There is Heinrichsdorf!

The community of Mennonite researchers, historians, and genealogists is remarkably helpful, always eager to share both resources and knowledge. Rod Ratzlaff is the latest to contribute to Buller Time’s quest to learn more about the world in which our family lived. An earlier post wondered about the location of Heinrichsdorf (see here) and offered two options that have been put forward.

Thanks to Rod, we can now confidently conclude that both options are wrong. Heinrichsdorf was not located northeast of Berdichev, as Schroeder–Huebert (1996) and Schrag (1959) claimed, nor was the village southwest of Berdichev, as the Society for German Genealogy in Eastern Europe Volhynian Gazetteer indicated. In fact, Heinrichsdorf was roughly 12 miles northwest of Berdichev. The Google Maps satellite view below shows the earlier mistaken placements of the village (the pins on the right) as well as the correct location (the point of the arrow).

The map below (all the following maps were provided by Rod) is from 1889, well after the time our family lived there. The black line going diagonally from the upper left to the lower right is a railroad track, but it was not laid until 1871–1876.

The closeup below gives a better view of the layout and size of Heinrichsdorf at that time. Note the abbreviation Kol., which stands for “kolony,” a designation we have seen before to indicate that the village was inhabited by colonists, immigrants (see here).

The next image is from a 1917 Russian map. The arrow points to the village itself, and the name of the village sits on top and to the right: Кол. Генрихсдорфъ (Kol. Genrikhsdorf).

The final map is a 1931 Polish one (perhaps actually mapped in the early 1920s). The village is much smaller by this time, and it disappears entirely from later maps.

If I have my bearings correct, the Google Maps satellite photo below shows the previous site of the village. Comparing the photo with the maps above, the bend in the track on the right side of the photo is the best clue for locating the village.

Although our family left Heinrichsdorf long before it vanished from the face of the earth, they did leave some of their own behind. At the least, Heinrich and Anna Buller’s daughter Maria (i.e., our ancestor David’s niece) and Peter and Maria’s son Heinrich (David’s nephew) presumably remain buried somewhere near the site of the former village. Although not part of our direct line, they are still part of our larger family and deserve to be remembered just the same.

Again, thank you to Rod Ratzlaff for teaching us about Heinrichsdorf via the maps and information that he provided. Now that we know where Heinrichsdorf is, maybe someday one of our clan will be fortunate enough to visit the site.

Works Cited

Schrag, Martin H. 1959. Volhynia (Ukraine). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Available online here.

Schroeder, William, and Helmut T. Huebert. 1996. Mennonite Historical Atlas. 2nd ed. Winnipeg: Springfield.