Analyzing the 1776 Census

For the last several months, I've been working on this huge project to analyze all the Fasts in the 1776 census of Mennonites in West Prussia.  My goal was to try to identify the parents of Gerhard Fast #660202 (1739-1828), my 7th-great-grandfather and earliest known Fast ancestor.  Since his oldest known sibling was born in ABT 1737, I realized that his parents would probably have been in their early 60s in the 1776 census.  Thus it is likely that one or both of them were enumerated in that census; but of course without knowing their names, they could be listed in plain sight and wouldn't even know it was them.  So my plan was to find out as much as possible out each of the 31 Fasts in that census to try to identify his parents.  I didn't identify either parent, but I was able to eliminate most of them as possible candidates.

I chose the 1776 census because it was only of Mennonites in West Prussia, so I didn't have to worry about sorting out people who had "Mennonite-sounding" names.  Glenn Penner has already identified quite a few people in it, so a good start has been made.  Finally, I have scans of all the originals for the 1776 census.  I decided against the 1772 census because it included everyone in West Prussia - not just the Mennonites.  Very little work has been done on it, and I have only about half the scans for "Mennonite" villages in the Gross Werder, and ordering them from the Geheimes Staatsarkhiv in Berlin is slow and expensive.

Glenn Penner's extraction of the 1776 census is found here.  He (and perhaps others) had already identified 11 of the 31 Fasts with Grandma (GM) numbers.  I added 10 more during my project, so 21 of the 31 are now identified in GM.

The results of my efforts can be downloaded from Google Drive.  A few comments about the spreadsheet - the names and dates that I added are in red.  On a few people, I just looked them up and found the family in GM, just waiting to have a GM number associated with them on the census spreadsheet.  Others took a lot more work to research.  And a few were not in GM at all.

I started by looking for the head of household in my giant spreadsheet of Fasts that I have extracted over the last few years.  Any time I looked at church book or microfilm, I put all the names of Fasts (and in-laws) into a giant spreadsheet - even if I wasn't interested in them at the time.  Now I could just look at it and see all the records, for example, for Claas Fast, even if they were scattered among different sources.  Many times a family would come together just like that.

The sources that I checked included

• Prussian Mennonite church books (Tiegenhagen, Ladekopp, Rosenort, Bärwalde, Montau, Tragheimerweide, Heubuden, Danzig, etc.) - I used the extractions at MennoniteGenealogy.com, Andreas Riesen's extractions, and the originals at Bethel College's Mennonite Library and Archives
• Lutheran/Evangelical church books (Jungfer, Fürstenau, Neuteich, etc.) - Mostly from LDS microfilms
• West Prussia Censuses - 1772, 1776, 1789, 1793 (Danzig), 1811 (Elbing)
• Russian Censuses - 1806, 1808, 1811, 1835
• Property Records 
• Emigration Records - BH Unruh, Peter Rempel, MennoniteGenealogy.com

The key to successful genealogical research in West Prussia is to combine all the sources.  There are lots of West Prussian records, but most of them are fragmented  - there are only a few Mennonite Familienbücher where the entire family is listed together and most of these are fairly late.  Most West Prussian records give one data point, e.g. a certain child was born on a certain date and his father was a certain man.  If you pull everything together, suddenly the whole family pops into view.

To handle all this data, you need several things:

• A method to store and organize all the data - such as my spreadsheet of Fast extractions
• Access to all the records - online, microfilm, orders from archives
• Research collateral lines - With fragmented data, researching siblings of your direct ancestor helps to pull everything together.

 I would encourage you to try the same thing for your surname.

 

Update on 1776 Census Project

I've been working on a project to identify all the Fasts in the 1776 census of Mennonites in West Prussia.  Glenn Penner's extraction of the data is found here.  My theory was that one or both of the parents of my earliest known Fast ancestor, Gerhard Fast #660202 (1739-1829) might be listed in that census, and I wouldn't even have known about it.  His oldest known sibling was born ABT 1737 - if his parents were about 20 years old when their first child was born, they might have been born about 1717.  Thus in 1776, they would have been about 60 years old.

There were 31 Fast families listed in the 1776 census, and 11 of them had previously been identified in Grandma.  I was able to identify 11 more Fasts, so now 22 of the 31 are identified in GM.

