Heinrichsdorf Bullers 2

We discovered in the previous post that the Heinrichsdorf church book does not record any events related to our family after 1861. The church book lists nearly 150 events during the years 1862–1874 in the pages preceding Benjamin Buller’s entries, but none for us. This led to a simple but seemingly inescapable conclusion: the last of our family members left Heinrichsdorf not too long after the last-recorded event. The GRANDMA database concurs.

We begin with the entry for Benjamin and Helena’s son Heinrich (i.e., David’s younger brother).

There are two things to note with the GRANDMA listing. (1) Heinrich and Anna Unruh Buller had a seventh child in 1861, a boy named Heinrich after his father. Heinrich Jr.’s older sister Eva is listed in the Heinrichsdorf church book, but he is not. (2) A note toward the bottom of the family entry states that Heinrich Sr. “was residing in Waldheim in 1862 per the Molotschna School Registers.” We will check that particular claim a little later, but for now it seems safe to conclude that Heinrich and Anna Unruh Buller and family left Heinrichsdorf sometime before the birth of their seventh child in 1861.

But what about Heinrich Sr.’s brother Peter, who is also entered into the Heinrichsdorf book? Peter and Maria Ratzlaff Buller had five children when we last saw them, and the birth of Benjamin on 31 January 1861 was the last Buller event recorded in the church book. However, GRANDMA knows of a sixth child, a son named Peter after his father, born on 20 March 1863. Peter Sr.’s GRANDMA entry immediately below shows Jr. at the bottom of the list.

When we look at Peter Jr.’s GRANDMA entry (below), we discover that it is reported that Peter Jr. was born in Waldheim, Molotschna colony. No source is provided for this information, but it is not hard to imagine this claim being true.

If the information gleaned from the Heinrichsdorf church book and GRANDMA is accurate, one can see a pattern repeated over the years. Benjamin and family made Heinrichsdorf their home in 1848, and the parents plus their three sons and their families were all listed on the 1850 census. However, by 1858 David and his family were gone, presumably back in Waldheim. A few years later brother Heinrich seems to have journeyed back to Waldheim as well, since his son born in 1861 is not listed in the church book. A year or two after that, brother Peter apparently followed David and Heinrich south to Waldheim, since his own youngest son was born in that Molotschna village in 1863.

Of course, we do not want to forget about the patriarch and matriarch of the family: Benjamin and Helena. Benjamin would have been seventy-two in 1861 and Helena anywhere between six to ten years younger. The fact that their deaths are not recorded in the Heinrichsdorf church book implies rather strongly that they returned to Waldheim with one of their sons, whether David in the 1850s or Heinrich or Peter in the early 1860s. We can never know, of course, but it seems most likely that our ancestors Benjamin and Helena died and were buried in Waldheim, perhaps in the same cemetery where their son (and our ancestor) David was laid to rest many years later.

Although the Heinrichsdorf segment of our family history seems to have come to an end, we are not yet done with Heinrichsdorf, nor are we done exploring new territory. Note in Peter Jr.’s entry above, for example, that he was married in a village named Kotlyarevka in Memrik colony. We should spend at least a little time acquainting ourselves with that, since it is part of our larger family story.