Bullers in Deutsch-Wymysle 10

There is a clear division between the first five Buller families that we have covered thus far and the last four that remain: whereas the family heads of the first five had all been born in Brenkenhoffwald, the final four were second-generation members born in and around Deutsch-Wymsysle itself (correction: three of the four were born at Deutsch-Wymsysle). Further, each one of the four family heads has already been listed in the church records; not one moved to the church from somewhere else. The four family heads include Johann 101, Tobias 106, Heinrich 116, and Heinrich 103.

Before we turn our attention to Johann 101, it is worth taking a moment to see which male Bullers who have already been listed do not reappear as heads of second-generation families. (We will try to trace the female Bullers in a future post.)

• Andreas 100 passed away in 1855 at age thirty-five.
• Wilhelm 102 was the first illegitimate son of Anna 99; we have no further information about him.
• Peter 107 married in 1839 and died at age forty-two in 1856.
• Heinrich 108 passed away in 1871 at the age of fifty-four.
• Karl 112 moved to Volhynia; we have no further information about him.
• Jakob 113 died before reaching adulthood, at the age of fifteen in 1845.
• Heinrich 120, GRANDMA reports, moved to the Crimea (the peninsula south of Molotschna), where he married Aganetha Dirks; Heinrich, Aganetha, and their children emigrated to the U.S. in 1875, settling in Turner County, South Dakota (roughly between Yankton and Sioux Falls).
• Benjamin 122 died as an infant.
• Kornelius 123 was born in 1848; we have no further information about him.
• Jakob 124 was born in 1851; we have no further information about him.
• The sons of Heinrich 125 (Peter 126a, Kornelius 126d, Wilhelm 126e, Johann 126g) all went to Russia with the rest of the family; we have no further information about them.

Of the fourteen male Bullers listed, six moved away from the region, which explains why no further descendants are listed for them; two died before reading adulthood, leading to the same result. This leaves six male Bullers who disappear from the records for reasons that are not known. Some may have died before having children, while others may have fathered only daughters, who are thus listed with their husbands’s families. Probably the greatest number moved away from Deutsch-Wymysle to some other Mennonite outpost (as did Karl 112, Heinrich 120, and Heinrich 125), with the result that the church records had no information to report.

Whatever the explanation, it is striking that, out of a potential eighteen male Bullers originally listed, only four reappear with their own families later in the book. It would be interesting to compare this with other family groups in Deutsch-Wymysle, to see if the same dynamics are at play with them.

With that background, we are ready to look briefly at Johann 101, son of Heinrich 97.

1. Three dates of death are listed, so we can calculate the length of life for Johann (sixty-three), his first son Peter (nineteen days), and his son Heinrich (seventy-nine). We will add these to our running calculations several posts from now.

2. The most interesting tidbit is found in the birth-village column for Johann’s wife Maria Krause: evangelisch. If you recall an earlier discussion, this indicates that Johann’s wife was Lutheran. The fact that she and their children are recorded in the Mennonite church book would imply that Maria became a Mennonite instead of Johann becoming Lutheran. Curious also is the notation that their youngest son Peter moved to Zyrardow, where there was no Mennonite congregation (see earlier here, toward the end). Does this signal a switch to the church of his mother and her family?

Three families to go—after which (but perhaps not immediately) we will return to our own ancestor David and his father Benjamin.