Why was he born THERE?

Sometimes you come across a surprising fact, a fact that doesn't fit anything else you know; and then you start to wonder what it means.  When I started researching genealogy, I assumed my great-grandfather Gerhard T. Siemens #6463 (1834-1908) was born in Rosenort, Molotschna, South Russia.  His grandfather Klaas Johann Siemens #46557 had settled farm #14 in Rosenort when it was founded in 1803, and the 1835 census recorded little Gerhard as living there as a one-year-old child with his parents, grandmother, and other family members.  It only made sense that the family had lived there continuously from 1803 to 1835, so of course my great-grandfather was born there in 1834.

Here's the 1835 census of Rosenort farm #14 so that you can see for yourself how logical my assumption was:

Katerina Simens" household, 4 February 1835, 8th Revision of Census of Russian Empire, Rosenort village, Molochanskii Mennonistskii Okrug, Melitopol'skii Uezd, Tavricheskaia Guberniia, household #14.  Found in Odessa Region State Archives, Odessa, Ukraine, Peter J. Braun Collection, Fond 89, Inventory 1, File 357, p. 263R-264.  Accessed on microfilm from California Mennonite Historical Society, Fresno, California.

I underlined the one-year-old Gerhard T. Siemens in red, his 29-year-old father Gerhard Klaas Siemens is listed just above him, and his late grandfather Klaas Johann Siemens is on the first line.

So I was very surprised when I found his obituary, and it said that he was born in Neuendorf, Khortitsa, South Russia.  But the obituary was written by my great-uncle Abraham K. Siemens, and I have come to recognize him as an interested and careful genealogist, so I trusted his information.  Here is a snippet from the obituary:

Letter to editor from A. R. Siemens [Abraham K. Siemens], Die Mennonitische Rundschau, Scottsdale, Pennsylvania, 9 December 1908, p. 12 from microfilm at Mennonite Library and Archives, Bethel College, North Newton, Kansas.

The phrase I underlined translates as, "was born in Neuendorf, the Old Colony, South Russia."  Khortitsa was called the "Old Colony" because it was settled first.

I have searched all the online records for Khortitsa, trying to find a connection, but I found no Siemens there who were related.  I don't know where his mother, Gertruda Thiessen, comes from; so I searched for her in Khortitsa without success.  I didn't know what else to try, but this has really bugged me for a long time.  Why would a boy be born in Khortitsa when his parents and grandparents always lived in Molotschna and even had a farm there?

I still don't have the answer, but I noticed a new bit of information today.  The online version of Grandma says that his aunt Helena Siemens #3759 was married in Einlage, Khortitsa, on 19 August 1830, to Abraham Johann Friesen #3751.  Since Mennonites were traditionally married in the home of the bride's parents, this would mean that little Gerhard's grandparents were living there in 1830.  Did they live in Khortitsa from at least 1830 to 1834?

I've looked for Gerhard's parents and grandfather Siemens in Khortitsa without success, but what if it was his grandmother Katharina (Friesen) Siemens #46558 who had relatives in Khortitsa?  What if they moved to Khortitsa to live with relatives when they retired from farming?  They could have still been officially registered at their farm in Rosenort, Molotschna, but actually been living in Khortitsa.  There are three Friesen families listed in the May 1814 census of Khortitsa, so I wonder if they might have been relatives of little Gerhard's grandmother Katharina (Friesen) Siemens.  And one of them, Cornelius Friesen #198463 came from the same Heubuden church in West Prussia that Katharina Friesen came from. It's an avenue for further research.

What Is Our Nationality?

On my grandmother's (Margaretha H. Reimer, #321744, 1895-1993) death certificate, the informant, my uncle, said that she was German.  Here's a snip from the certificate:

Margaret H. Siemens death certificate, died 26 October 1993, dated 15 November 1993, certificate #93-019194, Office of Vital Statistics, Kansas Department of Health and Environment, Topeka, Kansas.

