The first family is that of Tobias (106) and Petronella Penner (132) Buller. We already met Tobias as a son of Peter 104 (here). The rest of the family is new to us.
Worthy of note in the record above are the following:
1. Blended families were a common occurrence in that era; the adult mortality rate was higher then than it is now, which led to a high incidence of second marriages and combined families. We see this above in the fact that Petronella’s son Julius Penner was fathered by her first husband (von I Mann) two years before she married Tobais. Julius kept his father’s surname but was included in Tobias’s family.
2. The oldest daughter, Wilhelmine, died before her first birthday; the next five daughters are already known to us: they are the five sisters who were not reported to have married when first mentioned but who all went to the U.S. (see here, below the last scan). The bottom of this list requires us to clarify the previous entry, since it states that Friedrich Rossol was Anna’s husband (the meaning of the final word [Rybit?] is unclear). Did the other daughters marry as well? We do not know. All we can state with certainty is that all five sisters ended up in the U.S., where they disappear from our sight.
3. This list also contains information that many entries lack: the dates of baptism for the five sisters are given after or next to their names. Interestingly, the oldest daughter was baptized at age twenty-two, but the others were baptized at a younger age, either fourteen or fifteen. I seem to recall that the latter age range was fairly common for Mennonites of the latter half of the nineteenth century.
4. Finally, the fact that Tobias’s six daughters (he had no sons) were born in five different villages indicates a certain amount of transience for the family. They did not have a single plot to farm from year to year to year.
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Next up: Heinrich (116) and Agnethe Bartell (140) Buller. Heinrich was the son of Tobais 110 (see here); Agnethe is not listed elsewhere in the Deutsche-Wymysle book, although GRANDMA notes that Heinrich and Agnethe’s marriage is recorded in the Deutsch Kazun civil records, which is the area in which Agnethe was born (see GRANDMA 28432).
1. Heinrich, like many of his day, was married twice: first to Agnethe Bartel (who died in 1878 at age thirty-five), then to Helene Görtz (who is identifed as his II Frau). Heinrich’s children were ages two, four, and six when their mother passed away, so one can understand Heinrich’s need to find a wife to help care for his family. No children are listed for Heinrich and Helene.
2. Heinrich is listed as living at and farming the same plot as his father Tobias: Leonow 3 (note where all three children were born and compare with here). How that transpired is unclear, since Tobias died in 1841, when Heinrich was four; presumably someone outside of the family took over the plot at that time, although by 1872 is was back in Buller hands.
3. The only other information offered relates to daughter Wilhelmine. The first line at the bottom of the entry states that she was the wife of Andreas Bartel in (Deutsch) Zyck; the second line adds that her first husband was Heinrich Kliewer, with whom she had two children.
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The twenty-second and final Buller family in the Deutsch-Wymysle records was headed by Heinrich (103) and Eva Kliewer (145) Buller. Heinrich was the illegitimate son of Anna Buller (here). We have already discussed some of the dynamics associated with illegitimate births in Mennonite society (see here); all that remains is to look briefly at his family.
1. The couple’s six children were born in at least four different locations, which implies once again a certain level of transience. Oldest child Peter’s birth at the same Deutsch Zyck plot where his mother was born probably indicates that the couple lived with her parents after marrying, a fairly common arrangement.
2. As with the two previous Buller families, girl children outnumbered the boys. All told, these three families had twelve girls and two boys, which is striking. I have no idea what to make of that.
3. Heinrich lived to be sixty-nine, but daughters Anna and Marie, who are listed last but are not the youngest, died at a young age (starben von klein)
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Having worked our way carefully and slowly (some might think too slowly!) through the Deutsch-Wymysle records, what can we say that we have learned? A subject as broad as that will require both time to reflect and a separate post. Until then …
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