GM 3: Helena ????? Buller, 402139

Since Benjamin Buller 1’s wife is unknown, Helena Buller is our earliest known matriarch.

Her entry in the GM database is brief, reflecting the reality that all we really know about her is her first name. Whereas this post title signals our lack of knowledge of her maiden name by supplying ?????, GM does so by using _____ where her last name should appear.

Sources: The key sources of information about Helena include:

1. Register of Mennonites in Rovno Region, Volhynia, 1819–1820


2. The 1850 Census of Heinrichsdorf, Volhynia


3. Heinrichsdorf church book

Birth: GM states that her year of birth was 1799 but does not indicate a source. We can supply GM’s source, but we must also introduce some uncertainty. The Heinrichsdorf church book (link 3 above, p. 61, here) states that Helena was born in 1799, which one would think settles the matter. However, two other pieces of evidence point in a different direction.

The first mention of Helena, the 1820 Rovno register (link 1), lists Helena’s age as twenty-five and Benjamin 2’s as thirty-one. This six-year difference in ages would imply a year of birth of 1795 for Helena (since Benjamin 2 was born in 1789).

The 1850 Heinrichsdorf census (link 2) complicates the question further, since it records Helena’s age as fifty-seven and Benjamin’s as sixty-one, a difference of four years. Aligning this with Benjamin’s birth year would result in a 1793 year of birth for Helena.

In the end, we cannot know which of these dates—1793, 1795, or 1799—is correct, if any. For now, the best solution would seem to be to list the range 1793–1795.

Family, Spouse: Benjamin 2 is correctly identified as Helena’s husband. The evidence for this is the same as that given in the post about Benjamin 2 (here).

Family, Children: The corrections entered and comments made for Benjamin 2 apply to Helena as well. Simply stated, she was the mother of four sons and perhaps as many as five daughters.

Notes: Helena presumably was born in Prussia/Poland as well, likely in the vicinity of Benjamin 2, wherever that might have been. At every stage of the family’s travels, from Prussia to Volhynia (first Zofyovka, then Ostrowka) to Molotschna (Waldheim) and then back to Volhynia (Heinrichsdorf), Helena is listed alongside Benjamin 2, so we assume that she also spent her final years in Waldheim and is probably buried there.