Lichtfelde Village History #2: The Departure

Let's begin our detailed study of the Lichtfelde village history. Here is the first paragraph:

15. Lichtfelde. Acting on their own initiative, in 1818 a significant number of Mennonite families decided to emigrate to join their co-religionists in South Russia, as they had no more prospect to receive land for their descendants in Prussia.

"Acting on their own initiative." The first emigration from Prussia to Russia, which resulted in the establishment of Khortitsa (Chortitza), was a three-year process that began in 1786 with an official invitation from the Russian minister in Danzig to the Mennonites. The churches sent delegates to survey the land, who spent a year traveling to Russia and negotiating. After they returned and reported, two groups departed in 1788 and spent the winter en route, arriving in 1789.

When the second colony Molotschna was established in 1803, Elder Cornelius Warkentin had learned that land was available, so the prospect of emigration was discussed at a minister's conference in August 1803. Large groups of Mennonites left and arrived in Khortitsa by fall, where they wintered with fellow Mennonites. In 1804, another large group joined them and they established new villages in Molotschna. The whole process was simpler and faster.

When the third wave arrived in Molotschna, beginning in 1818, they came in smaller groups, not in the organized mass migrations that established Khortitsa and Molotschna. And they were more responsible for organizing their own journey. In reality, there had been three decades of contacts among the Russian government, Mennonites in south Russia, and Mennonites in Prussia. It was much easier to emigrate to Russia in 1818 than it had been in 1788.

"in 1818" The Napoleonic Wars had ended in 1815, so the threat to the Prussian state had disappeared, and they no longer needed Mennonite support domestically. So they ended sales of state land to Mennonites, making it more difficult to acquire land for children and expansion. At first the Prussian government refused to give exit visas, but eventually they relented, but on the condition that Mennonites would pay an exit tax of 10% of the value of their property.

"a significant number of Mennonite families" Either 254 or 255 families emigrated over a roughly two-year period. If we assume 5 people per family, this would be roughly 1300 people. It would be interesting to know if they traveled in one huge group (unlikely since they came from different parts of Prussia) or several large groups. Or was it many groups of a few families? Presumably the wealthier families rode wagons or carts, in which they also hauled their possessions. Poorer families or individuals would have walked, perhaps pulling a handcart or carrying everything they owned in a backpack. 

"to join co-religionists in South Russia" It was much easier for this third wave of Mennonites to emigrate to south Russia because they had friends and relatives in Molotschna Colony to welcome them and to help them get settled in their new homeland.

"no more prospect to receive land for their descendants in Prussia" A farming family needed to buy more land for its children to farm, or their future economic prospects would decline. Children would be forced into a craft or trade, which was much less profitable than farming. The Prussian government was hoping that this economic pressure would force Mennonites to give up their non-resistance, but the prospect of cheap farmland in Russia gave them a way to keep their faith and to prosper economically. Thus, our ancestors saw this as God's provision for them.

The German original:

15. Lichtfelde. Aus eigenem Antrieb entschlossen sich im Jahre 1818 wieder eine bedeutende Anzahl mennonitischer Familien, zu ihren Glaubensgenossen nach Südrußland auszuwandern, weil sie in Preußen keine Aussicht mehr hatten, Land für ihre Nachkommen zu erhalten.

Lichtfelde Village History #1: Background

In 1848, Eugen Kaspar von Hahn, chairman of the Guardianship Committee that oversaw the Mennonite and other settlements of foreign origin in South Russia, ordered the settlements to prepare a history (called Gemeindeberichte) of each village. The mayor (schultz) and other officials of Lichtfelde prepared the history for their village, which had been founded in 1821. Since my 3-greats-grandfather Gerhard Abraham Fast #62896 (b. ABT 1788) was one of the original settlers, I will examine the report in detail to see what we can learn about the history of the village and his life. But we will start with some background to the village.

(An online reprint of all the village histories can be found at the Odessa3 collection).

The Molotschna Mennonite Colony, of which Lichtfelde was a part, was founded in 1803 by Mennonite immigrants from West Prussia. Because the Prussian government had restricted their rights to own and inherit land as long as they remained non-resistant and refused to serve in the Prussian army, many of them immigrated to the south Russian steppe. They founded nineteen villages there in the years 1803-1806. But then the immigration slowed dramatically as Prussia eased the restrictions on land ownership and as the Napoleonic Wars made international migration more difficult, and only one new village was founded in the next thirteen years.

