Brenkenhoffswalde in Neumark 2

Before we continue our exploration of Bullers in the Neumark region (aka the Netzebruch, Driesen, or Brandenburg), we should take a look back to where we have been.

First we identified and learned about David Buller (almost certainly 346 in the Przechowka church book), who lived in Neu Dessau, a village in the Neumark locale, around the years 1778–1780. Most recently, in the last post, we identified another Buller in another Neumark village a decade earlier: Peter Buller (PCB 351), who was living in Brenkenhoffswalde as early as 1767.

The Buller family chart shows the relation between these two Bullers with great clarity.

David is in the A column (far left), Peter in the B column. These two were sons of brothers, which made them cousins. They represent the two family lines of the six shown with the greatest presence in Neumark. It is important to keep these relations in mind as we move forward in time and see the Buller presence in Brenkenhoffswalde grow.

The next Praestations-Tabel (land-tax list) at our disposal from Brenkenhoffswalde dates to 1793 (Goertz 2001, 49). For a clear view of how things had changed in Brenkenhoffswalde between 1767 and 1793, we will present the two Praestations-Tabellen side by side.

	1767	1793
1	Cornelius Vood	Cornelius Voot
2	Hein Vood	Benjamin Voot, Tobias Dreger
3	Hans Vood	Hans Voot, Berent Voot
4	George Vood	Heinrich Buller
5	Peter Ratzlaff II	Joh. Quade olim Peter Buller
6	Hein Ohnrau	Cornelius Voot
7	Heinrich Ohnrau	Johann Funcke
8	Jacob Thomas	Jacob Voot
9	Jan Richert	Hein. Unruh
10	Peter Vood I	Jacob Voot
11	Peter Vood II	Martin Unruh
12	Abraham Ohnrau	Hein. Unruh
13	Witwe [widow] Reicherten	der von Sack olim David Unruh
14	Ernst Kühn	Wilh. Lange
15	Hans Decker	Peter Buller Jr.
16	Peter Buller	Peter Buller
17		das rothe Haus, welches 5 Mennoniten  unter sich haben

Before we focus on the new Bullers we encounter, a few words about other particulars: (1) olim is Latin for “formerly,” so the entry “Joh. Quade olim Peter Buller” means that the lot is now owned by Joh. Quade but had formerly been owned by Peter Buller; (2) lot 13’s “der von Sack” apparently is to be translated “the blind,” but what that means in context is not obvious; (3) the entry for lot 17 is likewise obscure: “the red house that has five Mennonites living within it” (my best guess).

Beyond those peculiarities, we note that the Voth family maintained its presence in the village, selling some lots and buying others but still owning six of Brenkenhoffswalde’s sixteen lots. The Unruhs did the same and ended up with three lots, the same number that they owned twenty-six years earlier. The Bullers are the family that made the biggest move, increasing from Peter Buller’s lot 16 to ownership of three lots and prior ownership of a fourth.

The 1793 list also provides information that was previously unknown: the name of Peter Buller 351’s son, which was also Peter (hence Jr.). The Przechowka church book lists no children for Peter 351, no doubt because the names of his children were unknown to the compilers of the book, who lived 120 miles away. However, the 1793 list gives us the name of one son of Peter 351—and perhaps even a second one.

That the Peter Buller Jr. of lot 15 was the son (presumably firstborn) of Peter 351 can scarcely be doubted. No other Peter Buller of generation 4 (the generation in which Peter Jr.’s father must have lived) fits the bill both chronologically and geographically. Thus, we can now add another name to the line of Peter 351: a son also named Peter.

However, the 1767 list in our first post in the Brenkenhoffswalde series (here) indicated that Peter Sr. had two sons. One wonders if the Heinrich listed for lot 4 of the 1793 list is that second son. This can be no more than a hypothesis at this point: there was more than one Heinrich Buller during this time, and one of them may have lived in the Neumark area (Heinrich 348). Still, as hypotheses go, this one would explain a great deal, so we will consider it plausible until new evidence indicates otherwise.

What the 1793 record apparently shows, then, is the establishment of a particular Buller family in a single village over the course of several generations. Peter was one of the first settlers in the Neumark area, and over the course of two to three decades he raised a family in Brenkenhoffswalde and saw two sons establish their own households in the same village.

If Peter Sr. (351) was, say, twenty-three when he moved from Jeziorka to Neumark around 1765 (see Mannhardt 1953), by the time of the 1793 census he would have been around fifty. Further, two sons had already been born to Peter and his wife by 1767 (the date of the first Praestations-Tabel), so these sons had to be at least in their late twenties by 1793. In all likelihood, then, Peter Sr. had several grandchildren by the time of the 1793 list, especially when we recall that Peter Sr.’s family also included two daughters in 1767.

None of this can be considered certain based on the evidence at hand, but the listing of Peter Sr. and two other Bullers (Peter Jr. and Heinrich) in the village of Brenkenhoffswalde in 1793 does make the suggested reconstruction at least plausible. Where the next list, from 1805, will take us we do not yet know.

Works Cited

Goertz, Adalbert. 2001. Mennonites in Amt Driesen of the Neumark, Brandenburg, Prussia. Mennonite Family History 20:47–51.

Mannhardt, H. G. 1953. Brenkenhoffswalde and Franztal (Lubusz Voivodeship, Poland). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Available online here.

Brenkenhoffswalde in Neumark 1

We are still in Neumark (the star to the far left), roughly 120 miles west of the Schwetz area (the star above the P of Poland), site of the Przechowka church whose register we have consulted repeatedly. As shown in the map below, far to the southeast of Schwetz is the Volhynia region, which is indicated by the star at the right end of the long red line. Point to point from Neumark on the west directly to Volhynia on the east (i.e., not by way of Schwetz) is just shy of 500 miles.

The map below helps put the geography of our forebears’ wanderings into even broader perspective. As above, the star on the far left marks the Neumark area; one can easily see that the Mennonites of Neumark were closer to Berlin than to the Przechowka church, which again appears above the word Poland. The first star to the southeast marks Volhynia, while the second star (far right) is located in the center of the Molotschna colony, an additional 475 miles to the southwest of Volhynia.

We know that some Buller families moved from Schwetz to the Neumark area, then from Neumark to Volhynia, and finally from Volhynia to Molotscha. The families who did so—and our direct ancestors may have been among them—traversed well over a thousand miles (120 + 490 + 475).

It is helpful to keep that broad geographical perspective in mind, but ultimately we want to focus on narrower slices of space and time. As stated above, we are still in Neumark; the previous posts, on David Buller (346 in the Przechowka church book), were located in the village of Neu Dessau during the years 1771–1780. This post moves roughly 7 miles to the west and begins a few years earlier, but the context is roughly the same.

