-Wymysle).

4. Heinrich Unruh of Przechowka (according to the census), the ten-year-old son of Johan and Maria, is quite likely the Heinrich Unruh born 18 June 1799 in Deutsch Konopath, according to the Deutsch-Wymysle records (note the close proximity of Deutsch Konopath and Wintersdorf, aka Przechowka, in the map to the right). Heinrich moved to Deutsch-Wymysle sometime before 1819, when he married Susanna Buller of Brenkenhoffswalde at Deutsch-Wymysle. GRANDMA agrees that both records refer to the same person (number 41999).

5. Jacob Raztlaff, nine-year-old son of Jacob and Maria of Przechowka in the 1810 census, is likely the same as the boy born in early 1802 in Deutsch Konopath (GRANDMA agrees: number 47848). He emigrated to Deutsch-Wymysle sometime before 1827, when we was married there. How much before is unknown, although one should note that Jacob Jr. is the only member of his family listed in the Deutsch-Wymysle church records.

6. Finally, Elisabeth Pankratz of Beckersitz, daughter of Andreas and Maria, was seven years old in 1810, so born in 1803, just like the Elisabeth Pankratz of Przechowka, per the church records. Once again, GRANDMA agrees that the two lists are referring to the same person (number 25013). What is interesting in this case is that Elisabeth’s husband Peter was born in Frantal in the Neumark area. He presumably moved first to Przechowka, where he married Elisabeth. Their first three children were born in Przechowka (through 1829), so they no doubt moved to Deutsch-Wymysle sometime between then and 1837, when their fourth child was born in Deutsch-Wymysle.

What (if anything) have we learned through this brief exercise?

First, the fact that six of the fourteen possibilities (43 percent) from the Deutsch-Wymysle list can be identified in the 1810 census is rather remarkable. Recall that the church records merely recorded the place of birth; it may well be tht a number of individuals who had been born in the Schwetz region had relocated before 1810 and thus would not appear in that particular census. Viewed in this light, the two records evidence a close correspondence.

Second, our earlier impression that much of the emigration to Deutsch-Wymysle took place in the 1810s and 1820s is bolstered by what we find here. Further, when we look more closely at the eight people from the church records whom we could not find on the 1810 census (for whatever reason), we discover that those who can be tracked down likewise relocated to Deutsch-Wymysle in the late 1810s or later. In other words, thus far we have found no evidence to support the common belief that emigration to Deutsch-Wymysle began in the last decades of the eighteenth century; in fact, all of the evidence thus far places the beginning of emigration no earlier than the 1800s and more likely in the 1810s and later.

Not much else to wring from this excursion, so we will move forward to Deutsch-Wymysle list 3 in the next post. We will also return at some point in the near future to our own direct ancestors. It will have been worth the wait, since there is new information about David and Benjamin Buller to report.

Note

For anyone who wants to check the six individuals discussed above in the sources, I list them all here for your convenience (Deutsch-Wymysle list 1 number, GRANDMA number, Przechowka church book number):

1. Helene Buller: DW 126, GM 30459, PCB 1513
2. Helene Nachtigal: DW 46, GM 11, PCB —
3. Peter Frey: DW 64, GM 35845, PCB —
4. Heinrich Unruh: DW 208, GM 41999, PCB 1373
5. Jacob Raztlaff: DW 166, GM 47848, PCB 1417
6. Elisabeth Pankratz: DW 187, GM 25013, PCB 1435

Schwetz 1810 and Deutsch-Wymysle

Thanks to the efforts of a number of individuals, the body of primary resources relevant to Mennonite history—censuses, birth and death records, emigration records, church books and so on—continues to grow. One of the immediate benefits of having various records to consult is the potential it creates for cross-checking and cross-referencing two or more independent records.

For example, the previous post’s update of the list of congregation–village associations referenced an 1810 Schwetz-area census transcribed and translated by Esther Patkau and Glenn Penner (here). This census documented the fact that the village Gluchowka (Glugowko) was in the Schwetz area, not, as I earlier had it, 260 miles south–southwest of Deutsch-Wymysle.

