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.

Nebraska Gives Me a "Yes" and a "No"

A few weeks ago, I did a project to see which vital records I had and which ones I needed to order.  I wrote a post about it here.  In that project, I realized that both my great-great-grandparents Fast, Jacob Fast #35385 (1831-1905) and Elisabeth (Thiessen) Fast #35386 (1832-1912) had died after Nebraska started to require death certificates to be filed with the state.  So I sent a request and $16 each to the vital records section.  A few days ago my answer came in the mail with a "yes" and a "no."

Jacob and Elisabeth Fast and their daughter Katharina.  Probably taken in the mid- to late-1890s.

Let's begin with the "no."  Nebraska started to require death certificates in 1904, and Jacob Fast died in February 1905, so a record should have been filed with the state.  However, the state web site warns that it took some time before the law was generally complied with.  I imagine that compliance was poorer in rural areas and those farther from Omaha and Lincoln.  Jacob Fast died near Jansen, a village in southeastern Nebraska.  So I was disappointed but not terribly surprised to get a "no" from the state - all indices had been searched but no death certificate for Jacob Fast was found.

Of course, the state kept my $16 because you are paying for the search not the certificate.  But it's a risk you have to take if you want to get any records from the state.

Jacob Fast, died 24 February 1905, no death certificate found, Health Records Management Section, State of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska, searched 5 January 2017.

But I had better luck and a "yes" for his wife and my great-great-grandmother, Elisabeth (Thiessen) Fast, who died in 1912.  Her death certificate didn't reveal any new information other than her burial date (12 July 1912), but it did confirm her death date (10 July 1912), place of death (Cub Creek Township, Jefferson County, Nebraska), and her parents' names (David Thiessen and Elisabeth Franz).  I knew these latter three pieces of information from obituaries and family histories, but it's nice to get a government document that confirms them.

Elizabeth Fast death certificate, died 10 July 1912, dated 11 July 1912, #6027, Vital Records Office, Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services, Lincoln, Nebraska.

Perhaps the most interesting thing was the doctor's note about cause of death, "Did not attend deceased.  Was called and patient died before I arrived.  Death undoubtedly from natural causes.  Never saw deceased alive."  Even though she died at age 80, she might have never been to the doctor, certainly not in the last few years of her life.  Her obituary in the Mennonitische Rundschau (28 August 1912, p. 8) says that she had experienced chest pains in the couple days before she died but she insisted on going to visit her other children and grandchildren anyway and then died of a heart attack.  She must have been one tough lady.

More Death Certificate Gleanings

If you pay attention, almost any document can tell you a lot.  Let’s continue with the death certificate of my great-great-grandmother Katharina Bergman #7126 (1834-1916), about which I posted here and here.

Katherina Barkmann death certificate, died 25 November 1916, dated 27 November 1916, no. 60219, Office of Vital Statistics, Topeka, Kansas.

Date of Birth.   

First, her date of birth is only given as 28 December – no year.  But if we calculate her birth date by subtracting her age at death from her death date, we get a birth year of 1834.  Her granddaughter, Margaretha H. Reimer, recorded her birth date as 28 December 1834, in her family register, so that agrees.  But it sure would have been nice if the doctor had not failed to write the year.   Also, if you go back to the 1835 census in the previous post, you see that she was ¼ year old when the census was taken on 11 February 1835, which roughly agrees with a 28 December 1834 birth date.

Final Illness.   

Notice that the doctor attended her only on 22 November 1916, and that she died on 25 November 1916.  That means that she did not visit this doctor in the eight years that she lived in Meade from 1908 to 1916.  She was likely reasonably healthy for an elderly person and did not need to go to the doctor.  Very likely she had a stroke (the cause of death is “paralysis due to cerebral hemorrhage”) on the 22^nd, so they called the doctor to come out, and he told them that it was hopeless and that there was nothing he could do.  Otherwise, he would likely have attended her in the three days before she died.

Burial.  

Next, notice that she was buried on the 27^th, two days after her death.  There was no undertaker, so relatives would have prepared the body, just as had been done for thousands of years by nearly everyone. 

The burial location is “Mennonite burying ground.”  There is no cemetery with that name today, but if I didn’t know where she was buried, that at least tells me her grave is in one of the Mennonite cemeteries in Meade County.  Since I have visited her grave previously, I know that she was buried in the Emmanuel Mennonite Cemetery.

Tombstone of Katharina Barkman, Emmanuel Mennonite north cemetery, at S Road and 22nd Road, near Meade, Kansas, accessed at www.findagrave.com, memorial #25017516, on 29 June 2016.