As mentioned earlier, no other Buller after David is associated with the village of Neu Dessau, so it only makes sense to turn our attention to the other Mennonite villages in the area, where Bullers are reported to have lived for a a number of years. Instead of simply listing the names of the Bullers who appear in the governmental records, we will reproduce the complete lists of Mennonites living in the villages, in hopes that the additional information might give us insight into the dynamics of life in each of the villages.

Our sources are Praestations-Tabellen, “land tax lists … [of] tenants on royal domain lands” (Goertz 2001, 47). Adalbert and Bärbel Goertz have transcribed these lists from the following years: 1767, 1793, 1805, 1806, and 1826. To simplify matters as much as possible, we will work through all the lists for Brenkenhoffswalde, then do the same for Franztal.

Brenkenhoffswalde in 1767

The following list appears in Goertz 2001, 48 (see also here).

		M	F	S	D	Total
1	Cornelius Vood	1	1	2	4	8
2	Hein Vood	1	1	—	4	6
3	Hans Vood	1	1	2	2	6
4	George Vood	1	1	4	2	8
5	Peter Ratzlaff II	1	1	—	—	2
6	Hein Ohnrau	1	1	1	1	4
7	Heinrich Ohnrau	1	1	3	2	7
8	Jacob Thomas	1	1	—	—	2
9	Jan Richert	1	1	2	2	6
10	Peter Vood I	1	1	—	1	3
11	Peter Vood II	1	1	1	1	4
12	Abraham Ohnrau	1	1	1	5	8
13	Witwe [widow] Reicherten	1	—	2	2	5
14	Ernst Kühn	1	1	2	2	6
15	Hans Decker	1	1	2	2	6
16	Peter Buller	1	1	2	2	6
	Total	16	15	22	32	85

There is not a great deal we can cull from this single list. It is interesting to note that six out of the sixteen families in Brenkenhoffswalde were named Vood (Voth) and that three others were named Ohnrau (Unrau or Unruh). It is likewise curious to see the widow Reichert (the -en is a feminine ending) numbered in the male column instead of the female one, but none of this is of great import.

We have already encountered the Peter Buller of Brenkenhoffswalde lot 16 (this is not the first time we have drawn upon this list) and identified him as Peter 351 in the Przechowka church book (see here). To this bare information this list adds only the fact that Peter’s wife was alive in 1767 and that they had two sons and two daughters.

This list, however, merely sets the scene so that we can observe how the family of Peter Buller (and perhaps other Buller families) changed over the next six decades. Next up: more Brenkenhoffswalde Bullers in 1793.

Works Cited

Goertz, Adalbert. 2001. Mennonites in Amt Driesen of the Neumark, Brandenburg, Prussia. Mennonite Family History 20:47–51.

More about David of Neu Dessau

Our initial explorations of the Bullers of Neumark (see here for the first post) have focused largely on David Buller, (perhaps David 346 in the Przechowka church book), who lived in the village of Neu Dessau in 1778 but then sold his holdings there (the village lot plus its farmland) in 1779 for 570 Reichsthalers and turned over possession of that property to Ludwig Malchus on 1 May of the following year.

As noted toward the end of the last post, although David’s future disposition remains a mystery, he does appear in another governmental record from the same time frame. As before, the record has been provided by Adalbert Goertz (1999; see here).

The record actually mentions David only in passing, within the context of Mennonite Johann Dirks’s purchase of Neu Dessau property from a widow by the name of Neander (born Meschen). As far as I can tell, the record consists of two parts: the first concerns the 1771 purchase of the property, while the second is dated to 1780 and seems to relate to Dirks taking on (or perhaps making good on) debt associated with the property.

The record contains at least one item of broad historical interest: the question whether Mennonites were permitted to buy property from non-Mennonites. In 1771, King Friedrich II of Prussia ruled that such was allowed, but only in Neu Dessau, nowhere else.

What is far more interesting to us is the mention of David Buller, which reads:

Looking south to the area where Neu Dessau formerly stood.

an den David Buller daselbst 39 rthlr, und an seine Töchter Anna und Sara 5 rt 7 gr proprius zu bezahlen

to pay to David Buller there [i.e., Neu Dessau], 39 Reichsthalers, and to his daughters Anna and Sara 5 Reichsthalers 7 Groschen each

What is noteworthy here is not that David is listed along with others who are owed money but that “seine Töchter,” his daughters, are also included. Whose daughters? The most natural reading takes “seine” as referring to David, the antecedent nearest to the possessive pronoun “his.” So, now we do know a little more about David Buller of Neu Dessau: he had at least two daughters, whose names were Anna and Sara.

Although there is nothing earth-shattering in this discovery, it is gratifying to know that two more Bullers have been reclaimed from the anonymity of history forgotten. Did Anna and Sara have other sisters or any brothers? Did they marry and have children of their own? Did they live out their days in the Neumark area, or were they among those who emigrated to Volhynia or even to Molotschna? At present, all we have are questions about these Bullers, just as we have for their father. In time maybe additional government archives or long-lost church records will help us put the pieces together. For now, the search for new pieces goes on.

*****

Ironically, the search turned up a possible new piece less than 15 minutes after the post above was finished. Checking the GRANDMA database to see if it offered any information on David 346 and any clues that he might have been David of Neu Dessau, I noticed that GRANDMA lists a wife for David 346. Although David’s Przechowka church book entry does not identify his wife, GRANDMA lists Trincke Dircksen (i.e., Dircks) as his wife and explains that David is listed as her husband in the same book (Trincke is entry 447).

Przechowka church book: Trincke Dircks 447 entry showing 346 (David Buller) as her husband.

So, if (if!) David 346 is David of Neu Dessau, we now know the names of his wife (Trincke) and of their daughters (Anna and Sara). We cannot prove these connections yet, but they seem to be in the realm of the likely. On what basis can we say this?

Consider again the name of the man who owed David and his daughters money on a debt: Johann Dirks. The fact that Trincke shared the same last name may be coincidence, but it may also explain why Johann owed payment to David, Anna, and Sara Buller. One can easily imagine that relatives would have loaned money or participated in some sort of partnership, which would explain why Bullers are listed as debt-holders for Johann Dirks. This is nothing more than a guess, of course, but it does seem to tilt the scale further in the direction of identifying David 346 with David of Neu Dessau. Until a better explanation comes along, it will do for a working hypothesis.

Work Cited

Goertz, Adalbert. 1999. Court Records from the Grund- and Hypotheken-Acten of Neu Dessau, Amt Driesen, Neumark: Erbzinsguth Neu-Dessau, Kreis Friedeberg, Brandenburg. Available online here.

Neu Dessau David

We can offer a little more information on the David Buller of Neu Dessau, whom we think—but do not know!—was David 346 in the Przechowka church book (see the previous post). But first, a map will help us see where Neu Dessau was located in relation to the other two villages in the Neumark area.