My methodology was to look for them first in GM.  Then I checked my spreadsheet in which I have extracted 431 individual records over the years from the Mennonite, Lutheran/Evangelical, and Catholic church books to see if I could find the person.  I checked the Mennonite church books that Andreas Riesen extracted.  I checked the 1772 and 1789 census, the immigration records to Russia in BH Unruh, Peter Rempel, and that I have gotten from the Prussian archives in Berlin, and the land records that Glenn Penner has posted online.

Unfortunately, none of the Fasts whom I was able to identify were old enough to be the parents of my Gerhard.  There are 3-4 Fasts whom I could not identify who lived in the Gross Werder and are potential candidates to be Gerhard's parents, but I found no information to identify them.  I was able to tie many, many children to the 22 identified Fast families, so I've added a lot to the store of knowledge about the Fasts in GM, so it's been a useful exercise.  But I didn't accomplish the goal that I set out to achieve.

I'm planning a trip to Poland in 1-2 years to do research in the archives there, and this work was a necessary prelude to that trip.  I wouldn't want to make an expensive trip to the Polish archives without having done everything that I could with data that is available to me while sitting at home.

I'll post the spreadsheet with my results in the near future, but I need to clean up the spreadsheet first.

Looking in the WRONG Village (Part III)

See Part I and Part II for the beginning of this story.

In the previous posts in this series, I explained how I found my 5-greats-grandparents, Martin Wiens and Maria Loepp, in the West Prussian land records.  I wanted to flesh out their lives as much as possible, so there are a few other places to look for information.

First, the 1772 census.  When Prussia seized a large piece of Polish territory in 1772, including the Gross Werder and other areas where many Mennonites lived, they immediately conducted a census to establish tax liabilities for all the inhabitants.  When I checked the village of Fürstenauerweide, where Martin and Maria Wiens owned land, I found them – sort of.  There were three heads of household named “Wientz,” but no first names or the number of family members were listed.  I checked the index for the 1772 census and found no other Martin Wiens, so I knew he must be one of these three.

1772 census with three Wiens households.  Source:  _____ Wientz household, 1772-1773, households #3, #5, or #9, Contributions Catastrum, Fürstenauer Weÿde village #24, Elbingschen Niederung, West Prussia, II. HA, Abt. 9, Materien, Tit. XCIII, Nr. 9, Bd. 3, p. 109, Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin, Germany.

In the 1776 census, there are three Wiens heads of household listed, but this time their first names are given – Arend, Jacob, and Martin.  (Presumably, these are the same three Wienses as in 1772, but we cannot be sure without checking each one individually since one could have died and another married and started his own household.)  It’s very likely that this Martin Wiens is the one I’m looking for.

Source:  Martin Wiens household, 1776 Special Consignation of Mennonite families, Fuerstenauerwiede village, West Prussia, II. HA, Abt. 9, Materien, Tit. CIX, Nr. 1, Vol. 1, Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin, Germany.  Accessed online at http://www.mennonitegenealogy.com/prussia/1776MasterV5.pdf on 13 August 2016.

And on his extraction of the 1776 census, Glenn Penner has added a serendipitous note to Martin Wiens “1739-99 (Luth/Fuerstenau).”  He kindly sent me a copy of Martin Wiens’ death record from the Fürstenau Lutheran church book, which showed that he died on 5 March 1799 in Fürstenauerweide at the age of 68 years, 4 months, and was buried on 11 March.  From his age at death, I could calculate that he was born in ABT Dec 1730.

Martin Wiens death record.  I have underlined "Martin Wiens," "5 Mart: (5 March)," and "68 Jahr 4 Monat (68 years 4 months)."  Source:  Martin Wiens death record, 5 March 1799, decedent #5, Fürstenau Lutheran death register, 1774-1819, Fürstenau, West Prussia, digital copy from Glenn Penner, Guelph, Ontario.

Finally, I checked the 1789 census of Mennonite landowners, and I found Martin Wiens living in Fürstenauerweide and owning 18 morgens 158 ruten of land (about 26 acres). 

Source:  Mart. Wiens household, line #9, 1789 General-Nachweisung of Mennonite families in Marienwerder Department, Fuerstenauerweide village #35, II. Amt Elbing, West Prussia, II. HA, Abt. 9, Materien, Tit. CIX, Nr. 1, Vol. 1, Ad Nr. 1 vol. 2, Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin, Germany.  Accessed at http://mennonitegenealogy.com/prussia/1789_Land_Census_West_Prussian_Mennonites.htm on 13 August 2016.