1821 Map of Europe, showing migration from West Prussia to south Russia. Source: Lavoisne's 1821 map of Europe.

 

The Prussian government had relaxed restrictions on Mennonites' purchasing royal land during the Napoleonic Wars to raise money, but after winning the war in 1815 they had reinstated the restrictions. Moreover, patriotism surged in Prussia in the years after the victory, so Mennonites were under increased pressure to serve in the military. So beginning in 1818, Mennonite migration from Prussia to Russia surged again. and another twenty villages were founded over the next five years. One of these was Lichtfelde. [Mark Jantzen, Mennonite German Soldiers: Nations, Religion, and Family in the Prussian East, 1772-1880 (Notre Dame, Indiana: Notre Dame UP, 2010) 94-95.]

We will begin a detailed analysis of the Lichtfelde report in the next blog post.

(h/t Bob Buller and his Buller Time blog, where he has analyzed several village histories.)

Finished!!! Abraham F. Reimer Diary

I just finished translating the Abraham F. Reimer #3945 (1808-1892) diary for the years 1870-1874. It's been a year-long project, and I've enjoyed it. My German translation skills have improved, and I've learned a lot about how our ancestors lived in Russia.

I've uploaded the file to Google Drive, and I'm including a link here. Feel free to download it and to pass it on. I included a list of all people in the diary and their GM numbers and a list of vital events to make it easier for genealogists to use.

I Can't Read It!

NB:  Somehow I published this post before it was finished.  This is the final version.

In the finding guide for the Odessa, Ukraine State Archives, Fund 6, Inventory 2, I came across a record for a Penner living in the village of Prangenau in Molotscha Colony in 1847 who suffered damage in a hail storm.  The damage must have been quite severe because the colony made a collection for him and several other families.  Here's the bit of the finding guide:

Very interesting - my 3-greats-grandfather Jacob Penner #101378 (1777-1856?) lived in Prangenau village.  Could he be the same Penner who suffered the hail damage and for whom the village made a collection?

A couple weeks ago I went to the Tabor College Center for Mennonite Brethren Studies and scanned the relevant pages from the file.  Just yesterday I got around to looking at them, and the Penner affected by the hail storm was Jacob  It matched!  The microfilm quality is awful but take a look:

Source - O dozvolenii otkryt' podnisky no Molochanskomu mennonitiskomu . . .  (About permission to start a subscription in the Molotschna Mennonite  . . . ), 18 August 1847, Odessa Region State Archives, Odessa, Ukraine, Fond 6, Inventory 2, File 9525, p. 1. Accessed on microfilm at Center for Mennonite Brethren Studies, Tabor College, Hillsboro, Kansas.

I checked the 1835 Molotschna census index to see if there were any other Penners in Prangenau - it's always possible there was another Jacob Penner or two in the same village.  In fact, there were three Penner families in Prangenau in the 1835 census.  One was my ancestor Jacob Penner at Prangenau #15; another was his son Jacob, also living at Prangenau #15; and the third was a Peter Penner #281611, whom I suspect is a cousin but don't know for sure.  (Importantly, according to Grandma, this third Peter Penner had no son named Jacob, so I can be sure the Jacob Penner who suffered from the hailstorm is not a son of Peter.)

In the 1847 election lists from Molotschna, which is of landowners only, there are two Penners, Jacob and Peter in Prangenau.  Good news - there is no extra Jacob Penner in the village, at least among the landowners.  It is always possible that Jacob's son Jacob had taken over the farm and that this was not my 3-greats-grandfather but his son, who was not my direct ancestor.  But I think this is unlikely because there is a family memoir that says the older Jacob Penner lived until 1850 or 1856.

In the 1850 voting for the doctor that I recently extracted, there are two Penners, the same Peter Penner and a Franz Penner, who is my 2-greats-grandfather and son of Jacob Penner.  It appears that in 1847, father Jacob Penner still ran the farm but that by 1850, he had turned it over to his son Franz.

All good news so far - there is only one Jacob Penner in the village and he is my 3-greats grandfather, so the file is of interest to me.

Now the bad news - I CAN'T READ IT!  The microfilm is so bad that I can't make out more than a few words.  Next week I want to go back to CMBS and see if I can focus the scanner better.  Or maybe I can read it directly on the screen, even if a scan is not of sufficient quality to read.  But I have to go back because I really want to know about the hailstorm that my great-great-great-grandfather suffered and the help that the colony gave him to recover.  I'm not giving up yet.

The First Question

I am certain that you, dear reader, had a burning question after reading yesterday's post on the voting lists of Molotschna colony.  You would have wanted to know how you too could access the genealogical treasures found in the Odessa Archives.  And now I am going to answer that question for you.

Soviet archivists prepared a finding guide containing the description of every file, and someone has translated them into English and/or German.  These finding guides are hosted online by the Mennonite Heritage Centre in Winnipeg with one guide for each "inventory."