Helpful as that geographical information is, it pales in comparison to other uses to which we can put the 1810 census. To show where the 1810 census can lead us in our own explorations, I will retrace my steps from the time that I rediscovered it online.

As has become my habit, after confirming the information that led me to the census, I spent a moment searching for any Bullers who might appear. In fact, fourteen of them did: nine from Przechowka and five from Ostrower Kämpe. The mention of the latter village called to mind the fact that some of the Bullers in Deutsch-Wymysle were born in Ostrower Kämpe, which led me to wonder if the Ostrower Kämpe Bullers listed in 1810 were those who ended up in Deutsch-Wymysle.

It was simple enough to check, and in short order I found the two Bullers of Deutsch-Wymysle who had been born in Ostrower Kämpe:

Helene and Eva Buller, both wives of David Nachtigall, were born in Ostrower Kämpe. Eva was born in 1816, so she obviously would not appear on the 1810 census. Helene, however, was born in 1809, so there was a chance that she might.

Navigating to the 1810 census here and scrolling down to the listings for Ostrower Kamp, I saw the following entry:

Ostrower Kamp

Buller

Helena

daughter

1

If Helena Buller was one year old in 1810, she must have been born in 1809, the same as the Helene Buller born 5 September 1809, according to the Deutsch-Wymysle church records. Since there was only one Buller family living in Ostrower Kämpe in 1810, the likelihood of Helena and Helene being the same person seems fairly high.

Thus Helene is no longer simply David Nachtigall’s first wife who died before her thirtieth birthday; according to the 1810 census she is also the daughter of Jacob and Maria Buller of Ostrower Kämpe, sister to Maria and Anna. As residents of Ostrower Kämpe, the Jacob Bullers were no doubt members of the Przechowka church, a fact confirmed by the GRANDMA database.

Interestingly, although GRANDMA makes the connection between Helene and Helena, it does not cite the 1810 census as confirmation. This reminds us of the need to cross-reference and coordinate all of the primary resources available to us, not just the Deutsch-Wymysle records but also the 1810 census and the Przechowka church book. As time permits, we will also do this for other members of the Deutsch-Wymysle congregation who originated in the Schwetz area.

The Helena Buller case also reminds us to look carefully at all of the evidence in front of us and to question everything that we think we know. For example, if Helena Buller was Deutsch-Wymysle’s Helene Buller (as appears to be the case), when did she/her family move to Deutsch-Wymysle?

Toward the top of the record we see a date of immigration of 17 August 1820, and at the very bottom a note sources that information to passport records at or from St. Petersburg. The same records appear to be reproduced in Peter Rempel’s Mennonite Migration to Russia, 1788–1828, where we read the following entry:

Jacob Buller from Ost(r, c)over Koemps, his wife Maria 39 (b. ca. 1781), daughter Maria 18 (b. ca. 1802), Anna 17 (b. ca. 1803), Helena 12 (b. ca. 1808), Eva 4 (b. ca. 1816), Katharina 2 (b. ca. 1818), Elisabeth 1 (b. ca. 1818). Passport from Marienwerder issued on July 11, 1820. (Rempel 2007, 172)

In spite of the disagreement in the age of Jacob’s wife Maria (her census age should be 29, not 22), this is clearly the same family as that listed in the 1810 census:

Ostrower Kamp	Buller	Jacob		34
Ostrower Kamp	———	Maria	wife	22
Ostrower Kamp	Buller	Maria	daughter	8?
Ostrower Kamp	Buller	Anna	daughter	7
Ostrower Kamp	Buller	Helena	daughter	1

On the surface, this would seem to confirm that all records are in agreement. However, it overlooks several crucial questions. We will get to those questions in a moment, but we must first note that the Eva listed in the passport record as being born in 1816 is almost certainly the same Eva Buller who married David Nachigall after her sister Helene/Helena died (see the top scan above). Although we cannot be certain of this, the fact that the birth years match, that both Evas are located in Ostrower Kämpe, and that there is no other Buller family listed for that village at that time offers a compelling reason to identify the Evas.

