Heinrichsdorf history 4

We will return to Benjamin Buller and family soon (promise!), but first we should tie up some loose ends with the village that they called home: Heinrichsdorf. Thus far we have attempted to locate the village (here), surveyed one primary source on the village’s founding and early history (here), and examined a possible explanation for why the village founders left Waldheim in Molotschna colony (see here and here).

The goal of this post is modest: to determine how many of the Mennonites named on the 1845 list of those wishing to leave Waldheim and return to Volhynia appear on the Heinrichsdorf census taken in 1850. The simplest way to proceed will be to list all the people (not just heads of households) named on the 1845 list of Mennonites who planned to move from Waldheim back to Volhynia, then see how many of those names reappear on the 1850 census. We should also be on the lookout for names on the 1850 census that do not appear in the 1845 list.

We begin with the names on the 1845 list:

1. Cornelius Funk	18. Widow Vanke	35. Johann Voth
2. Peter Schmidt	19. Cornelius Funk	36. Andreas Schmidt
3. Cornelius Unruh	20. Benjamin Funk	37. Johann Schmidt
4. Benjamin Ratzlaff	21. Andreas Funk	38. Benjamin Buller Sr.
5. Jacob Buller	22. David Koehn	39. David Buller
6. Jacober Buller	23. Tobias Schultz	40. Heinrich Buller
7. Heinrich Buller	24. Samuel Boese	41. David Koehn
8. Peter Buller	25. Benjamin Janz	42. Cornelius Balzer
9. Heinrich Nachtigal	26. Johann Ewert	43. Widow Worbel
10. Cornelius Unruh	27. Heinrich Funk	44. Jacob Pankratz
11. Benjamin Unruh	28. Jacob Funk	45. Michael Teske
12. Heinrich Unruh	29. Cornelius Funk	46. Cornelius Teske
13. Widow Unruh	30. Heinrich Wedel Jr.	47. David Nachtigal
14. Katharina Unruh	31. Widow Maria Ratzlaff	48. Georg Bayer
15. Benjamin Unruh	32. Jacob Boese	49. Jacob Klassen
16. Widow Unruh	33. Benjamin Boese
17. David Unruh	34. Benjamin Ratzlaff

Comparing it to the 1850 census (here) reveals nothing surprising or remarkable. Almost all of these people appear on the census, which indicates that most people followed through with their plans to relocate in Volhynia. Only Widow Vanke (no. 18), Heinrich Wedel Jr. (no. 30; but see below), and Johann Voth (no. 35) are not listed on the 1850 census.

One oddity is that the names appear in the same exact order in the 1850 Heinrichsdorf census as in the earlier 1845 Molotschna list. How was this engineered, when the lists were compiled five years apart and in locations separated by hundreds of miles? One might attribute it to Russian government efficiency (i.e., some office clerk recopied the 1850 list to match the order of the 1845 one), were it not for the fact that the 1850 census is apparently an original copy created on location, since it bears the signatures of the Heinrichsdorf community leaders. Another possibility is that the census takers worked from a earlier document (e.g., the 1845 list) instead of beginning with a blank piece of paper. Another question that we may never adequately answer.

At any rate, the census does provide additional information for several people listed.

1. Jacober Buller (no. 6) is identified in the census as Jacob Gregor Buller. How he is related to our family is as yet unknown.

2. The census notes that the father of Cornelius Funk (no. 19) died in 1846, thus presumably after the 1845 list but before the group left Waldheim. Why his name is not on the 1845 list is unknown. That his name appears with his sons and their families on the Heinrichsdorf census, even though he never made it to Heinrichsdorf, reminds us not to read too much into how we think these records should be arranged.

3. Tobias Schultz (no. 23) seems to correspond to Tobias Schmidt in the 1850 census; both appear in the same place in the list. However, the census is also signed by Tobias Schulz, so the relation of all these names remains unclear.

4. According to the 1850 census, the widow Maria Ratzlaff (no. 31) had a son named Johann, which enables us to identify her deceased husband: Heinrich.

5. Johann Schmidt (no. 37) is listed as Jacob Schmidt in the census. Apparently the two names were somewhat interchangeable.

6. Widow Worbel’s name is missing in the 1845 list, but the census reports that her name is Anna, that her husband died in 1844 (back in Molotschna), and that his name was Johann.

7. The 1850 census includes one family that is not found on the 1845 list, that of Johann Schmidt. He appears at the very end (thus perhaps confirming the suggestion above that the census taker worked from an earlier document that had all the other names in order). Schmidt does appear in a later part of the 1845 list; it is not clear why he was not listed with the other thirty-three families.

None of this is earth-shattering, but there is one important piece of information contained in the 1850 census: the Heinrichsdorf teacher Johann Ratzlaff and deacon Benjamin Unruh had not yet returned to Waldheim at that time. Benjamin Unruh (no. 11) was living in Heinrichsdorf with his wife Helena and their three children. The name Johann Ratzlaff does not appear on the 1845 list because he was counted as part of his widowed mother’s household.

In fact, almost everyone who involved with the establishment of Heinrichsdorf still resided there in 1850. When we dig into the Heinrichsdorf church book in the next post, that picture will change in a dramatic way.