Volhynian land leases 5

Accidental discoveries are often interesting, especially when they reveal how what appear to be stray threads actually fit within a larger tapestry. Consider, for example, the 1848 land lease we recently examined (here). We studied the lease in order to learn what we could about nineteenth-century lease terms and how they dealt with issues of taxation. If you recall, in this lease eight Mennonite families were renting land from another Mennonite (see here). The lease began as follows:

The Mennonite Christoph Gering, residing on his own property in the colony Dosidorf, will lease to eight families, eight huben of land, including eight houses, gardens, fields, meadows, and woods. 

With that in mind, permit me to tell a wandering story, with a promise that we will return to the same spot. On a number of occasions we we have consulted the Volhynia article in the Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online (here) written by Martin H. Schrag (1959). We have confirmed his statements (here, about the association between Zofyovka and Ostrwoka), questioned his claims (here, about locating Ostrowka northeast of Lutsk or Luck), and even wondered why he omitted Bullers, and only Bullers, from his summary of the 1811 Zofyovka lease (here).

Schrag wrote more than the GAMEO article, of course. For example, he wrote several articles on the topic of Volhynian Mennonites for Mennonite Life (Schrag 1954, 1958; both available online), and his master’s thesis was on a similar subject: “European History of the Swiss-Volhynian Mennonite Ancestors of Mennonites Now Living in Kansas and South Dakota” (Schrag 1956). This latter work was also published in revised form as The European History (1525–1874) of the Swiss Mennonites from Volhynia (Schrag 1974).

Schrag’s book is not about our family (although the name Buller does appear once, which will be the subject of a later post) or our larger group. The Swiss-Volhynian Mennonites were a group separate from our ancestors and their Mennonite congregations. However, since it deals with Volhynia, it is an interesting read just the same, and in one instance it provides background on a Buller Time post.

Roughly halfway through the book Schrag discusses the location of the Swiss-Volhynian villages (a summary of Schrag 1958). Within that section he writes:

The larger part of the Urszulin-Michelsdorf colony resettled at Eduardsdorf about 1807. Villages colonized from Eduardsdorf include Zahoriz, Hecker, Gorritt (Koryto) and possibly Futtor. In a matter of a year the Vignanka folk either moved or became a part of the Eduardsdorf complex. The remaining Urszulin-Michelsdorf Mennonites moved (1837) to the Volhynian villages of Horodyszcze, Dosidorf (Zabara) and Waldheim. (Schrag 1974, 50)

The village we need to notice now is not the one that may jump out at us (Waldheim) but the village before that: Dosidorf (Zabara). If the name Dosidorf sounds familiar, it is because it is the village in which the Mennonite landlord in the 1848 lease above lived. But that is not all. Earlier in his book Schrag discusses the family names among the Swiss-Volhynian Mennonites:

In summary, the names of Gering, Graber, Kaufmann, Stucky, Schrag, Flickinger, Mündlein, Voran, Albrecht, Wolbert, Senner, Schwartz, Sutter, and Mauer were found in the Urszulin-Michelsdorf community. (Schrag 1974, 48)

Schrag’s summary corresponds to the evidence of the 1848 lease, where a Mennonite named Gering of Dosidorf rented land to eight Mennonites named Decker, Kohn, Ratzlaff, Schmidt, and Voth. That Gering was a member of the Swiss-Volhynian branch of Mennonites can scarcely be doubted. This also goes to a larger issue that we will address in the future, namely, the relations between the Swiss-Volhynian Mennonites and the Mennonites of whom our family was a part. Suffice it to say for the moment that there is probably more to explore down that trail.

For now we stay with the 1848 lease and the notion that Gering was a Swiss-Volhynian Mennonite. Interestingly, the descendants of this group maintain a website chock full of information (see here). Their genealogy page, for example, links to an extensive list of individuals current and historical, all the way back into the eighteenth century (if not earlier). Might the Gering landlord be listed there? Before we check, we should review the introduction to the lease:

On 20 October 1847, Christoph ______ [Gering], son of Moses, Mennonite and hereditary lord of the Mennonite colony, Novograd-Volynskiy district, Volhynian authority, entered into the following contract with these Mennonites from Ostrog district.…

A check of the Swiss Volhynian Genealogy Database (here) reveals no Christoph Gering. There is, however, one—and only one—Moses Gering, and he had a son named Christian who died at the age of seventy in 1859 in Volhhynia.

What makes this even more interesting is Rod Ratzlaff’s earlier suggestion (here) that this landlord might have been the Christian Gering listed in the GRANDMA database (number 91532). Everything we have seen here indicates strongly that Rod was right. The logic is a little messy but proceeds as follows:

1. The 1848 Mennonite landlord Gering lived in the village of Dosidorf.
2. Dosidorf had been populated by Swiss-Volhynian Mennonites since 1837.
3. One of the Swiss-Volhynian families in the settlement group was named Gering.

•  Therefore, it is likely that landlord Gering was a Swiss-Volhynian Mennonite.

4. Landlord Gering’s father was named Moses Gering.

5. There is only one known Moses Gering among the Swiss-Volhynian Mennonites.

6. Moses Gering had a son named Christian who lived at the right time and died in Volhynia.

•  Therefore, it is likely that landlord Gering was actually named Christian, not Christoph.

•  Therefore, it also likely that GRANDMA 91532 is the Gering who signed the 1848 lease.

The accidental discovery of the village name Dosidorf in Martin Schrag’s book prompted an interesting excursion that led us to confirm, I think, Rod Ratzlaff’s suggestion that the landlord was Christian Gering. In the end, this is a minor matter, but the journey broadened our understanding of Volhynia and of its varied Mennonite populations—and that makes it all worthwhile.

Works Cited

Ratzlaff, Rod, ed. 2016. Land Contract for Mennonite Colonists Resettling in the Village of Dosidorf, 1848. Translated from the German by Ute Brandenburg. Available online here.

Schrag, Martin H. 1954. The Swiss-Volhynian Mennonite Back­ground. Mennonite  Life 10.4:156–61. Available online here.

———. 1956. European History of the Swiss-Volhynian Mennonite Ancestors of Mennonites Now Living in Kansas and South Dakota. Master’s thesis, Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

———. 1958. A Geographic Study Determines Location of Swiss-Volhynian Mennonite Villages, 1800–74. Mennonite Life 13.3:142–43. Available online here.

———. 1959. Volhynia (Ukraine). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. 1959. Available online here.

———. 1974. The European History (1525–1874) of the Swiss Mennonites from Volhynia. Edited by Harley J. Stucky. North Newton, KS: Mennonite Press for Swiss Mennonite Cultural and Historical Association.