Brenkenhoffswalde (underlined on the left) was roughly 2 miles west of Franztal (underlined left of center). Neu Dessau (underlined on the right) was a little more than 5 miles east of Franztal. As one can see, the three villages were located close to one another, which no doubt promoted interchange between the Mennonite families who inhabited them. Now, on to David Buller.

1. The size of David’s property

The 1778 list that Adalbert Goertz posted here (see the bottom of the page) also indicates the size of the landholdings for each owner. The measurements are given in Morgen (the larger unit) and square Ruten (the smaller unit). The exact size designated by the unit Morgen varied from time to time and place to place, but the most likely measure in use within Prussia at this time was 1 Morgen = .63 acres. The Rute (or Ruthe = rod) was likely 3.766 square meters (i.e., a little bigger than a 12 x 12-foot square).

The Goertz list reports that the property associated with lot 14, which was owned by David alone, was 40 Morgen (the largest landholding of any lot in Neu Dessau); the property of lot 12, which David owned jointly with Jacob Schmidt, was 38 Morgen, 6 Ruten. All told, then, David owned a little more than 59 Morgen, or roughly 37.2 acres. That may not seem big by today’s standards, but it was comparatively large in David’s context.

2. The sale of David’s property

Thanks again to Adalbert Goertz (1999; see here), we know significant details about David’s sale of the property: when, to whom, and for how much he sold it. According to Goertz, “the church records are all lost for this area and deed records of the … court at Driesen … in the Polish archives at Gorzow Wielkopolski … are the only sources available” to researchers. The “Grund- and Hypotheken-Acten (Deed and Mortgage Books)” are valuable not only for recording the transfer of property from one person to another but also for often providing a fifty-year land title history (i.e., history of ownership).

The entry that concerns David Buller begins (it seems) by listing the buyer of the property and the prior owners (this is my best guess):

Possessor: Carl Ludwig Machus
2. Ferdinand Kruegersche Eheleute
3. Wilhelm Schulzsche Eheleute S.66,75.
Schulz, Franz, Conrad Eigenthümer S.1021
der Eigenthümer Ewald Schmidt in Neu Dessau, Sch. 134

Carl Ludwig Machus is the person who purchased the property from David Buller. The rest of the list is less than clear, but we can make the following observations and guesses. The -sche ending corresponds roughly to our -’s, and the word “Eheleute” refers to a married couple, so perhaps the combination indicates that Ferdinand Krüger and his wife, for example, owned the property before David, and Wilhelm Schulz and his wife owned it before them, and so on.

The part of the record that interests us most is clearer, although some details remain uncertain (the quote below revises the German to more current spellings):

Da heute gesetzten dato ein aufrichtiger und unwiderruflicher Kauf geschlossen, es verkaufet (der Einwohner und Mennonist) David Buller aus Neu Dessau sein daselbst habendes Gut um und vor fünfhundert und siebentzig Reichthaler an den Wirt und Einwohner aus dem Netzbruch Ludewig Machus und lasset Verkäufer demselben zwei einjährige Kälber auf dem Gut und bewohnet sein Gut bis zu dem 1.ten May 1780 und träget davon so lange er dasselbe bewohnet alle darauf fallende Abgaben und Flichten. Käufer hat demselben zehn Reichthaler darauf gegeben und verspricht dem David Buller, wenn er das Gut auf den gesetzten Termien räumet, die völlige Bezahlung der 570 Rthlr. Dass nun dieser Kauf Contract fest und aufrichtigst von beiden Theilen gehalten werden soll, so haben sich dieselben eigenhändig unterschrieben.

This could be translated (paraphrased) as follows:

From this day forward by the closing of a a valid and irrevocable purchase, David Buller, a resident of and Mennonite from Neu Dessau, having the right to do so, in consideration of 570 Reichsthalers, hereby sells to the landlord [or proprietor?] of the Netzebruch, Ludwig Machus, and sends the same seller two one-year-old calves to live on the estate until 1 May 1780, and to sustain them as long as he inhabits the same and keeps all duties and obligations. The buyer has given the same [seller] 10 Reichsthalers and promises to David Buller, if he removes his goods by the set date, the full payment of 570 Reichsthalers. That this purchase will be maintained firmly and sincerely by both parties, the same have personally signed [it].

What is going on with the two calves is not obvious, since what the text seems to say does not make a great deal of sense, namely, that David would retain the property until 1 May 1780 and would keep two calves of Machus’s there. Perhaps the thought is that David can breed these calves and keep the calves they produce? Or maybe it is simply a matter of Machus needing someplace to keep the calves and David agreeing to care for them until Machus took possession, all negotiated as part of the sale price.

Whatever the case, the gist of the transfer seems clear: Machus gave David a down payment of 10 Reichsthalers (a silver-based coin of the Prussian Empire), with the promise of full payment of 570 Reichsthalers if David vacated the premises by 1 May 1780.

The transaction was then made official with the date of the sale and the necessary signatures:

Driesen on the left; the shaded area to the upper right of center is the
location of Neu Dessau. No obvious signs of the village remain.

So geschehen Neu Dessau d.5.ten Juny 1779.
+++ David Buller
+++ Ludewig Machus
gez.Michael Wegert Schultz
gez.Martin Wareke Gerichtsmann

Thus enacted in Neu Dessau on 5 June 1779
David Buller
Ludwig Machus
witness: Michael Wegert, mayor [presumably]
witness: Martin Wareke, court official

Finally, the property itself is described:

Südliche Nachbarn sind Michael Scarade und Joh.Daniel Grams.
Nördlicher Nachbar ist Kunicke nunc Christian Dittmann.
Die Colonie des Ludw.Machus in Neu Dessau, beträgt vom Haupt Netzwall ... Summa 59 Morgen 114 Ruten, davon sollen die Söhne erhalten, als
Christian Heinrich Machus, 2/3 der Colonie etc.
Joh.Gottlieb Machus excl.Fahrdamm, 1/3 der Colonie etc.

The neighbors to the south are Michael Scarade and Joh. Daniel Grams.
The neighbor to the north is Kunicke now Christian Dittmann.
The colony of Ludwig Machus in Neu Dessau totals from the main Netzwall ... 59 Morgen and 114 Ruten, which the sons [of Ludwig Machus] receive as follows:
Christian Heinrich Machus, 2/3 of the plot [?] etc.
Joh. Gottlieb Machus excluding the roadway, 1/3 of the plot [?] etc.

Presumably this was much clearer to those living in Neu Dessau. One thing to note is the amount of land that David sold: 59 Morgen and 114 Ruten, which is the same total given in the discussion of the size of David’s property (i.e., 40 Morgen owned individually + his half of the 38–Morgen plot owned with Jacob Schmidt).

