A second look

Recently, while working through the 1845 list of Waldheim residents who had decided to return to Volhynia, an entry that I had no doubt looked at before jumped out at me. The head of household was named David Nachtigal. That was not the part that caught my eye; what follows David’s name did:

His relative Jacob Zielke remains here.

There is that last name Zielke again, the maiden name of Helena wife of David Buller and mother of Peter D. Might this be a relative of hers? We do not have many clues to go on, but we will see what we can turn up.

We know the members of Helena’s family from the Rovno register that we looked at earlier this year (see here). Helena’s parents were named Jacob and Maria, and she had four older siblings: Johann, Maria, Katherina, and Friedrich.

Listing of the Jacob and Maria Zielke family in the Rovno register

According to the GRANDMA database, there was a second Jacob Zielke family in Waldheim. This Jacob Zielke was married to Elisabeth (Eva) Sperling, and they had nine children, all of them born in Waldheim: Johann (1843), Jacob (1844), Maria Elizabeth (1848), Heinrich (1849), Abraham (1851), Eva (1853), Elisabeth (1856), Peter (1857), and Kornelius (1861).

So, which of the two Jacob Zielkes might be mentioned on the 1845 list—if either? We really cannot venture a guess, since either Zielke family could have been related to David Nachtigal. According to GRANDMA (265688), David was born in Danzig, Poland, which is where many Zielkes also originated.

What we can say—and what this note reminds us—is that there is no evidence either on the 1845 list or on the 1850 Heinrichsdorf census that any Zielke returned to Volhynia. In other words, when Helena and David left Waldheim for Heinrichsdorf, she was leaving her entire birth family behind to start a new life with her husband David and their small but growing family.

Buller Time blog does not want to forget about the Zielkes, so we will continue to look for them as opportunity arises, even when it requires taking a second look.