To summarize these three posts on Martin Wiens – I started out being curious why Jacob Barkman was not listed in any of the censuses in Neustӓdterwald, the village where he owned land at the time of his death.  When I checked for his name in the other villages in the 1789 census, I saw that he owned land in the neighboring village, the “wrong” village, of Fürstenauerweide.  When I checked the land records for Fürstenauerweide, I found the land that he owned and that his wife Katharina Wiens had inherited it from her parents Martin Wiens and Maria Loepp when her mother Maria Loepp died.  I had not known of Martin Wiens and Maria Loepp before this.  When I checked for Martin Wiens in the 1772, 1776, and 1789 census, I found him living in Fürstenauerweide in all three.  And a note on the extraction of the 1776 census led me to his death record, which gave his birth date also.  So a little curiosity about Jacob Barkman led to discovering his parents-in-law and quite a bit of information about them!

Looking in the WRONG Village (Part I)

I was looking for my 4-greats-grandfather Jacob Barkman #7070 (ABT 1745-1809) in the 1772, 1776, and 1789 West Prussian censuses.  I know from the Fürstenau Lutheran church book that he died in the village of Neustädterwald on 13 November 1809.[1]  I also know from the Neustädterwald land records that he owned land there when he died.[2]  But I could not find him in any of those censuses in Neustädterwald.  Then I realized that since he only married in 1777,[3] it is possible that he was still living at home in 1772 and 1776, so he might not have had a separate household and thus not been listed in either of those censuses.  But by 1789, he was about 44 years old and had a wife and daughter, so he should have had a separate household.  On the other hand, the 1789 census is different because it only listed Mennonite landowners, so if he had acquired his Neustädterwald land after 1789, he might not have been listed there either.  Nonetheless there is a good chance he was in the 1789 census.

Death record for Jacob Barkman in Fürstenau Lutheran church book, 13 November 1809.

I was using an extraction of the 1789 census prepared by Adalbert Görtz that is organized by village[4].  But instead of giving up when I could not find Jacob Barkman in Neustädterwald, I thought I should search for him in the entire census using the CTRL-F function.  And that proved to be a most crucial decision.  Instead of Jacob Barkman being in Neustädterwald in 1789, he owned 17 morgens 282 ruten of land (about 11 acres) in the neighboring village of Fürstenauerweide about three miles to the south![5]

Extraction of 1789 census of Jacob Barkman in Fürstenauerweide, Elbing, West Prussia.

So this fleshes out my sketch of his life a bit.  He probably only moved to the village of Neustädterwald in the 1790s, that is in his 50s.  And before that he had probably lived in the nearby village of Fürstenauerweide.  (I say “probably” because land ownership is not exactly the same as residence.)  This illustrates how mobile Mennonites were at the end of the 18^th century.  They were often not born in the village where they were married or where they lived as an adult or where they died.  And the lure of land ownership often drew them to another village.

And this raises another question – what was Jacob Barkman doing in Fürstenauerweide?  And should I not check the West Prussian land records to see if his Grundbuch has survived?  Stay tuned for Part II.

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[1] Jacob Bergmann death record, 13 November 1809, Fuerstenau Lutheran church book, Death register 1774-1819, Fuerstenau, West Prussia, p. 416.  Accessed on LDS microfilm #208103.

[2] Neustaedterwald Grundbuch Blatt 13, Amt Tiegenhof, Malbork, Poland, Archive, Fond 341, File 3192.  Accessed online at https://mla.bethelks.edu/archives/VI_53/Malbork/Neustaedterwald/Neustaedterwald%20Blatt%2013%20Malbork%20Archives%20Fond%20341%20File%203192/IMG_0250.JPG.

[3] Jacob Barckman and Margareta Classen marriage record, 29 April 1777, Heubuden Mennonite church book, 1773-1815, Heubuden, West Prussia, p. 13.  Accessed online at https://mla.bethelks.edu/archives/cong_321/ok57/013.jpg on 27 December 2015.

[4] http://mennonitegenealogy.com/prussia/1789_Land_Census_West_Prussian_Mennonites.htm

[5] Jacob Bergmann household, 1789 General-Nachweisung of Mennonite families in Marienwerder Department, Fuerstenauerweide village #35, 15. Amt Tiegenhof, West Prussia, II. HA, Abt. 9, Materien, Tit. CIX, Nr. 1, Vol. 1, Ad Nr. 1 vol. 2, Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin, Germany.  Accessed at http://mennonitegenealogy.com/prussia/1789_Land_Census_West_Prussian_Mennonites.htm on 25 July 2016.