The original bill of sale was executed in Neu Dessau, then recorded in the governmental offices in Driesen. Goertz also provides access to that record:

Copia vidimate, Original ohne Stempel.
Kund und zu wissen sey hiermit, dass zwischen dem Einwohner und Mennonist David Buller, Verkäufer am einen, und dem Einwohner Ludwig Machus aus dem Netzbruch, Käufern, am andern Theile, nachstehender unwiederruflicher Kauf unterm 5.Juni a.c. vor den Gerichten zu Neu Dessau verabredet, dato aber vor dem Justiz Amte geschlossen und vollzogen worden. Es verkauft und überlässt nehmlich gedachter David Buller sein in Neudessau zwischen Jacob Schmidten und Johann Kuhnicken einbelegenes Erbzinsgut nebst Zubehör an Gebäuden, Landung, Gärten und Wiesen sowie dasselbe in seinen Grenzen und Malen belegen, an gleichfalls gedachten Käufer dem Ludwig Machus um und für fünfhundert und siebzig rthl etc. etc.
Amt Driesen d.23.July 1779

Certified copy, original without stamp.
Know and let it be known herewith that between the resident and Mennonite David Buller, seller, on the one hand, and the resident Ludwig Machus from the Netzebruch, buyer, on the other hand, below arranged an irrevocable sale on 5 June of the current year in the court of Neu Dessau, thus finalized and concluded before the judicial office. It sells and leaves the aforesaid David Buller of Neu Dessau property between Jacob Schmidt and Johann Kunicke and its attached leaseholds and their access to buildings, landing, gardens, and pastures as well as its boundaries and landmarks, to the aforesaid buyer Ludwig Machus, and for 570 Reichsthalers … [details of the sale follow].
Driesen office, 23 July 1779

The regional record does not add any new information, but it does help us clarify at least one detail from before: the reference to the neighbor to the north was to Johann Kunicke, and the property is correctly located between him and Jacob Schmidt. It is also clearer in this record that the purchase was of the village lot and the associated rights to the village farmland, as the mention of gardens and pastures makes clear.

Where David went after selling his Neu Dessau property is a mystery. His name never appears in the citizen lists for Brenkenhoffswalde and Franztal in the years that follow, so we cannot say whether he left the area, moved to another village, or something else. Interestingly, no other Buller appeared in Neu Dessau before David, and no Buller was associated with the village after he left. In spite of all this uncertainty, we are not yet done with David. There remains one historical record related to him from this time that deserves its own post, which it will receive in the next day or three.

Works Cited

Goertz, Adalbert. n.d. Mennonite Settlers in the Neumark, Brandenburg (1767/1778). Available online here. Excerpted from Goertz, Mennoniten im Neumaerkischen Amt Driesen, Brandenburg. Ostdeutsche Familienkunde (1996): 277–83.

———. 1999. Court Records from the Grund- and Hypotheken-Acten of Neu Dessau, Amt Driesen, Neumark: Erbzinsguth Neu-Dessau, Kreis Friedeberg, Brandenburg. Available online here.

Early Bullers in Neumark

The previous post sought to place Heinrich and David Buller, two of the founders of the Volhynian village of Zofyovka, within the three lines descended from George Buller and Dina Thoms. After weighing all the possibilities, we concluded that they likely emigrated to Volhynia from the Neumark area in 1811.

These two were not, however, the earliest known Bullers in the Neumark area. Earlier we identified George 350 (in the Przechowka church book) and Peter 351 as residing in the Neumark villages as early as 1767, only three years after Mennonites established the villages of Brenkenhoffswalde and Franztal (see here and here). In all likelihood, George 350 and Peter 351 were members of the original group who moved from Jeziorka and elswhere in the Schwetz area to the Neumark area (Netzebruch) 120 miles to the southwest.

According to Adalbert Goertz (2001, 48; see also here), the 1767 census of Mennonite residents in these villages shows that Peter  351, his wife, and their two daughters and two sons lived at lot 16 of Brenkenhoffswalde, while George 350, his wife, and their one son and one daughter lived at lot 2 of Franztal. The census appears to be fairly complete (29 families numbering 157 individuals), so we can probably conclude that these twelve Bullers were the only ones who lived in those villages at that time.

It is here that matters start to become complicated. Thus far we have spoken only of the two villages Brenkenhoffswalde and Franztal, but in reality there was a third village nearby in which Mennonites lived: Neu Dessau. This village is sometimes overlooked because “the Mennonites in Neu-Dessau soon moved into the other two villages; by 1787 there were 266 Mennonites living in Brenkenhoffswalde and Franzthal” (Hege 1957).

All this is important because several Bullers apparently lived in Neu Dessau before its inhabitants merged into the other Neumark villages. Two lists will provide all the information that we need. The list in the first column (Goertz 2001, 48–49) identifies the residents of the thirty-two houses of Neu Dessau in 1771, shortly after the founding of the village. The list reproduced in the second column is dated seven years later, in 1778. As far as I can tell, the second column (see Goertz’s list at the end here) lists owners, not residents, perhaps for the purpose of calculating tax assessments or recording property holdings.

lot number	1771	1778
1	Peter Isaak Sr.	Peter Isaac
2	Gottfried Senkbeil	Johann Retzlaff
3	Martin Kaluschke	Johann Retzlaff
4	Witwe [widow] Mattheiin	Andreas Steffen
5	Adam Wahl	Simon Jahn (Jantz?)
6	Michael Ritter	Michel Ritter
7	Martin Werncke	Martin Wernicke
8	Martin Glesmann	Martin Glaesemann
9	Michael Rickert	Michel Wigge, Schultz
10	Peter Nachtigall	Peter Nachtigal
11	Johann Kuhnke	Johann Kunicke
12	Heinrich Decker, Pächter [tenant]	Jacob Schmidt and Buller
13	Christian Jabusch, Pächter	Jacob Schmidt
14	Gregor Jabusch, Pächter	David Buller
15	Andreas Schwand Sr.	Andreas Schwand
16	Andreas Schwand Jr.	Andreas Schwand
17	Michael Dreger	Johann Sahr
18	Peter Isaak Jr.	Peter Isaac Jr.
19	Peter (Fuss) Voot Jr.	Peter Voot Jr.
20	Johann Zibell	Johann Zibell
21	Daniel Piehl	Christian Adam
22	Andres Foth	Adam Bethcke
23	Adam Bethke	Adam Bethcke
24	Johan Dircks I	Johann Dircks
25	Johann Dircks II	Johann Dircks
26	Andreas Unruh	Andreas Unruhe
27	Peter Foth	Peter Voots Witwe
28	Christoph Schmidt	Christian Dittmann
29	Johann Philip	Heinrich Penner
30	Johann Marcus	Johann Marcius
31	Schulmeister [school master]
32	Auf Treppen M. Halb (?)