We can reasonably conclude, then, that at least two daughters from this family were members of the Deutsch-Wymysle church. This raises several interrelated questions.

• If the daughters became members of the church after 1820, when the immigration record is dated, why is there no record of their parents Jacob and Maria in the church?


• Further, if Helene left Ostrower Kämpe in 1820, why do the Deutsch-Wymysle records state that her first child was born in Ostrower Kämpe in 1832, while her second was born in Piaski near Deutsch-Wymysle three years later?


• Most intriguing of all, how was it that the passport for immigration to Russia (!) led at least Helene and Eva to end up in Deutsch-Wymysle, which was part of the Congress Kingdom of Poland?

The first question is the easiest to answer: the Deutsch-Wymsyle church records that we have are not the originals (they were lost in a fire in the mid-1800s, and a second set were lost at the end of World War II), so we cannot expect them to be complete (thanks to Glenn Penner for this reminder). Thus it is possible that Jacob and Maria Buller and the other members of the family were a part of the church and were recorded in the first church records but were forgotten by the time the replacement records were compiled.

The same circumstances may also answer the second question. The Deutsch-Wymysle records state twice that Helene’s first child, a son, was born at Ostrower Kämpe, which contradicts the immigration record that has her leaving Ostrower Kämpe in 1820. It may be that the (later) church records are mistaken on this matter, that Helene met and married David Nachtigall when they both lived in the area of the Deutsch-Wymysle church.

The third question has no clear answer. It is possible, one would think, that Jacob and Maria Buller secured a visa to emigrate to Russia, began the journey, and then changed plans and decided to settle in Deutsch-Wymysle. The emigration visa was issued by the Russian General Consulate in Danzig, so presumably the visa holders had permission to move to Russia but were under no obligation to do so. Even if there was an expectation that the visa holder would emigrate, there was little that the Russian government could do to enforce that upon someone who did not live within its boundaries.

Maybe there is some other explanation for the contradictory evidence. At the least, this case reminds us to trace down and cross-reference all the primary sources at hand. Sometimes the evidence will fit neatly together; sometimes it will require us to try to discover why it does not cohere.

To tie up the loose ends of this case, we can safely conclude that the Helene Buller Nachtigall of the Deutsch-Wymysle church records is the same as the Helena Buller listed in the 1810 Schwetz census. She is also, according to GRANDMA, the Helena Buller recorded in the Przechowka church book. When Helene died before the age of thirty, her surviving spouse David Nachtigall married her younger sister Eva. That much we know.

What we do not know is whether Helene’s entire family—her mother, father, and all sisters—also joined the Deutsch-Wymysle church, although it seems likely that they did. Neither do we know with certainty when the family moved to the Deutsch-Wymysle area, although the year 1820 or shortly thereafter seems the most probable.

Given what we do and do not know in this case, we can also conclude that, although the Deutsch-Wymysle church records are generally reliable, because they are not the original records, they may well contain mistakes and thus stand in need of correction. This will be good to keep in mind as we explore other connections between the church records and other historical sources, such as the 1810 census and the Przechowka church book.


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.

Update

Glenn Penner kindly provided clarification on several of the village–congregation associations from the Deutsch Wymysle 3 post here.

1. Kompany/Kompani was part of the Montau congregation, as evidenced by its appearance on the list of Montau baptisms here. It was likely the same location as Klein Lubien/Lubin.

2. I mislocated Gluchowka (Glugowko) earlier. It was actually in the Schwetz area, as revealed by the 1810 Schwetz-area census that Glenn and Esther Patkau transcribed and translated here. I have placed it in the Przechowka congregation below, based on Adalbert Goertz’s association of Glugowko with the Przechowka church book here.

3. Wilhelmsbruch, also known as Wilhelmsbruchshuben, was part of the Schönsee congregation. I have yet to locate it on a map.

