Peter Buller Baptism 2

The previous post identified with reasonable certainty a record of Peter D Buller’s baptism in the Alexanderwohl church book. Little information is provided in the main part of the entry, only an identifying number (675), his name, his village (Waldheim), and the date of his baptism (7 June 1866).

Fortunately, that is not the extent of the entry. As shown in the scan below, the body of the church book consists of two parts: the main entry on the left half and additional comments on the right half. 

Peter Buller 675 (Peter D) is one of those individuals with an additional comment recorded. His is the middle one shown below.

Thanks to Mark Dillon, we have a transcription of the handwritten comment: “Attest genommen nach Margnenau 1866,” which one might translate woodenly “Certificate taken to Margenau 1866.” Duerksen and Duerksen offer the more idiomatic “Letter of transfer to Margenau 1866” (1987, 68a).

Translations of the German may differ, but the point remains the same: Peter Buller 675, who was baptized on 7 June 1866, transferred to the Margenau church that same year and carried with him, it seems, a letter attesting his good standing as a baptized member in the Alexanderwohl church. (The transfer document requires further research on my part, but I believe this description is generally accurate.)

Why, one might wonder, would someone just baptized in one church transfer to another? The answer seems obvious in the case of Peter D Buller: to join the church of his wife and her family. Recall that Peter D and Sarah Siebert were married only two months after Peter’s baptism. When one places that fact alongside the record of Peter’s transfer to the Margenau church about the same time (at most within a few months), it seems highly plausible to think that the transfer had everything to do with Peter’s joining the household (recall our discussions of matrilocality; for Peter D, see here) of his in-laws—and any good son-in-law living with his wife’s parents would naturally attend church with them, which presumably was the case with Peter D and the Johann Sieberts.

Based on all this, we can probably conclude that Johann and family, who had lived in Kleefeld since 1857 or 1858 (for a discussion of Johann Siebert’s settling in Kleefeld, see here), were members of the Margenau church in 1866 and that Peter D joined that church when joined the Johann Siebert family after his marriage to Sarah.

I am unaware of any church records from the Margenau church; it may be that early on the Margenau church records were incorporated into those of Alexanderwohl, if indeed “in 1842–1874 the church was known as the Margenau-Alexanderwohl Mennonite Church” (Krahn and Redekopp 2017). (I think it wise always to search for documentation of such claims.) A close association of the two churches might also shed light on Peter D’s baptism and relatively quick transfer to another congregation: if the two congregations were linked, Peter was not so much leaving one church as moving from one group to another within the larger church body.

There is certainly more for us to learn about the identification and organization of Molotschna’s churches: which Mennonite groups were represented in Molotschna and which churches belonged to each of these groups throughout the nineteenth century. That is obviously a task for another time.

Works Cited

Duerksen, Velda Richert, and Jacob A. Duerksen, trans. 1987. Church Book of the Alexanderwohl Mennonite Church in the Molotschna Colony of South Russia. Translation of the Kirchen Buch der Gemeinde zu Alexanderwohl. Goessel, KS: Mennonite Immigrant Historical Foundation. Velda Richert Duerksen is the translator of the Gemeindebericht.

Krahn, Cornelius, and Alf Redekopp. 2017. Margenau-Alexanderwohl-Landskrone Mennonite Church (Molotschna Mennonite Settlement, Zaporizhia Oblast, Ukraine). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online.  Available online here.

Peter Buller’s Baptism

Dumb luck strikes again—maybe. Recently while browsing through the English translation of the Alexanderwohl church book (Duerksen and Duerksen 1987), I stumbled upon a listing of baptisms in a supplemental section. 

The list of church members baptized was not an original part of the church book per se but was created by Duerksen and Duerksen, I assume, based on the information provided in the body of the church book. That is, it appears that the translators took information from the body of the book and compiled it into an additional list, so readers could see at a glance who was baptized on a given day.

What caught my eye in this section is the list of names given for 7 June 1866.

I call your attention particularly to rows 9 and 12. The baptismal candidate listed in row 9 was named Peter Buller, son of David Buller; they lived in the village Hierschau, which was roughly a mile west of Waldheim. The candidate in row 12 was also named Peter, and his father’s name was also David; the only difference is that these two hailed from Waldheim. 

One has to ask: What are the odds that two Peter Bullers were baptized on the same day, let alone two Peter Bullers born to a David Buller? I recognize that there were various Bullers associated with the Alexanderwohl church, but this still seemed somewhat curious—especially in light of the fact that our ancestor Peter D was the son of a David Buller from Waldheim. 