There is not a Buller to be found in the 1771 list. In fact, many of the names in the first half of that list do not sound particularly Mennonite to our ears. The 1778 list, however, records the presence of one or two Bullers in Neu Dessau. Lot 12 was apparently jointly owned by Jacob Schmidt and some Buller (the first name is omitted), while lot 14 was owned by a David Buller.

To deal with the minor question first, because lot 13 was owned by Jacob Schmidt and lot 14 was owned by David Buller, I would guess that the unnamed Buller who was half-owner of lot 12 was David. The logic is that neighbors Schmidt and Buller bought the three lots (12–14) that had been inhabited by tenants in 1771: Jacob Schmidt and David Buller each bought one lot individually, and they bought the third lot together.

The more important and intriguing question relates to who this David Buller was. Returning to our trusty Buller chart (thank you, Glenn Penner), one particular Buller looks to be a prime candidate:

According to the Przechowka church book, David 346, son of Hans 341 and grandson of Hans 340, was born in Jeziorka but was married in Franztal. There is no record in the church book of where he actually lived, only that he was married in Franztal at some point.

We know that George 350 and Peter 351 were living in the Neumark area at this time, and it would not be surprising to find their cousin David 346, who also was born at Jeziorka, also living in the Neumark area. If, as was suggested in the previous post, David 346 was born in the 1730s, he would have been of prime land-owning age by 1778, the time of the register.

Oddly (and not by design, I would add), we have come full circle from our last post. If you recall, there we searched to identify the David Buller who signed his name to the 1811 contract with the nobleman Waclav Borejko that led to the founding of Zofyovka in Volhynia; we concluded that David 346 was presumably not that David Buller.

However, now we have found another David Buller, one who lived at lot 14 of Neu Dessau in the Neumark area and who was half-owner of lot 12 in the same village, and it seems more plausible than not that Neu Dessau David is David 346. In this case, the dates and circumstances seem to match enough that we can judge this a likely identification.

This is enough for now, but this is not the last we will hear of Neu Dessau David. He will reappear in the archival record at least once more. More important, there are other Neumark Bullers to discover and, if we are fortunate enough to do so, identify within the known Buller family lines.

Works Cited

Goertz, Adalbert. n.d. Mennonite Settlers in the Neumark, Brandenburg (1767/1778). Available online here. Excerpted from Goertz, Mennoniten im Neumaerkischen Amt Driesen, Brandenburg. Ostdeutsche Familienkunde (1996): 277–83.

———. 2001. Mennonites in Amt Driesen of the Neumark, Brandenburg, Prussia. Mennonite Family History 20:47–51.

Hege, Christian. 1957. Netzebruch (Poland). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Available online here.

More Neumark Bullers?

The previous post about Neumark Mennonites accidentally omitted one important element: a map showing Neumark’s location relative to the Schwetz-area Przechowka church with which many of our distant ancestors were associated. This post begins by correcting that error.

The star on the right (east) is the Schwetz area; the Mennonite villages of Brenkenhoffswalde and Franztal are the two stars 120 miles west-southwest.

Another location that we must keep in mind is the region of Volhynia. The map below thus broadens our perspective so that we see the relation between Neumark on the far west, Schwetz/Przechowka in the center (along the Vistula River), and the village of Zofyovka in the Rovno district of Volhynia. All three locations are important to this post.

If you recall, earlier we discovered that the twenty-one families who founded the village of Zofyovka just north of Wysock, in the Rovno district of Volhynia, included two Buller families, led by Heinrich and David (see here).

At that time we were unable to say much at all about these families, such as where they lived before moving to Zofyovka in 1811. But perhaps now, with the Buller chart developed by Glenn Penner, we will be able to offer a reasonable suggestion. (For a full-sized version of the chart, see here.)

Because we do not know how old Heinrich and David Buller were when they emigrated to Volhynia, we must work in the realm of possibilities and probabilities.

The two were, obviously, old enough to sign a contract and almost certainly had their own families (as other signatories to the contract did), so they must have been at least twenty years of age. That would place their year of birth in 1791 at the latest. One might imagine them as old fifty (older men could have gone into untamed areas, but it seems less likely), which would make their earliest year of birth 1761. Somewhere between 1761 and 1791, then, we would expect Heinrich and David to have been born.

We have fairly complete records for the line of George 3XXXX, and none of the Heinrichs listed there is a match: Heinrich 378 (generation 4) died in 1795, and Heinrich 393 (generation 5, so not shown in the chart) moved directly from Schwetz to Alexanderwohl in Molotschna in the year 1820. There are no Davids in this line during the period 1761–1791. In light of this, we can reasonably conclude that Heinrich and David were not part of the George 3XXXX line.

What about the Peter 354 line? As mentioned several times earlier, this Buller line was associated with the village of Jeziorka in the Schwetz area the latter half of the eighteenth century. However, in 1803 some family members emigrated to Volhynia. The only known David in this line (our records are admittedly incomplete for this line) was part of the 1803 migration, so he could not have been the David who emigrated to Zofyovka in Volynia in 1811. That there are no known Heinrichs in this line simply tilts the scales further to the conclusion that the David and Heinrich Buller who are the object of our study were probably not members of this family line.

That leaves the family line of Hans 340. Interestingly, the far left part of that line (column A) shows two brothers named Heinrich and David. As tempting as it is to suggest that these are the very Bullers listed on the 1811 contract between nobleman Waclav Borejko and twenty-one Mennonite families, they probably are not. We do not know when Heinrich 348 and David 346 were born, but a sibling was born in the mid-1730s, so presumably they were born during the same general time frame.

It is worth noting, however, that our earlier post on Buller first names (see here) revealed that the two most common names in the line were Heinrich and David. This suggests further that this is the most likely line from which Heinrich and David of Zofyovka were descended.

In the end, all we can safely conclude is that the Heinrich and David Buller who signed their names to the 1811 contract were likely of Hans 340’s line. Still, even this limited conclusion is important, since  this locates Heinrich and David in Neumark, where most of the Hans 340 line lived. In all likelihood, the two Bullers who helped found the Volhynian village of Zofyovka in 1811 were Neumark Mennonites and thus part of the Mennonite community that we surveyed in the prior post.

Neumark Mennonites

Earlier we walked our way back in time by noting that before Lushton (or Henderson) there was Kleefeld, the village in Molotschna colony in which Peter D and Sarah Siebert Buller lived prior to emigrating to Nebraska. Before Kleefeld was Waldheim (also in Molotschna), the village in which Peter D’s father David lived. Before Waldheim there was Volhynia, specifically the village Zofyovka in the Rovno district. Finally, we learned, before Volhynia there were the Neumark and Schwetz areas (see here), the earliest known (thus far) locations in which our ancestors may have lived.