4. It is possible that Vinodegin is a spelling variation of Vinedia, which was part of the Schönsee congregation.

The updated list of congregations (bold) and villages is as follows:

Montau-Gruppe

Groß Lubien
Klein Lubien/Kompany
Neusaß-Treul
Niedergruppe
Obergruppe
Sanskau
Treul

Neumark (area)

Brenkenhoffswalde
Franztal
Netzebruch (area)
Neu Dessau

Obernessau

Dulinow/Dulinowo/Dulinowa
Groß Niszewka
Klein Niszewka
Niszewka (Nessau)

Przechowka

Gluckowka
Goglin (6 miles east of Schwetz?)
Kleinsee (Jeziorka)
Ostrower Kempe
Przechowka

Schönsee

Dorposch/Dorposz
Grentze
Groß Lunau
Jamerau/Jammerau
Lunau
Neusaß
Niederausmass
Podwitz
Schöneich
Steinwage
Strijowka
Vinedia
Vinodegin? (variant spelling for Vinedia?)
Wilhelmsbruch

Tragheimerweide

Rehhof
Schweingrube
Zieglershuben

Now only four locations remain unknown or not associated with a known Mennonite church:

Alt-Bielitz: circa 215 miles south–southwest of Deutsch-Wymysle
Jurke
Neubuden (Nowe Budy?): circa 60 miles southeast of Deutsch-Wymysle
Westpreußen (province)

Olędrzy (Holender) life along the Vistula

Before we tackle the third register from the Deutsch Wymysle church records, we will take a brief detour to learn more about the daily life of the Olędrzy (see further here) during that time. This label designates the larger group of emigrants who colonized and developed parts of Poland, including the Mennonites and thus the Bullers who are part of our larger family.

The Catalogue of Monuments of Dutch Colonization in Poland website offers a fascinating account of Olędrzy life: Wojciech Marchlewski, “Different Neighbours: Everyday Life of Hollander Colonists in Powisle in the Nineteenth Century" (here). The rest of this post will quote it liberally, but Buller Time readers are also strongly encouraged to visit the site for themselves, since this is but one of a number of enlightening pieces available to read.

We begin with a survey of the two primary tasks that the Vistula-located Olędrzy faced: grubbing and draining.

The colonists settled at the end of the 18th century occupied terrains located in the Vistula flood zone, covered by oak and pine forests. The parcels they obtained had to be grubbed. The contract granted them seven years to carry out this work. For this entire period, settlers were exempted from all taxes and labour for the benefit of the owner of the land they leased. It is probable that, having carried out grubbing of the parcels indicated in the contract, the colonists continued the works on other terrains, thus enlarging the area of the exploited land. Inventories indicate that almost every farm had numerous tools serving to dig up trees. Each household had axes, hatchets and saws. Snags were hauled away with chains, hooks and specially adapted grub hoes.

After grubbing, colonists carried out drainage works—ditches and canals draining off the excess of water from the cleared lands. Each spring, the farming terrains were flooded by the river. Quick drainage of the flooded fields required construction of a dense network of ditches and canals. In the vicinity of Wiaczemin and Kepa Karolinska we can still find traces of this draining system. In farms, we find tools they used: shovels and spades. Each farmer had also a boat, used for transport during flood periods.

Contrary to what many might imagine, the Olędrzy along the Vistula River were not so focused on draining swampy land or holding back the river as they were on ensuring that the periodic floods that were a part of life were drained from their fields as quickly as possible.

Deutsch Wymysle is located in the lower left of this photograph (the yellow dot just south of the dark green area).
The village ran east and west across the ridge of the glacial embankment. The north–south fields thus began on the
higher ground but then dipped down into the low area along the Vistula River to the north. 

This is not to say that dikes and floodbanks were never constructed; they were, but in at least in one instance against the objections of the Olędrzy farmers. According to Marchlewski, when the Polish government built an embankment between the river and the fields in 1848, the residents of Wymysle Nowe (Deutsch Wymysle) complained, “We did not construct the embankment in Swiniary because the flooding does not harm our crops; it fertilizes our fields by accumulation of silt. Otherwise such meadow will not be flooded and will give no pasture; … the embankments are to our detriment, not advantage.”

