Benjamin Buller 17

In 1817 Benjamin (2) Buller and his family emigrated 350+ miles from Prussia (probably the Schwetz area) to a new settlement in northern Volhynia. Twenty-two years later, in 1839, the family (which now included our ancestor David) journeyed another 500 miles to the village of Waldheim in Molotschna colony. A mere six years after that, in 1845, Benjamin 2 and David and most of the rest of the family retraced their steps and made a 400-mile journey back to Volhynia to live there (where they settled is the subject of another post). Thus we add a blue arrow to the map to signify this latest journey.

Knowing as we do that David and his family eventually lived in Waldheim again (that is where some of his children attended school and where he died and was buried), we will obviously come back to the 1845 move, and we will examine several additional documents that help us to piece together (to some extent) his life’s journeys. For the moment, we focus on several less obvious discoveries about Benjamin 2’s (that is, our) family. The entry from the 1845 list transcribed by Steve Fast (see here) will provide the evidence.

	M	F	M	F
Benjamin Buller the elder
His sons David Buller and Heinrich Buller	4	4	5	5
Benjamin Buller the younger remained in the colony

1. The first thing to notice is that we now know the name of another brother of David: Heinrich. The list names three sons of Benjamin 2: Benjamin 3, David, and now Heinrich. Because this is the first we have heard of Heinrich, we can safely assume that he has was born after Benjamin 3 and David, both of whom were previously listed on the 1820 Rovno register (here). Slowly but surely we are fleshing out Bejamin 2 and Helena’s family.

2. Second, we should also note that the family increased in size between the totals in the left pair of columns (from 1839) and the totals in the right pair (1845): four males and four females are now five males and five females. Benjamin 3 (the younger) is entered later in this document (see below), so we are dealing here with Benjamin 2, David, Heinrich, and two unidentified males. One of those males was alive in the 1839 list (he was the fourth male on that list), but there was also a new addition between 1839 and 1845. Any guesses who that might have been?

The number of females in the family also increased. David was not married in 1839, so one would think that the four females in 1839 included Benjamin 2’s wife Helena and perhaps three daughters (sisters to David). We will see if this theory pans out as we sort through additional documents. Not to be forgotten is that one female was added to the family between 1839 and 1845 (from four to five), so again we ask: Any guesses as to her identity?

3. As noted in the main Benjamin Buller entry above and repeated later (page 5 in the Fast file), Benjamin 3 remained in Molotschna colony. The later entry offers the totals for his family as follows:

	M	F	M	F
Benjamin Buller the younger	1	1	2	4

We can deduce two things from this entry. First, Benjamin was married in 1839, since his entry lists one male and one female as part of his nuclear family. Second, between 1839 and 1845 Benjamin 3’s wife apparently bore one son and three daughters, so that the family had two males and four females total.

4. Actually, this is not the first record that has listed the number of males and females in the family. The 1833 list of Mennonites who wished to move from Volhynia to Molotschna (see here) also gave the total number of family members by gender. Benjamin 2’s entry read:

	M	F	total	occupation
Benjamin Buller	5	6	11	Landwirth (landowner/farmer)

Adding the four males and four females from the Benjamin 2 1839 entry above to the one male and one female from the Benjamin 3 1839 entry gives us a total of five males and five females, or a total of ten family members. There was one more female in 1833. There are two likely explanations of the discrepancy between the 1883 and 1839 totals: one of Benjamin and Helena’s daughters married and left the Buller household between 1833 and 1839; or one of Benjamin and Helena’s daughters died during that time. Which of these two explanations is correct (if either) cannot be known at this time.

From this brief look at the 1845 list we have both learned a great deal and uncovered more questions. We now know that our ancestor David Buller had a brother named Heinrich, but we do not know the names of two other male members of the family or the names of four of the female family members (everyone except Helena, David’s mother). Clearly, much work remains to be done.