Since that time we have encountered the Neumark area on several occasions, as the place at which Andreas Andreas Buller lived before he moved to Volhynia (here) and as the primary location where one of the George Buller and Dina Thoms lines lived during the latter part of the eighteenth century (here).

Given the possibility that our earliest known ancestor Benjamin came from the Neumark area (it is only a possibility; we have no positive evidence one way or another), it will be worth our while to learn more about the Mennonite villages located there.

First a word about terminology. Writers refer to this area by different terms. Some refer to the area as the Netzebruch, a term that describes the “boggy wetland along the lower course of the Netze/Noteć river” (Hege 1957; see the map below). Others designate the area by the name of its most prominent nearby town: Driesen (modern Drezdenko, roughly 2 miles to the east). Still others identify the settlements as the Neumark villages, which was the name of the province in which the villages were located. Finally, others refer to the villages in terms of an even larger geo-political entity, the Prussian state of which Neumark was a part: Brandenburg. Whichever of these designations is used, we need to understand that they are referring to the Mennonite villages of Brenkenhoffswalde (modern Błotnica) and Franztal (Głęboczek).

The area around the Netze (Noteć) River is the marshy Netzebruch. Of the two underlined
villages, Brenkenhoffswalde (Błotnica) is on the left and Franztal (Głęboczek) on the right.

The Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online article on Brenkenhoffswalde and Franztal (Mannhardt 1953) offers a wealth of information on the villages and deserves our careful attention. After locating the villages geographically and historically, Mannhardt writes:

In 1765 Frederick the Great, who had given Councilor Brenkenhoff charge of settling the marshy Netzebruch, permitted 35 Mennonite families expelled by Polish noblemen from the Culm lowlands to settle here; of these, 16 families with 95 persons were allocated in Brenkenhoffswalde and 19 families with 97 persons in the adjacent Franztal. They at once formed the Brenkenhoffswalde Mennonite congregation, which existed until 1834. The king gave them land and furnished lumber; until 1771 they were not taxed, and by a charter drawn up by the king himself they were “completely free from military service and conscription.” They belonged to the “Groninger Mennonites,” or Groninger Old Flemish. This explains why they had not joined the larger Frisian congregation in the Culm lowlands at Schönsee, but had formed a congregation of their own with some scattered members at Thorn and Schwetz. They maintained contact and communion with these after they had come to Brenkenhoffswalde. …

Culm lowlands/Schwetz area, with the Przechowka church location
marked on the left and Schönsee identified on the right.

Several points mentioned above deserve further commentary. (1) Frederick the Great ruled as king of Prusssia from 1740 until 1786, so the Mennonites who settled in these villages were leaving the Polish kingdom to settle in the Prussian kingdom. (2) The Culm lowlands referenced are the larger area that surrounds Schwetz, the general location of the Przechowka church. (3) The Mennonites who moved to Neumark were associated with the Przechowka church, not the larger Mennonite church at Schönsee, some 10 miles to the east. This is important to note not only for the sake of understanding the origin of the Neumark Mennonite families but also because it tells us: there was another large Mennonite church in the Schwetz area, which raises the question: Did all Bullers in that region attend the Przechowka church, or did some attend the Schönsee or some other Mennonite church? (4) Finally, Buller Time has already discussed this move of Schwetz-area Mennonites to the Neumark area when we focused our attention on the Bullers of Jeziorka (see especially here). There we learned that in 1765 members of the Hans 341 line (see Buller chart here) moved from Jeziorka to the Neumark area. What Mannhardt has narrated above is exactly the same move that we previously described.

The article continues:

The history of the church offers much that is of interest. A letter written by the church board to Harm Scholtens at Groningen … contains interesting particulars concerning the young congregation, which had already begun to build a meetinghouse. In 1788 the Lutheran teacher Wilhelm Lange of Brenkenhoffswalde, who had been appointed to the position by the government, asked permission of the authorities to transfer to the Mennonite faith, since he had grown up and been educated among Mennonites and was inwardly bound to them. On 24 October 1788 he received permission to do so, on condition that his obligations to the state and his duties as a citizen would not suffer. Wilhelm Lange became a respected and influential member; in 1802 he was chosen preacher, and in 1810 elder, which office he still held when the congregation emigrated to Russia in 1834. In 1833 Lange had sent a petition to the Tsar of Russia in the name of 40 families of Brenkenhoffswalde and Franztal to permit their immigration into Russia after permission to emigrate had been granted in 1828 to a certain Bengs of Brenkenhoffswalde by the government in Frankfurt an der Oder. It is probably to be assumed that the Mennonites in the Netzebruch did not see any possibility of acquiring more land, and therefore turned their attention to Russia, where most of the Groninger Mennonites from Culm and Schwetz had already gone. …

Aerial view of Brenkenhoffswalde (Błotnica) today.

Lange and his group received information on 10 January 1834 through the Russian consulate in Danzig, that the tsar would permit immigration on the following conditions: (1) presentation of a permit from the Prussian government to emigrate; (2) only families having at least five members would be admitted; (3) a sum of 800 rubles was to be deposited, which would be returned when they arrived. In that year the 40 families emigrated and found a hospitable reception in Alexanderwohl, but then founded the colony and church of Gnadenfeld. The Mennonite church at Brenkenhoffswalde was thereby dissolved.

Again, several statements invite comment. (1) Although it was unusual for outsiders to join the Mennonite church, it was possible to do so. However, Prussian citizens who joined the colonist (noncitizen) Mennonites were not thereby absolved from their legal responsibilities, including service in the military.

Aerial view of the east end of Brenkenhoffswalde.

(2) The emigration of forty families to Molotschna in 1834 is noteworthy. We read earlier that the original (1765) emigration to the Neumark villages had involved thirty-five families. Sixty-nine years later, in 1834, the entire community comprised slightly more than forty families (some families did remain behind after 1834). This small increase in the number of families (thirty-five to perhaps forty-five) seems inconsistent with what we know of Mennonite population growth. Why were there so few families in these villages sixty-nine years after they were founded?

The answer is simple: the 1834 emigration was not the first time that Mennonites left these villages; a significant number left earlier. For example, Andreas Andreas Buller (here) moved from Neumark to Volhynia sometime before 1816, and we know that he was not the only one to do so. Other Mennonites made the same trek eastward to settle throughout the Volhynian region.

Could these immigrants have included our ancestral line? Possibly, but we will have to await further concrete evidence before we consider this anything more than an intriguing hypothesis. Fortunately, there is more evidence for us to sift through in upcoming posts.

Work Cited

Mannhardt, H. G. 1953. Brenkenhoffswalde and Franztal (Lubusz Voivodeship, Poland). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. 1953. Available online here.

First names

Sometimes asking simple questions and making simple observations uncover important facts; other times they are interesting but not apparently significant. The subject of this post may well fall into the latter category, but it is worth exploring just the same.