House in Deutsch Wymysle from the mid-nineteenth century

One has the impression that the colonists saw the river flooding as a force to be managed, not a problem to be overcome. We recognize this also in the orientation of the typical Mennonite house of this time and place. As we have seen elsewhere, the house contained both family living quarters on one end and a barn for storing feed and housing animals on the other end. Although the colonists built their house barns on hillocks in order to minimize any damage during the inevitable floods, they also placed the barn end of the home downstream. These farmers knew that sooner or later the floods would stream through their houses, and they preferred to have animal manure flushed away from their living quarters rather than through them. In other words, these farmers recognized that life along the Vistula was a matter of managing the environment, not overcoming it.

Of course, this was also reflected in their farming choices and practices. Marchlewski explains:

The specificity of farming lands caused the economy to be dependent on the natural environment conditions. The Hollanders grew only such plants the vegetation period of which fell between the spring and autumn flood or that were not affected by water raises, for example fruit trees and grass. To protect fields against sand transported by flood waters, their borders were secured by wicker fences, fortified by willows planted between them. They stopped the sand and let the humus through. …

The Hollander economy was dominated by cow breeding, completed by cultivation of cereals, potatoes, flax and by fruit growing. They grew: millet, oat, wheat, barley, potatoes and other vegetables, including: pea, cabbage and onion. There are no data on other plants growing in the Hollander gardens. Potatoes were a garden crop, as confirmed by an inscription dating from 1836: “promises to prepare soil for potatoes, which has to be well farmed and planted with potatoes”. The Hollander farms cultivated also flax. It was favoured by the vicinity of [the] river, providing a sufficient amount of water for its treatment. In all the farms part of the farming land was destined for fruit growing. Orchards were dominated by plum and apple trees. …

The Hollander farms specialised mainly in breeding and for draught they used horses. A farmer usually kept from 2 to 6 animals. … It is interesting that the Hollanders did not breed oxen as beasts of draught, what was popular at that time in peasant farms and in manors. … The basic source of the Hollanders' income was cow breeding. Contracts and inventories indicate that the majority of farms had from 5 to 14 milch cows and, together with heifers and calves, the inventory counted up to 30 heads.

The Hollanders bred red cows, and grey, the so-called bald or bialograniaste cows. Cattle grazed on pastures located between Vistula and its holms, overgrown with grass, emerging from the river in the periods when the water was low. Sometimes cows were transported to those small islands, but more often the grass was cut and dried for hay, stocked as the winter forage for the cattle.

Such quantity of the breeding stock was related to the fact that the Hollander farms specialised in production of cheese and diary products for sale. Inventories contain tools and machines for production of the Dutch cheese: bowls, different kinds of sieves, presses and forms for shaping the final product. …

Cow breeding was completed by swine, chicken and goose husbandry. Pigs were bred for the farm's own needs. Usually it was one sow, one hog and several barrows—between 5 and 12. Some farms raised pedigree “comely” swine and wild swine, the so-called “field plain” ones. The “comely” swine were bred in pigsties and the plain grazed in the forest. They fed on acorns and sprouts. … Also chickens were raised for the farm's own needs. A farm had between 5 and 11 chickens and 3 to 6 geese. … It is interesting that the Hollander farms kept neither sheep nor goats. 

Daily life also included school, church, and social gatherings, but this is enough for now. The life that Wojciech Marchlewski describes for the Olędrzy of this area was largely the same as that experienced by the earliest Bullers in the Schwetz area. Thus by learning about the Deutsch Wymysle Mennonites, we discover more about our own ancestors.

Work Cited

Marchlewski, Wojciech. Different Neighbours: Everyday Life of Hollander Colonists in Powisle in the Nineteenth Century. Catalogue of Monuments of Dutch Colonization in Poland. Available online here.

Deutsch-Wymysle 5

Two posts ago (here) we surveyed the Bullers who left the Deutsch Wymysle congregation for some other locale: the first eleven Bullers went to Russia, while number twelve (Karl) moved to Volhynia. Number thirteen moved to another city in Poland, and the last six Bullers listed moved to the United States.