The original entry from the Alexanderwohl church book (see here) both confirms and complicates the matter. Frame 32 shows the first Peter Buller as entry 672 and the second Peter Buller as 675. If one looks closely, however, there is a clear difference between the two entries.

   

The third and fourth columns of 672 identify his parents by number: 402 and 403. Turning back in the church book we learn that these numbers refer to David Buller and his wife, an unknown Wedel. The third and fourth columns of 675, on the other hand, are blank. No father or mother is listed for Peter 675.

This leads one to wonder why Duerksen and Duerksen supplied David as the name of the father of the second Peter Buller. It is not attested in the body of the church book. Was this a mistake on their part, or did they draw on information beyond the church book? More important, however they arrived at the father’s name, did they get it right? Most important of all, is this the baptismal record for Peter D Buller?

The GRANDMA database is the most likely resource for answering the last two questions. We begin with Peter D’s own entry.

The typical GRANDMA entry lists the date and location of birth (when known), followed by the date of baptism, immigration information, date and place of death, burial, and then the immediate family (spouse[s] and children). Note that no baptism information is provided for Peter D. We can be relatively certain that he was baptized, but thus far no one has been able to say when.

There are three other dates to keep in mind. Peter D was born on 11 January 1845; the baptism took place on 7 June 1866; Peter D married Sarah Siebert several months later, on 27 August 1866. If the second Peter Buller in the Alexanderwohl church book is Peter D Buller, then the sequence would be that, when Peter was twenty-one, he was baptized and became a full-fledged member of the church; several months after his baptism he wed Sarah Siebert and began to establish his own family. 

I must admit that there is a certain chronological logic to this sequence, but that does not constitute proof that Peter 675 in the church book is Peter D. There may well have been other Peter Bullers who also might also qualify to be baptismal candidate number 2. A search in GRANDMA can identify them for us, so that we can judge whether any of them is more likely than Peter D. 

If a person being baptized in Alexanderwohl was sixteen at the youngest and twenty-six at the oldest (few were baptized younger or older), the birth year of any potential candidate would fall sometime between 1840 and 1850. A search in GRANDMA for all Peter Bullers born between these years identifies six possibilities. One was born in Warsaw, Poland; he can be excluded. Another was reportedly baptized in Heinrichsdorf, Volhynia, on 11 February 1862; he can be excluded. Little is known of a third option: he has no year of birth or father or location; he might be considered, but he apparently married in 1862, so one would think that he was baptized before that event. The fourth option listed is our own Peter D. The fifth is the Peter Buller from Hierschau (number 672 in the church book); he has his own listing in the church book and was baptized the same day as the object of our search, so we can exclude him from consideration. The sixth and final Peter Buller in this time frame was baptized two years earlier in Alexanderwohl, on 7 June 1864; he appears as number 607 in the church book and thus cannot be the Peter Buller for whom we are looking.

Of these six candidates, Peter D is by far the most likely to have been the second Peter Buller (675) listed in the Alexanderwohl church book. Of course, there may have been other Peter Bullers born between 1840 and 1850 who lived close to Alexanderwohl in 1866, but until some other Peter Buller comes to light, the best explanation of all of the evidence is that Peter Buller 675 in the Alexanderwohl church book was none other than our own Peter D, who was baptized at the age of twenty-one and then several months later wed Sarah Siebert, oldest daughter of Johann.

Another piece of the puzzle seemingly has been found, but that is not all. The notes page across from Peter Buller’s Alexanderwohl entry contains additional information that will fill in another detail about Peter and Sarah’s life. That will, as usual, have to await the following post.

Work Cited

Duerksen, Velda Richert, and Jacob A. Duerksen, trans. 1987. Church Book of the Alexanderwohl Mennonite Church in the Molotschna Colony of South Russia. Translation of the Kirchen Buch der Gemeinde zu Alexanderwohl. Goessel, KS: Mennonite Immigrant Historical Foundation.

Siebert or Hiebert?

It occurred to me this afternoon that I had no idea where in Molotschna Johann Siebert, the father of Sarah, who was the the wife of Peter D Buller, lived before taking up residence in Kleefeld. I thought it would be easy enough to find out: I would simply look in the 1835 Molotschna census. Certainly the name of Johann’s father, Cornelius Peter, would appear.