Several simple questions recently came to mind: Are there any patterns to the known first names of the three Buller lines descended from George Buller and Dina Thoms (that is, the names listed in the Przechowka church book)? If so, might those patterns help us to locate Bullers who appear in various historical records but not in the church book? The rest of this post explores those questions. (For the full-sized version of the Buller chart, see here.)

1. Counting Names

1.1. George 3XXXX: It seems reasonable to think that the son who had the same name as the father (George) was the oldest, so we begin with him. George 3XXXX had two sons: Peter has seven sons and grandsons listed in the Przechowka church book (PCB); Heinrich five. The total descendants of George 3XXXX, then, number fourteen in the PCB. The names of those descendants are:

Jacob: 6
Peter: 4
Heinrich: 3
David: 1

Remarkably, a mere three names account for thirteen of the fourteen Bullers in this line. Interestingly, nearly half (six) of those fourteen were named Jacob. Intriguingly, not one of those descendants was named George, the name of the founder of not only this line but this entire Buller family. We cannot say if any of this is significant, but it does seem noteworthy.

1.2. Hans 340: This line is the second largest of the three, at least in terms of names recorded in the PCB. Hans had three sons, all of whom have male descendants (sons and grandsons) recorded in the book. The names of all the descendants of this line are:

Heinrich: 3
David: 2
Peter: 2
George: 2
Hans: 1
Andreas: 1
Benjamin: 1

Unlike the line of George 3XXXX, this line shows significant diversity in first names. Specifically, the twelve descendants of this line bear seven different first names.

1.3. Peter 354: Only one son is recorded for Peter 354, so we have a limited number of descendants in this line:

Peter: 2
David: 2
Jacob: 1
George: 1
Andreas: 1

The same diversity we saw with the Hans 340 line is evident here: seven male descendants with five different names. Nothing else stands out as unusual, no doubt in part because of the small sample of names.

2. Looking for Patterns

Putting all three lines together produces the following cumulative totals:

Peter: 8
Jacob: 7
Heinrich: 6
David: 5
George: 3
Andreas: 2
Hans: 1
Benjamin: 1

These thirty-three male Bullers had only eight different names, and four of those names accounted for twenty-six (79 percent) of the descendants. Presumably this narrow distribution could be observed in other Mennonite families of the same time and place. Still, it is worth looking more closely to attempt to see if any patterns exist.

2.1. Six out of the seven Jacobs are in the George 3XXXX line, so it is safe to say that Jacob was a favored first name in that line. As we will see in a future post, a Jacob from this line led a sizable portion of the Alexanderwohl church from Molotschna to Kansas in 1874, thus demonstrating that Jacob continued to be a preferred first name for this line.

2.2. Peter is the most common name overall and common in all three lines. It offers us no particular pattern of usage.

2.3. Heinrich’s name is common in two of the lines but does not appear in the Peter 354 line. It is impossible to know if this is significant.

2.4. Remarkably, the name of the founder of the line (George) appears well down the list. Could this be a reflection of the fact that, by the time the PCB was compiled, the name of the line’s founder had been forgotten? To ask the question differently, was George’s name forgotten because few of his male descendants were given the name?

2.5. Most noteworthy of all, and especially for us, is the intriguing observation that two names are used only once, and both of them are in the Hans 340 line: Hans and Benjamin. This does not mean, of course, that there were no other Bullers named Hans or Benjamin within the sphere of this church. However, it does presumably hint that these first names were not common among Bullers of this time and place.

Recognizing this might also prompt us to focus our search for our own Benjamin Buller (the father of David) in the one line that attests that name. We do not know that our Benjamin came from that line (especially when one notes that Benjamin Buller 352 did not go to Volhynia), but that appears to be a potentially likely place to look.

Locating Andreas

You may recall that several weeks back we learned of someone named Andreas Andreas Buller (see here). In addition to Andreas, the family included his wife Anna, a daughter Maria, and two sons. Based on their ages in 1816, when an initial Volhynian census was taken, we can suggest rough years of birth for the family members:

name		age in 1816		approximate year of birth
Andreas Andreas Buller		43		1773
sons David		15		1801
Benjamin		12		1804
his wife Anna		49		1767
daugher Maria		18		1798

Only one other significant fact is known about the Andreas Buller family: they lived in the village of Antonovka in the Ostrog district of Volhynia. What makes this fact important was reported in a later post (see here): the Mennonites who populated Antonovka came from Neumark (aka Netzebruch, an area near Driesen), specifically from the villages of Brenkenhoffswalde and Franztal.

Earlier we could go no further than this; now, however, the Buller chart may help us place Andreas a little more precisely. (For the full-sized chart, see here.)

Beginning at the level of the most likely, one cannot help but notice that, of the three lines of George Buller and Dina Thoms, only one ever lived in the villages of Brenkenhoffswalde and Franztal: the descendants of Hans. More specifically, only two of the lines of Hans (columns A–B) are associated with those villages. Therefore, given the fact that Andreas Buller settled in a Volhyniah village whose residents were said to come from the area in which Brenkenhoffswalde and Franztal were located, we can conclude with some confidence that Andreas most likely derived from the Hans 340 line of Przechowka Bullers.

But we may be able to say even more. As suggested in the table above, Andreas was probably born around 1773. This would appear to place him in the time frame of generation 4. Is it more than coincidence that one of the Neumark Bullers descended from Hans 340 is named Andreas? We do not know when Andreas and his brothers were born, but other male Bullers in generation 4 were born in the 1760s–1780s (see columns D–F), which makes it seem reasonable to imagine that Andreas 345 of the Hans 340 > Hans 341 line is the Andreas listed in the Ostrog census.

There is only one problem with that hypothesis: the name of this Buller was Andreas Andreas, not Andreas Hans, as it would have been if he had been Andreas 345. This leaves us to ponder a second hypothesis, that Andreas Andreas was the son of Andreas 345, that he was a generation 5 descendant of Hans 340. If the generation 4 descendants of the Hans 340 line were born in the early 1750s (as seems to be the case with columns B and C), then it would be entirely feasible for Andreas 345 to have been born in, say, 1753 and to have had a son born to him in 1773. In other words, it is possible that the Andreas Andreas of the Ostrog census was the son of Andreas 345 in the chart above.

In the end, we cannot say this is a fact, only that the identification of Andreas Andreas of the Ostrog census as a son of Andreas 345 is a reasonable hypothesis. Not to be missed in all this is how the Buller chart helps us sort, organize, and clarify new pieces of information about Bullers who appear in the historical record, which is reason enough to express thanks again to Glenn Penner for developing the chart in the first place.

