Benjamin Buller 11

The previous post ended with an observation and a question:

Benjamin Benjamin Buller, according to the 1839 list, lived at Waldheim 45…; after careful examination, we concluded that this individual was, in fact, the father of David Buller. Now we read that a different Benjamin Benjamin Buller lived at Waldheim 45 with his father Benjamin Benjamin Buller. Who was that?

The only hint provided was the earliest record we have of Benjamin Buller’s family: the 1819–1820 Rovno register of Mennonites in Zofyovka. Of course, now one might wonder which Benjamin is in view in that document and where the “second” Benjamin came from in the 1840 document. All will become clear in time. We begin with the relevant entry (family 18) from the Rovno register:

We can reproduce its information simply enough as follows:

18		Benjamin Buller		31
		his wife Helena				25
		sons David		2
		Dominik		4
		nephew David		15

Benjamin and Helena Buller are the parents, and they have two children. As we noticed before, the younger son (our ancestor David) is listed first; we do not know why. The firstborn son, the oldest of Benjamin and Helena’s two sons, has his name recorded as Dominik. As we observed months ago (here), the name Dominik is not remotely Mennonite; the Grandma database does not record a single Mennonite bearing that name.

So, one may reasonably ask, what was David’s older brother’s name? The answer is right in front of us, well, if we happen to be looking at the 1840 Waldheim list. David’s older brother was Benjamin, named after his father, who was also named after his father. Everything fits together perfectly when we recognize that David’s brother, father, and grandfather were all named Benjamin. To simplify our discussion, we will refer to them as follows: Benjamin I was the father of Benjamin II, who was the father of brothers Benjamin III and David.

There is no other reasonable explanation of the information that we have. Benjamin II (and family) arrived in Waldheim in 1839 and was assigned a Wirtschaft at the beginning of 1840; Benjamin III presumably accompanied his father and family to Waldheim at the same time (although he may have come later), but he was granted a Wirtschaft as well while he was living with his father Benjamin II. Two Benjamin Bullers and two Wirtschaften.

At the risk of becoming repetitive, let us state it clearly one more time. We know that Benjamin I was named Benjamin because of his son Benjamin II’s middle name: the name Benjamin Benjamin on the 1839 list and and in the right-hand column of the 1840 list indicates beyond any doubt that the father was named Benjamin. We also know that the person who qualified for a Wirtschaft in 1840 bore the name Benjamin Benjamin, so he had to be the son of Benjamin II—thus our label Benjamin III. (We are using the labels for convenience. For all that we know Benjamin I’s father may have been named Benjamin as well!)

Perhaps this is a good place to stop. Dominik on the Rovno register was actually Benjamin, David’s older brother by two years.* This correction of the 1819–1809 record enables us to fit together a few more pieces of our family puzzle, which we will address in the following post.


Note

* This is why a previous post (here) confidently equated Dominik Wedel on the Rovno register with Benjamin Wedel on the 1833 list of Mennonites who wished to leave Volhynia. It appears that the (presumably) Russian official recording names substituted Dominik for Benjamin in more than one instance.