Surprisingly, the index to the census (here) lists only one Siebert family in the entire colony, and it is not Cornelius Peter Siebert but rather Heinrich Peter Siebert, who was born around 1800 (based on his reported age) and who resided at Elizabethtal 1. The absence of Johann’s father Cornelius was a mystery begging for a solution.

GRANDMA is obviously the first place to look, but the entry for Johann Siebert offers no mention of the census. The only conclusion we can draw from the information there is that Johann was thirteen years old in 1835.

We should not overlook the fact that Johann’s father Cornelius and the Heinrich listed in the census both have the middle name Peter, which raises the possibility that they had the same father. There is only one place to look for the answer: GRANDMA. The entry for Cornelius links to his father Peter, whose page is shown below.

Obviously, Cornelius Peter and Heinrich Peter were brothers, with the former born circa 1796 and the latter in 1802. The page for Heinrich Peter adds that he resided at Elizabethal 1 in the 1835 census (as we noted above) and notes that he came to Russia in 1822. What about the page for Cornelius?

Note first that Johann is listed as Cornelius Peter’s fourth child, born 13 June 1822. Farther down in the Notes section we read: “The 1835 Molotschna Census lists him at Elisabethal #22 and says he came to Russia in 1828.” According to GRANDMA, then, Cornelius lived in the same village as his brother Heinrich at the time of the 1835 census. If this is true, then why is Cornelius not listed in the index to the census?

The English translation of the census we have consulted previously (see here for background on that translation) reveals the answer to this question. 

Family 22 in Elizabethal lists the head of household as Kornelius Peter Hiebert. The parenthetical “Siebert” above the line (with a question mark) is presumably a translator’s addition. Comparing the names and ages of the sons in the census against the GRANDMA entry (children 3, 4, 5, and 8), as well as two daughters on the census page not shown, confirms that this family is that of Cornelius Peter Siebert, not Hiebert. The fact that Cornelius’s brother Heinrich lived at the same village only increases the probability that this is Cornelius Peter Siebert. In other words, it seems that the census mistakenly records Hiebert for Siebert and thus obscures, at least at first glance, the presence of our Siebert ancestor in 1835 Molotschna.

Knowing that Johann was raised in Elizabethal fills in a small piece of his history, but it may open the door to us for a better understanding of when and how he ended up in Kleefeld thirteen years later. At least now we can watch more attentively for other clues about Johann or his family’s whereabouts and doings in Molotschna during the middle of the nineteenth century.

One final note: According to the census, the Cornelius Peter Siebert family settled in Molotschna in 1828. GRANDMA adds that they emigrated there from the Gross Werder (large marsh) in Prussia (Poland), a lowland area where the Vistula empties into the Baltic Sea. Johann was six years old when his family journeyed to Molotschna. Johann then spent the balance of his childhood and over three decades of his adult life in Molotschna, before emigrating to the United States in 1879. Johann Siebert did not merely move from one country to another once in his life; he actually did so twice—and even moved from one continent to another when we was nearly sixty years old. Like many others of his generation, Johann was quite a remarkable person to have persevered through so much. We all can take a lesson from his life.

Grandpa’s Siblings Redux

Several years ago we devoted several posts to Grandpa Chris’s brothers and sisters (see here and work your way forward). Those posts showed all of the individual photographs that we had at the time and culminated in a group photo of all the living children at the time of their father Peter P’s funeral.

Recently while browsing through the Heinrich Epp family book, Episodes of the Prairie Pioneers: Five Branches from the Family Tree of Heinrich Epp: Heinrich, Cornelius, Peter, Johann, Gerhard, I discovered that it contains a number of photographs that supplement nicely the photos that we earlier viewed.

Collected together on one page are seven of Peter P’s children with their spouses. The following page has an additional photograph with Henry and his wife Beatrice, as well as one with Anna Buller Warde (Grandpa’s youngest sister), Henry, and the two sisters who never married: Sara and Maria. (I will post the other photos later on.) In other words, we have new photographs of all of Peter P and Margaretha’s children except for their first son, who died after only eight days.

It is remarkable that Elsie Helen Epp collected all these photographs, and I can only wonder where they are now. If the wedding photo for Grandpa and Grandma looks familiar, congratulate yourself on your good memory. Buller Time posted it here exactly four years ago today.