The shift we see here—Mennonites first moving to Russia, then later to the U.S.—was not unusual. In fact, the rest of register 2 in the Deutsch Wymsyle records reflects the same dynamic. Before we delve into that in greater detail, we begin with a few minor observations about the list.

The list of Deutsch Wymysle members who left the area, and thus the church, comprises 241 people of all ages. Twenty-four of these 241 also appear on register 1, the list of Mennonites who moved to the church. This is not a large percentage, but we should stop for a moment to recognize the transient nature of life for many Mennonites of that era. During their lifetimes, these twenty-four Mennonites moved from some other region (many from Neumark) to Deutsch Wymysle in Poland and then from there to some other region or country (most of these twenty-four went to Russia). Preparing for and making two long-distance moves under those circumstances is not something that many of us would want to do.

More interesting is what we see in the pattern of locations to which the Mennonites moved. One way to view this is by totaling where people moved on each page of this seven-page list. This list follows a rough chronological order (in general, the first families listed were the first families to move), so we can see the pattern in the shifts from page to page.

Page	Russia	Volhynia	Poland	Germany	United States	?
1	20	1	—	—	—	12
2	13	3	—	—	4	13
3	21	—	—	—	12	—
4	1	—	—	—	18	13
5	2	2	1	5	22	—
6	3	—	3	1	25	—
7	—	—	—	—	26	—

Another way to see the pattern is by listing how many Deutsch Wymysle congregants went where during a given year. We know what year roughly a fourth of the people left (for most we know only where they went), so we can list the years of emigration and the destinations to see the pattern from another angle.

Year	Destination	Emigrants
1857	Russia	9
1858	Russia	24
1878	United States	9
1884	United States	8
1892	United States	2
1897	United States	2
1899	United States	2
1901	United States	3
1903	United States	2
1905	United States	2
1908	United States	2
1909	United States	2
1910	Russia	1
	United States	1
1913	United States	2
1914	United States	2

The shift in destination is striking in this table and deserves some comment.

1. It is interesting to note that about the same time as Peter D and Sarah Siebert Buller were leaving Kleefeld in Molotschna colony for the good life of Nebraska (1879), Deutsch Wymsle congregants were likewise turning their attention from Russia to the United States.

2. Curious also is the pace of emigration: all but one of the dated Russian emigrations took place over a two-year period, during which 33 people left Deutsch Wymysle; in contrast, the emigrations to the United States extended over thirty-six years (and likely longer), and most years saw only two or three people leave. This raises the question: What circumstances prompted so many congregants to pull up stakes and move in 1857 and 1858? Perhaps further study of Polish history will reveal an answer.

3. Is is also noteworthy, perhaps, that the last year for which emigration is recorded is 1914, which was also the first year of World War I. Was there some connection between the war (the Eastern front did stretch across this area of Poland for at least part of the war) and a interruption in emigration, or is this simply a matter of the record ending at that point for no particular reason? Time spent with the history part of the church records will probably reveal the answer.

4. As far as Bullers go, the first nine listed (Heinrich and Anna Penner Buller plus seven children) were part of the 1858 group; none of the other ten are given a date, although the five Buller sisters who emigrated together probably sailed for the U.S. sometime in the 1880s through the early 1900s.

There is little else we can glean from this list, but it is enough to learn how the emigration pattern shifted so dramatically from one favored destination (Russia) to another (the U.S.). It is also helpful to be reminded of how the larger forces of history often played a decisive influence on the lives and choices of our ancestors. More often than not, these Mennonites who sought to live as the quiet in the land had to change lands in order to enjoy that quiet.

In spite of what we have learned from this list, the question of why so many Mennonites left Deutsch Wymysle for Russia in 1857 and 1858 remains unanswered (for now).

If only these records could speak

Looking through the register of people who left the Deutsch Wymysle church during the latter half of the nineteenth and the first decades of the twentieth centuries, the name Heinrich David Bartel caught my eye. When everyone else was emigrating to the United States, Heinrich David Bartel moved to Russia in 1910. Curious, I searched for him in GRANDMA and discovered, as we often have before, that he vanished from all records at that point. That is not the subject of this post.