And here is the information for her "ancestry:"

When she died in 1993, Mennonites absolutely considered themselves German.  They spoke Low German and read and wrote High German.  So my uncle's answer was correct.

But it wasn't always so.  During Word War I and the years immediately following, Mennonites usually considered themselves Dutch because of the anti-German backlash of the war.  Here is my grandfather's (Cornelius K. Siemens, #7529, 1884-1950) 1921 Canadian census record:

Census of Canada 1921, Provencher District, Manitoba, ED 19, Sheet 15A, Family 108, Household of Cornelius Seamons accessed at Ancestry.ca on 10 April 2014.

And for a closer look, my grandfather reported that the language spoken by every member of the family was "Dutch," which was the closest question to ethnicity on that census:

The language that they spoke didn't change from 1921 to 1993 - but the way that Mennonites viewed themselves (and they way they wanted outsiders to view themselves) definitely had.  And since their Low German dialect was indeed part of a group of Low German dialects that had historically been spoken in a band from modern Netherlands to modern Poland, this was an accurate description.

If we go back a century earlier when the Mennonites were living in Russia, they did not consider themselves either German or Dutch, but rather they saw Mennonite as a distinct ethnic group.  For example, my great-great-great-uncle, Jacob Siemens was murdered in Molotschna colony in Russia in April 1811 at age 19 by Nogai nomads while working on a road crew.  The official report on the crime called him a "Menonist" (менонистъ in Russian), not a German.  Here's a snippet from the report:

“Po raportu smotritelia Molochanskikh” kolonii Zibera o ubitykh” 4-kh molochanskikh” poseletsakh” [On the report of Supervisor Ziber about four murdered Molochansk settlers],” 26 April 1811, Odessa State Historical Archive, Odessa, Ukraine, Fund 6, Inventory 11, File 78, found at Mennonite Library and Archive, North Newton, Kansas.

And here's a blow-up of his nationality from the report:

You may not be able to read the Russian, but it says Menonist, or Mennonite.

BTW, this incident became a notorious crime among the Mennonites in south Russia and led to the Rusisan government disarming the Nogai nomads two years later.  So most of our ancestors would have known about and felt the fear of the nomads.

So I've given you a few documents that show how Mennonites understanding of their ethnicity or nationality has changed over the last couple centuries.

Y-DNA for Mennonites (Part II)

In my last post, I briefly explained how I think you can use Y-DNA to show that all Mennonite Fasts in West Prussia are likely descended from a fairly recent ancestor.

But the situation is a little different for my maternal lines, the Siemens.  If you look at the table of Mennonite Y-DNA and surnames maintained by Glenn Penner, you can see how the Mennonite surnames break down into groups.  For instance, if you scroll down to the Siemens, you can see that Glenn has broken them up into two groups, separated by the bold line. The first four men tested share virtually the same Y chromosome, while the second five men do as well.  But the first and second groups are different from each other.  The columns on the right are the number of times certain sequences of DNA molecules repeat.  Here's a snip from the spreadsheet:

I had my uncle, my mom's brother, tested before he passed away; and his Y-DNA matched the first group.  If I would research the ancestries of those three men, they should converge at some point, perhaps in the 1600s.  It also means that there is no point trying to connect to the ancestries of the Siemens men in the second group.

When I checked in Grandma, I found that the man on the third line, Jacob Siemens #2169, was born in Alt-Muensterberg in 1764, which is the same village in which my 4-greats-grandfather Klaas Johann Siemens #46557 was married in 1787.  That would make them of about the same generation.

I haven't started on this project yet because I am working on connecting Fasts in the 1776 census.  But once I finish with the Fasts, I will take up this group of Siemens and see where it leads.

BTW, I have had no success using the list of matches at FTDNA for my Y-DNA.  Out of the hundred or more matches for each of my two surnames tested, Fast and Siemens, I have had only one match with a Fast surname and none with a Siemens surname.  I think this is because both these lines are of Dutch and Flemish origin, and the Dutch only took surnames late in history.  It's much better to use the Mennonite Y-DNA table that Glenn Penner has put together.