If any reader has originals of these or any other family photographs, please contact me so we can talk about how to share them with the rest of the larger Buller family on the blog. In the meantime, I will be thinking about how to supplement the old posts with these new photos, so all the information and photographs we have for each person are available from a single spot.

An Experiment 1

Although blogging has been terribly light the past few weeks, work has continued in the background on matters pertaining to Alexanderwohl and Molotschna more broadly. The 1835 Russian census has been the focus of attention, since it holds considerable information about the broader Buller family and the context in which our forebears lived in the first half of the nineteenth century.

Believing that the best way to learn about something is to dig into it in detail, I decided to enter the information presented for Alexanderwohl into a spreadsheet. I was not entirely clear what I would do with the information once I had it entered or even if it would prove useful in a sortable spreadsheet form. I did not know (and still do not know) if someone else already had entered the census data into a spreadsheet. None of that really mattered, since the point of the exercise was to become intimately familiar with the structure and content and quirks and nuances of the census itself.

I have uploaded the current version (it is by no means a finished product) so anyone can view it here. I believe anyone can also copy and paste the data, which I welcome. I assume that there are a number of errors lurking (please advise me of any that you discover), and I have no doubt that some may question the arrangement of the information or even my decisions about what to include or to exclude. My only response is that this is an experiment, and a developing one at that—an experiment to find out if there might be any value to having the basic information of the 1835 Molotschna census entered into a publicly available spreadsheet.

The Alexanderwohl information that I entered was gleaned from the handwritten translation of the census distributed by the Manitoba Mennonite Historical Society (see here). Using someone else’s translation is clearly inferior to consulting copies of the actual pages, and one would no doubt want to check each entry in the spreadsheet against the original census before considering the file finished. (I believe that the original pages have been microfilmed, but I do not know if they have been scanned and saved in a more common graphics format.) Still, the translation represents a considerable amount of work and is a valuable entrée to the census.

The layout of the translation, which resembles that of the original census, can be seen in the scan of the page containing our ancestor Benjamin Benjamin (aka Benjamin Heinrich) Buller in Wirstschaft 16.

We will use this page from the MMHS translation to learn about the 1835 census in greater detail. (A larger version of the page is available here; I strongly encourage you to view the larger version.)

1. Notice first that males are listed on left-hand pages and females on the right. We have seen this setup before, both in an earlier look at the 1850 census (here) and in the Heinrichsdorf church book from roughly the same time (here). We will return to the gender-differentiated setup at a later time.

2. The pages are not numbered consecutively as we would number pages, with each side of a page being given a unique number. Rather, the front and back of a single sheet bear the same number. In other words, the front of the page on the left is numbered 489, and the page we see (what I am calling the back) is numbered “489 next side of the page.” Likewise, the page following the one shown on the right is numbered “490 next side of the page.”

3. The census pages are dated, and each Alexanderwohl page bears the date 18 February 1835. We will discuss why that date is recorded a little later.

4. The location of the place being counted is also identified clearly: Province of Taurida, District of Melitopol, Molochansk, Mennonite District Alexanderwohl.

5. The male and female pages record some, but not all, of the same types of information. Both males and females are identified by family number (left column) and by relation to the household head or some other male and by name (the widest column); in addition, the current age for all males and females listed as living in the household is recorded. 

Columns unique to the male side are: (1) arrivals according to last census and after same (which asks for a date or age to be provided); and (2) departures from previous number (which asks for a date to be supplied). Only one column is unique to the female side: during temporary separation (since what date). The point of this column escapes me, and a quick browse through many pages of the census implies that nothing is ever entered into this column. Thus for females we generally find entered only the female’s relation to a male listed in the census plus her name and age.

6. On the male side of the ledger, one frequently finds an entry such as “in the year of 1820” (before family 16), “in the year of 1822” (before family 17), or “in the year of 1819” (before family 18). These statements identify the year that a family first entered Russia.

7. Finally, barely visible in lower right of the right-hand page of this scan is a number: 13. Each page records the total number of people living in Alexanderwohl recorded on that page. The corresponding number for the male page is missing from the photocopy, but it no doubt reads “8” even though nine males are listed. Benjamin Benjamin Buller died in 1830, so his name has a – in the age column, which also means that he is not counted for the page total; only those with ages listed are counted.

Now that we have a sense of how the census pages are set up, we are ready to look at the spreadsheet and its record of most of this information. That will be the subject of the next post, after which we will begin to process some of the specific information that we find in the Alexanderwohl pages.