GM 4: Benjamin Buller 3

With this post we move to the third generation of our known ancestors. We began with Benjamin 1 (here), then followed with his son Benjamin 2 and the latter’s wife, Helena (here and here). Now we begin with Benjamin 2 and Helena’s oldest son: Benjamin Buller 3.

The lack of a GM number in the post title is a signal, just as it was with Benjamin Buller 1, that this person does not appear in the GM database.

Sources: Benjamin Buller 3 appears in five primary sources:

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


2. Mennonites Who Transferred from Volhynia to Waldheim and Assigned Land in 1840


3. Mennonites in Waldheim Who Planted Potatoes and Flax in Spring 1839


4. List of Mennonites Moving from Waldheim Back to Volhynia and Those Remaining: 1845


5. Mennonites Assigned Wirtschaften in Waldheim in 1839–1841

Identity: We have multiple attestations of this person, which leaves little doubt about his existence. His first appearance is in the Rovno register (link 1 above), where his name is entered as Dominik. It is unclear why that name is recorded, since there is little doubt in the later records that he was named Benjamin (links 2–4).

Birth: Our only clue as to his year of birth is the age given in the Rovno register. He is listed as four years old, two years older than his brother David, so we can calculate his year of birth to have been in or around 1816. His status as the oldest child is confirmed by the fact that he was the first child in the family to be assigned a land allotment (link 2), which implies that he was the firstborn.

Family, Spouse: We assume Benjamin 3 was married (see next), but we know not to whom.

Family, Children: The 1845 list of Waldheim residents who decided to move back to Volhynia also records family members who were not moving back (link 4). So, in addition to listing the number of Bullers who were returning, the list records the number who remained in Waldheim, that is, Benjamin 3 and his family. According to the list, Benjamin 3’s family included two males and four females. We can deduce from this that Benjamin and his wife had one son and three daughters. Unfortunately, we do not know anything else about them, not even their names.

Notes

1. Benjamin 3’s history is the same as the rest of the family’s up through the assignment of land to Benajamin 2 in 1839. Benjamin 3 was also assigned a Wirtschaft the following year (link 2), which signals the establishment of his own household. Presumably he was married by that time.

2.  The list of Mennonites assigned Wirtschaften in Waldheim (link 5) correctly has two entries for Benjamin Buller: one of them was for Benjamin 2 (father), the other for Benjamin 3 (son). The two lot numbers assigned to these Bullers were 26 and 36; however, we do not know which lot belonged to father and which to son.

3. Surprisingly, we lose sight of Benjamin 3 after the 1845 record of his remaining in Waldheim. As a landowner, Benjamin was entitled to vote, but his name is nowhere to be found in the 1847 and 1851 Waldheim elections. In fact, according to the record of those elections (helpfully provided by Glenn Penner here), Jacob Loewen now owned plot 26 and Peter Huebert now owned plot 36. Regardless of which plot Benjamin 3 originally owned, one thing is certain: he did not own it as of 1847, just seven years after he first gained title to it.

Yet another document compiled by Glenn Penner (here) indicates that both Jacob Loewn and Peter Hiebert (not Huebert there) transferred to Waldheim in 1846. In all likelihood, one of the two bought Benjamin 3’s Wirtschaft at that time. So what happened to Benjamin 3? Did he die? move elsewhere? remain in Waldheim but pursue some other work?

Of these options, the first and the second seem the most likely. We know that in 1845 Benjamin had three daughters and one son. If he had remained in Waldheim, we should find those children on the Molotschna school records. However, the only Buller children in Waldheim in 1853–1855 (here) are from a different Buller family. There were additional Buller school children in Waldheim in 1861–1862 (here), but none of them had a father named Benjamin. This evidence implies that Benjamin 3 did not remain in Waldheim; it is more likely that he died or moved away.

We cannot really know what happened, although it is tempting to speculate. I cannot help but notice, for example, that in 1857–1858 a Benjamin Buller had a child in school in the village immediately to the west of Waldheim: Hierschau (see here). The two villages were within sight of one another, and it appears that many from Waldheim moved to Hierschau in the late 1840s. All that makes it tempting to imagine that fourteen-year-old Heinrich Buller, an 1857–1858 Hierschau student whose father was named Benjamin, is evidence that Benjamin 3 moved down the road from Waldheim to Hierschau. Presumably the same Benjamin lived in Hierschau in 1861–1862, when his daughter Katharina, age seven, attended school. 

Tempting as it is to think that this Benjamin Buller in Hierschau was Benjamin Buller 3, we simply do not know and dare not suggest it as even likely. Whoever this Benjamin Buller was, it seems he never owned a Wirtschaft in Hierschau.

In the end, Benjamin Buller 3 should be added to GRANDMA, with a year of birth around 1816 and his residence as a landowner in Waldheim. Adding him to the database would also enable him to be listed as the oldest son of Benjamin 2 and Helena, which would fill out the family more accurately than it currently is.