Family line 3: Peter 354

Thus far we have covered the first two lines of the known sons of George Buller and Dina Thoms. The descendants of Hans 340, we learned, are for the most part not well attested in the Przechowka church book, presumably because they moved 120 miles away to the Neumark (aka Brandenburg or Driessen or Netzebruch) region, specifically the villages of Franztal and Brenkenhoffswalde. The descendants of George 3XXXX, however, are extensively covered in the church book, which reflects their ongoing settlement in the Schwetz area and their close association with the Przechowka church for more than a century.

This post takes up the family line of George and Dina’s third son: Peter 354 (column F in the chart below; see here for the full-sized chart).

We have already discussed the later members of this family line a number of times. For example, we identified George 375 in the census and registers of 1772, 1776, and 1789 (here and here). We also encountered this family when they moved to Volhynia (here). Several new details are also worth noting.

1. According to the Przechovka church book, Peter 354 (generation 2) fathered three daughters and the one son listed here. Thus, the generation 3 lineage given in the church book is probably fairly complete. Four children is smaller than most families but not unknown—and it is conceivable that Peter 354 died at an early age; we simply do not know enough to offer more than hypotheses.

2. Peter’s son George 375 lived in Jeziorka for a time and then moved to Volhynia, so his relation with the church was not as close as the George 3XXXX line examined in the previous post. This is reflected, it seems, in the sparse information available for George 375’s family. Only sons are listed (see 389–392 in the scan below), no daughters, and the church book generally has no record of baptism or marriage.

3. We know that two of George 365’s sons accompanied him to Volhynia in 1803–1804, but one son (Jacob 395) remained in the Schwetz area and emigrated to Alexanderwohl village in Molotschna along with the rest of the church in 1820. The fourth son (Andreas 390) is the least remembered: of his siblings, only he does not have a date of birth recorded, just a year. As far as we know, he did not emigrate to Volhynia or to Alexanderwohl, which might hint at an early death.

4. Generation 5 descendants of this family line are recorded in the church book until 1800, but after that they cease, possibly because a good portion of the family moved to Volhynia or passed on.

To bring this around to our family, it is intriguing that a number of the members of this line ended up in Volhynia, just as Benjamin and David did, but we cannot overlook the fact that they preceded our family by at least thirteen years. We cannot imagine Benjamin and Helena and David emigrating to Volhynia as part of this group. Of course, Benjamin and David still could be descended from the line of Peter 354; at this point we cannot say one way or another.

Still, having examined the three family lines derived from George Buller and Dina Thoms in some detail, we are able to form at least some reasonable conclusions:

• The George 3XXXX line is the least likely candidate for our ancestry, since that line seems to be relatively well recorded in the church book, and our family does not appear in it.


• The Peter 354 line is more likely than that, given the line’s loose association with the church (which would explain Benjamin’s absence), and the fact that some of the line emigrated to Volhynia. However, the timing of the emigration is quite different from Benjamin’s, which neutralizes that association as a compelling factor.


• The Hans 340 lines appears to be more likely than the other two lines, by virtue of the fact that this line moved away from the Przechowka church early on, thus explaining our absence from the church book. We have yet to establish any connection between this line and Volhynia, but if we are able to do so, that would tip the scale further in favor of this line.

Of course, we cannot be certain that the three lines of George and Dina were the only Bullers in town or even that all the generation 3 or 4 descendants of those three lines are recorded in the book. There may have been other Buller lines related to/descended from the George and Dina family, and we may be descended from those non-Przechowka Bullers. We do have a clearer picture of what we know, but it is to soon to tell what remains to be discovered. At least we know our tasks for the short-term: learn more about the Hans 340 line that lived in the Neumark area and search for other Bullers in the area who did not belong to the Przechowka church.

Searching Buller Time

Thanks to my brother Dan for suggesting that we add a search function to Buller Time, which you can see at the top right (above Blog Archive). This should simplify trying to find earlier postings that you want to read again in light of new information. A few things to keep in mind as you use the search function:

1. You can search for a single word, for multiple words, or even for an exact phrase enclosed within quotation marks. The search function will return what it considers the most significant results at the top, which is indicated by the results being sorted by relevance (first arrow below).

2. If you prefer, you can have the results sorted by date (maybe you want to read the posts in a certain order) by clicking the link under the second arrow.

3. Once you are finished and want to return to the normal listing of posts, click on “Show all posts” (third arrow).

4. The search function errs on the side of returning more rather than fewer results. So, for example, if you search for a precise phrase, the search function will return the post with that phrase in it as the most relevant result. Below that it will list posts with all the words of the phrase, even though they do not appear together as part of the phrase.

I hope this enhances your ability to navigate through and thus your enjoyment of Buller Time blog. Feel free to suggest other improvements as they come to mind.

Family line 2: George 3XXXX

George Buller and Dina Thoms had three sons (that we know of): Hans, George, and Peter. In the last post we explored the family line of one of those sons, Hans 340, and discovered that the Przechowka church book contains a fair amount of information about one part of that line (column C below) but almost nothing about the other parts (columns A and B). The explanation for this spotty coverage is obvious: some of Hans 340’s sons moved 120 miles away from the Schwetz area and the church, so the compilers of the church book did not have ready access to information about them.

This post moves one generation 2 son to the right to make observations about a second son of George and Dina: George 3XXXX. As before, you may want to consult the full-sized chart available here.

According to the church book, George 3XXXX had four daughters and two sons born between the years 1729 and 1743. Already we see a difference. No daughters are listed for Hans 340 (the subject of the last post), only three sons, and not one has a year of birth listed. Each of George 3XXXX’s six children has not only a year of birth but an exact date of birth provided. In addition, the church book records the marriage partner for each child. Clearly the information on this family line is much more complete than the previous one.

Moving down to generation 4 (see columns D and E above), we also discover additional details about the members of this line. Jacob 377, for example went to Alexanderwohl village in Molotschna colony in 1820, as did his deceased brother Peter’s widow and children and his cousin Jacob (387).

If we look further in the church book, we can identify more than twenty generation 5 descendants of this line, far more than the other two lines descended from George and Dina. The conclusion seems clear enough: the line of George 3XXX is the one that stayed in Schwetz and remained with the Przechowka church until the entire church moved to Alexanderwohl in 1820. Once in Molotschna, the church started a new register; I would not be surprised at all to find the George 3XXXX’s line continued there, since this was the central Buller line of the Przechowka-Alexanderwohl church.

Why should this matter to us? If it appears that the George 3XXXX line is fairly well accounted for in the Przechowka church book, and if our Benjamin or David Buller do not appear in that book, then it seems reasonable to conclude that we are not descended from George 3XXXX. We do not know that for certain, but it seems far more plausible than that our family was part of George 3XXXX’s line but was accidentally but thoroughly passed over in the church book.

One final note, George 3XXXX had the same first name as his father, which probably indicates that he was the first of the three known sons of George and Dina. Perhaps primogeniture (the favoring of the firstborn) played a role in the primacy of this family line within the church and even in the community?