I then noticed that he was not the first one named Heinrich in his family. An older brother had been given the name earlier. Clearly, the older brother had passed away before Heinrich David was born, which opened the door for a second son to be named Heinrich. That is not the subject of this post.

What I then saw in GRANDMA and confirmed from the Deutsch Wymysle church records (below) was something unusual, a sad story that longs to be told.

The scan above clearly records Heinrich David’s date of birth: 29 May 1882. He died approximately a month and a half later, on 11 July 1882. Unfortunately, the David Bartel family suffered a double loss that day, as Heinrich David’s mother, Jakobine Kliewer Bartel, also passed away.

One wonders how it was that mother and baby son died on the same day. Did some terrible illness take both by mere coincidence on the same day? Was there a fatal accident in which both were tragically lost? If only these records could speak …

Bullers in Deutsch-Wymysle 4

As mentioned previously, the Deutsch Wymysle church records contain three lists: a register of all those who moved to the area and joined the church, a register of all those who moved away from the area and thus left the church, and a complete (?) list of families who were part of the church.

We have already explored the first list, especially in relation to the Bullers it names (see here, here, and here), so today we turn to the second: the record of all those who left the Deutsch Wymysle area and thus the congregation there.

Nineteen people named Buller are included on that list of 220 Mennonites, conveniently arranged by family, which is how we will work through them all. The first list contains the Heinrich and Anna Penner Buller family, as follows:

Number (list 1)	Number (list 2)	Name	Date of  Birth	Birth Village	Residence
28	1	Buller, Heinrich	1808.08.17	Brenkenhoffswalde	Deutsch Zyck 32
29	2	———, Anna Penner	1818.11.27	Niszewka	———
	3	———, Peter	1841.04.20	Leonow	———
	4	———, Wilhelmine	1844.01.20	Deutsch Zyck	———
	5	———, Julianna	1845.09.29	———	———
	6	———, Kornelius	1949.09.04	———	———
	7	———, Wilhelm	1851.05.06	———	———
	8	———, Eva	1856.07.07	———	———
	9	———, Johann	1858.02.08	———	———

In terms of arrangement, notice that the first column cross-references the numbers in list 1 (Heinrich was number 28 there and Anna 29; see the scan here). Notice also that the last column (Wohin und wann ausgewandert = where and when they emigrated) is not reproduced in the table. Everything else is self-explanatory: name, when the person was born, where he or she was born, and where the person lived while in the Deutsch Wymysle congregation.

There is nothing striking in the list here, but several matters warrant mention. Heinrich was born in Brenkenhoffswalde (in the Neumark) and Anna in Niszewka (Neu Dessau), more than a hundred miles away (see the modern map here), so it is clear that they met and married in Deutsch Wymsyle. We can also tell that the couple first lived in Lenow, since their first child was born there, but then moved to Deutsch Zyck, the next village to the east (see the map here). In fact, we know which plot was theirs: Deutsch Zyck 32. This probably implies that the family were farmers, rather than workers in some craft or cottage industry.

The church records state that the entire family went to Russia in 1858—where in Russia we do not know. The GRANDMA database states that Wilhelmine married Peter Huebert from Elisabethal (in the southeast corner of Molotschna colony) but offers nothing more on any other family member. One wonders where in Molotschna the family settled, whether they left for North America in the 1870s, or whether their descendants remained in Russia (Ukraine) and went through the terrors of Soviet rule. For now, all we have are questions.

The next three names represent one couple and a single individual.

Number (list 1)	Number (list 2)	Name	Date of       Birth	Birth Village	Residence
17	10	Buller, Heinrich	1817.03.14	Brenkenhoffswalde	Deutsch Wymysle 13
94	11	———, Elisabeth Kliewer	1832.02.28	Sanskau	———
	12	Buller, Karl	1826.03.10	Deutsch Wymysle	Deutsch Wymysle

This Heinrich from Brenkenhoffswalde also met and married a woman whose family had moved to Deutsch Wymysle: Elisabeth Kliewer was born in Sanskau and thus was a member of the Montau-Gruppe church (see the map here). She was born in Sanskau in 1832, so her family must have come to the Deutsch Wymysle congregation much later than Heinrich’s family (more on that later).