Now a word about Soviet archival practice.  The materials at a Soviet archive are grouped into fondy, which is usually translated "fund" or "fond," which gathers similar materials together.  The fond that I used from the Odessa Archive is #6, which I believe is the records of the Guardianship Board for Foreign Settlers, which oversaw the Mennonites and other foreign settlers in Russia.  The fond is then divided into opisi, which is usually translated "inventory."  The inventory that I used was #2.  Finally, individual matters are in folders called dela, or "files."  The voting list was in file #11792.  So if I wanted to quickly identify this file, I would say "Odessa 6-2-11792."

So how to access the files?  You could go to Odessa, Ukraine, and visit the archive; but since that is not convenient for most of us, some wealthy Mennonites have generously paid to have the files microfilmed and deposited in archives in the US.  You can find out where the microfilm of a particular set of documents may be viewed by going to Tim Janzen's website on Russian Mennonite genealogy, and scrolling down to Section R, Microfilm Collections.  You would note the Fond 6, Inventory 2 is #7 on his list, and it may be found at Hillsboro, Fresno, Abbotsford, and Winnipeg.  Since the Center for Mennonite Brethren Studies at Tabor College in Hillsboro, Kansas, is only a block away from my house, I dropped by for a visit.

How did I know what was interesting among the 14,000 pages of materials?  I went through the finding guide line by line until I found this gem:

At left I underlined the archival file number 6-2-11792, and in the middle the date to which the documents relate are underlined.  On the right I marked the phrase "Decisions of Mennonites' meetings with signatures of colonists."  Along with the list of villages, this indicated that I would find the signatures of most or all of the landowners of Molotschna colony.  I figured this would be similar to the valuable 1847 voters lists, and indeed it is.

When I go through the finding guides, I look for three categories of records.  One is general lists, such as the one above, that have many Mennonites names in them.  Usually I can find many ancestors in there.  Second, I look for files about specific ancestors - for instance, I found the passport file for my 4-greats grandfather Johann Sudermann, who went back to Prussia in the 1840s to settle his father's inheritance.  Finally, I look for more specific items that might mention my ancestors.  For example, one file on my list to check is a list of those with contracts to herd sheep for the villages - I wonder if some of my non-landowning ancestors might have herded sheep to survive.

When you dive into the Odessa archival files, I would encourage you to start with inventory 1 because the finding guide is a searchable PDF (some of them are not searchable), in English, and nicely formatted.  Make a list of all your direct ancestors who lived in Russia and their villages (if you know them) to help you as you search.  Also remember that there is a lot of chaff to sort through in the finding guide, stuff that is not relevant to you.  In a 30-page finding guide, you might only find 4-5 items that interest you, so don't give up too soon.  Don't hesitate on this one - there are real treasures here that very few people know about.

Molotschna Voting List for 1850

In Molotschna Colony in Russia, the landowners had to vote frequently in the village assemblies on issues affecting the colony.  Only the landowners could vote, so not every family is listed.  And only the heads of households are listed.  Some of these voting lists have been preserved in the various archives in Ukraine.  Tim Janzen has extracted one of these here, the list for the voting for village and district mayors in 1847.  These lists are valuable for genealogists because you can see whether your ancestor owned a farm, which tells you a lot about the family's economic status.  And if your ancestor was a landowner, it gives you confirmation of his residence in a certain year.

I have been going through some microfilms at the Tabor College Center for Mennonite Brethren Studies in Hillsboro, Kansas, specifically the ones designated as Fond 6, Inventory 2; and I found a number of voting lists from the 1840s and 1850s.  I decided to extract and post online the names from one that dealt with hiring a professional doctor for the Molotschna colony in 1850-1851.  There are over 1200 names, so I'm kind of regretting my decision to do this, but I'm going to finish it anyway.

Here is the page with the names from the protocol for Margenau village reporting the voting for the doctor.  They are even signed by the landowners, so this is a great way to collect signatures of your ancestors.

Village council voting list, 18 December 1850, Margenau village, Molotschna Mennonite District, Tavricheskaia Guberniia, Russia, State Archive of Odessa Region, Odessa, Ukraine, Fond 6, Inventory 6, File 11792, p. 22, Held at Tabor College Center for Mennonite Brethren Studies, Hillsboro, Kansas.