Heinrich and Elisabeth emigrated to Gnadenfeld, Russia (Molotschna colony), which was a popular destination for many of the Neumark and Deutsch Wymysle groups. Eventually Gnadenfeld played a key role in the development of the Mennonite Brethren, which found its way to Deutsch Wymysle as well. It is curious that no date of emigration is provided for Heinrich and Elisabeth. More interesting than that is the report that they “kamen zurück,” came back. One wonders why they returned, as well as how many others moved back from Molotschna to Poland.

Our old friend Karl Buller (see here) was born in and lived in Deutsch Wymysle, but at some point (again, we know not when) he moved to Volhynia. We will certainly keep our eye out for him when we return to explore the Volhynia again.

The last Bullers appear much later in the register, since they were born around the same time as the children in the first Buller families recorded.

Number (list 1)	Number (list 2)	Name	Date of       Birth	Birth Village	Residence
	137	Buller, Peter	1861.12.26	Isabella	Deutsch Wymysle
	138	Buller, Emilie	1851.03.17	Wonsosz	?
	139	———, Anna	1855.01.06	Białe Błota	?
	140	———, Elisabeth	1857.08.23	Parowa Wonsosz	?
	141	———, Helene	1861.09.24	Deutsch Wymysle	?
	142	———, Julianna	1861.09.24	———	?
	143	Buller, Julianna verheiratet Görtz	1838.06.03	———	Leonow

The Bullers on each end are separate from the five in the middle, who are identified as Schwestern (sisters) in the vertical writing. Helene and Julianna are labeled further as Zwillinge (twins), which we can also see by them having the same birthday.

More important is the note that the five sisters “Zogen all nach de U.S.A.,” that is, all emigrated to the United States. Unfortunately, we know not where. There are to my knowledge no records of these sisters marrying, so one wonders if these five single Buller women emigrated to the U.S. and married once they arrived here. We learn from GRANDMA that their father Tobias died six months before the twins were born and their mother Petronella twelve years later, so these young women were probably accustomed to looking out for themselves to some extent. Maybe someday we will learn of more of their story.

Peter Buller (137) “emigrated” to Zyrardow, a Polish city 35 miles southeast of Deutsch Wymysle. I know of no Mennonite congregation nearby, so one might suspect that he changed denominations as a result of his move.

Finally, Julianna Buller Görtz (verh. = verheiratet, which means “married”) was born in Leonow and likewise emigrated to the United States. In this case GRANDMA supplies more information. Julianna married Heinrich Görtz from the Deutsch Kazun congregation (which explains why he is not listed in these church records), and together they emigrated to the U.S. in 1876, arriving 29 May 1876 in New York on the S.S. Celtic. Julianna died in April 1913 in Salt Creek, Oregon. Heinrich remarried the following year.

The bits and pieces that come to light from these records hint at stories that beg to be told: Heinrich and Anna Penner Buller went to Russia and vanished from the face of the earth (for now); Heinrich and Elisabeth Kliewer Buller likewise moved to Russian, then returned for reasons that we can only guess at; our old friend Karl moved to Volhynia, and he also remains a mystery for the time being; Peter Buller left Deutsch Wymysle for a Polish city and may have left the Mennonite church as well; five single sisters—orphans—emigrated together (and alone?) to the United States, where we hope they were absorbed into the larger Mennonite community and enjoyed the company of their own families; finally, Julianna Buller Görtz emigrated to the U.S. and lived out her days in the northwest—who knew there were Bullers in Oregon’s mountainous forests? None of these Bullers are our close relatives, but they are Bullers nonetheless, so their stories are also ours. Maybe someday we will be able to fill in the details and put together at least some of the pieces. Until then, we continue to look and to learn.