And here is an enlargement of the signature of David Klassen (or Klaassen as he spelled it) #6718 (1813-1900):

He was my great-great-grandfather.  Interestingly, he is not in the 1847 voting list for Margenau that I mentioned above, so he must have gotten a farm and moved to the village between 1847 and 1850, when he would have been between ages 34 and 37.  So this list adds some detail to his life.  It also shows that he spent his 20s and early 30s landless, probably working as a farm laborer.  Since he had five children by the time he moved to Margenau, he experienced poverty and the responsibility of providing for a growing family with only limited means as well as God's blessing in providing him with a farm.  This shows how you can combine a bureaucratic document that has very little information in and of itself with other documents and facts to create a picture of a person's life.

Using German War Records (Part II)

In Part I of this series, we explained how to search the German war records called EWZ for Mennonites.  Hopefully you have gotten one or more files that interested you.  Now we'll dive into the files.

The files generally contain three types of documents.  The first one gives the personal details of the applicant.  Below we are looking at the file of Katharina (Fast) Warkentin, who was the actual applicant for citizenship in the Jakob Fast file that I mentioned in part I.

Personalblatt (Personal Page) for Katharina (Fast) Warkentin, 27 October 1944, National Archives Collection of Foreign Records Seized, Record Group 242, Records of Einwandererzentralstelle, File #762268, Microfilm Publication A3342, Series EWZ-50, Film I088, Frame 0558 from Mennonite Historical Society of British Columbia, Abbotsford, British Columbia.

With just rudimentary German, you can see that it gives a birth date (Gerburts) of 2 February 1901, and a birthplace (Ort) of Hamberg village and a marriage date (verh.) of 10 September 1922.  Searching in Grandma using her maiden name and birth year reveals that she is #1014733.

Immediately following on the page is the information about her parents:

This gives her parents' names, birth places, birth dates, death dates, and religion (Mennonite).  If we compare to GM, we see that her father Jakob Fast's birth date there is 7 Nov 1867, which makes more sense than 1887, since he would have been only 14 years old when she was born in 1901 if he were born in 1887.

But it gets better.  The next information is her grandparents' names.

Her paternal grandfather was Klaus Fast, and this information is not in GM, so we should submit it as a correction.  The main record database from this time period for Molotschna colony is the school records, so let's search those for a father Klaas Fast and a son Jacob Fast, using the index compiled by Tim Janzen.

In the 1873-1874 school records, we find a Klaas Fast in Ladekopp, and he has two daughters Helena (b. ABT 1863) and Eva (b. ABT 1865).  This is probably the same family, but our Jacob is likely just a year too young to be attending school.  Unfortunately, the family is not listed in any of the other school records, and I can't find Helena or Eva in GM.

Klaas Fast household, school attendance record, Ladekopp, Molotschna, South Russia, 1873-1874, Odessa Region State Archive, Odessa, Ukraine, Peter J. Braun Collection, Fund 89, Inventory 1, File 2184, index compiled by Tim Janzen.  Accessed at http://mennonitegenealogy.com/russia/school/1873-74b.htm on 22 January 2017.

We can't yet say for sure whether the Klaas Fast who is the father of Jacob in the EWZ records is the same one as the Klaas Fast who is the father of Helena and Eva in the school records.  What if there were two Klaas Fasts about the same age both living in Ladekopp at the same time?  I've seen more than one such situation.  Fortunately, there is a list where we can check.  In the fall of 1863, many of the Molotschna villages had a bad harvest, so the villages loaned seed grain to their residents.  The landowners in the village had to sign to authorize the loan and the recipients (landowners and non-landowners alike) signed to receive the grain.  Presumably the lists include all the heads of households in the participating villages, and Ladekopp was one of those villages.

Extract of grain loan records, Ladekopp, Molotschna, South Russia, 22 October 1863, Odessa Region State Archive, Odessa, Ukraine, Fund 6, Inventory 4, File 21178, Pages 55-56, accessed at http://archive.mennonitehistory.org/projects/residents/grain_loans.html on 24 January 2017.

There were only three Fast heads of households in Ladekopp in 1863, which is ten years before the school records above.  And only one of them is named Klaas Fast, so we can be fairly confident that there was only one Klaas Fast in the village and that he was the father of all three children, Helena, Eva, and Jacob.  We should also note the column that indicates "both" - meaning that he both signed the grain loan documents as a landowner and as a recipient.  Since he was a landowner, his tenure in the village would be much more stable, and he would not be as likely to move as non-landowners.

I'm going to submit this information to GM as a correction.

The next question is who were Klaas Fast's parents.  I have a good candidate, but I haven't found sufficiently strong evidence yet, so that will (hopefully) be the subject of a future post.

I hope these two posts have given you a sense of the value of the EWZ records, how they can be used to research Soviet-era Mennonites, and how they can be combined with earlier records to research imperial-era Mennonites as well.