Informant.  

Death certificates almost always list the informant who provided the non-medical information.  It is interesting to think about why this particular person was chosen as the informant.  In this case, it seems strange to me that Johann F. Bartel was the one.  She died at the home of her son-in-law, Jacob F. Reimer (according to my grandmother’s family register), so it would seem he should be the one who would talk to the doctor.  He was also the oldest among the sons and sons-in-law, so he would be the natural candidate.   But this required communicating in English with an outsider, a non-Mennonite, so perhaps Jacob F. Reimer did not feel comfortable doing that.  Or perhaps it was something as simple as Jacob F. Reimer being out in the barn when the doctor came.  I don’t have an answer, but it seems that Jacob F. Reimer would have been the natural one to be the informant, but he was not.

Don’t forget to milk a document for every bit of information that it can give you.

A Surprise on a Death Certificate

In a previous post, I described how I had gotten my great-great-grandmother’s [Katharina Bergman #7126 (1834-1916)], death certificate to prove her death location.  But there was a surprise on the death certificate – her father was Jacob Barkman!  This was completely unexpected because all the evidence I had said that her father was Peter Peter Bergman #12946 (b. 1810).

(Bear in mind that the surnames Barkman and Bergman are different spellings of the same name; and until about a century ago, the same individual would use both spellings interchangeably throughout his life.)

Katherina Barkmann death certificate, died 25 November 1916, dated 27 November 1916, no. 60219, Office of Vital Statistics, Topeka, Kansas.

 

At first I dismissed this new information.  After all, a death certificate is not an original source with regard to a person’s parentage.  The informant was Katharina’s son-in-law, Johann F. Bartel #63498 (1864-1937), who was born 30 years after her and in a different village.  It is likely that he never met her parents because they stayed behind in Russia when Katharina immigrated to the US with her husband and children in 1878, and he certainly wasn’t present at her birth.  And they were probably members of different churches in Russia (Ohrloff congregation for Katharina Bergman and Kleine Gemeinde for Johann Bartel), so their paths may not even have crossed in Russia.  Perhaps Johann Bartel was just wrong about her father.

Yet it is worth investigating – I would certainly like to know since I would be chasing the wrong ancestral line if he is right.  Where to start?

Let’s look at the 1835 census of Molotschna colony in Russia.  I have strong evidence that she was born on 16/28 December 1834, so she should be in the 1835 census.  In fact, we find her living with her parents Peter Peter Bergman and Aganetha Penner at Schönsee farm #3.  This census is my only evidence that her father was Peter Peter Bergman, but it’s fairly strong. 

Father Peter Bergman and daughter Katharina are boxed in red.  Source:  Petr" Iuliusov" Bergman" household, 11 February 1835, 8th Revision of Census of Russian Empire, Schoensee village, Molochanskii Mennonistskii Okrug, Melitopol'skii Uezd, Tavricheskaia Guberniia, household #3.  Found in Odessa Region State Archives, Odessa, Ukraine, Peter J. Braun Collection, Fond 89, Inventory 1, File 357, p. 167R-169.  Accessed on microfilm from California Mennonite Historical Society, Fresno, California.

Next let’s look at the Jacob Bergmans/Barkmans in the census to see if any of them have a daughter Katharina.  There is a very helpful index to the census produced by the Manitoba Mennonite Historical Society available online.  I find two Jacob Barkman’s in the 1835 census who are heads of households – one who lived at Tiege village, farm #20 and another at Rückenau #11.  (The one in Lichtfelde #23 is the same one as the one in Rückenau - he moved there in 1821 according to the census.)  The Jacob Barkman in Tiege has no daughter Katharina, but the Jacob Barkman in Rückenau does have a 3-year-old daughter Katharina.  Could this be my Katharina?  When I look for her in Grandma, I see that she is #6629, born in 1832, died in 1923, and married to Johann Koop.  So she is a completely different person.  So neither of the Jacob Bergmans in the 1835 census had a child Katharina that could be my great-great-grandmother.

Richard D. Thiessen, "Index to the 1835 Molotschna Census," Russian Mennonite Genealogical Resources web site, corrected version of 28 March 2010.  Accessed online at http://mennonitegenealogy.com/russia/1835cein.htm on 6 Sept 2016.

However, let’s go back to the census image above.  Note that Katharina Bergman had an uncle living in the same house, Jacob Bergman #102754 (b. ABT 1818).  According to the census, he is not married and has no children, which is not surprising since he is only 17 years old.  Nothing more is known about him in Grandma.  Could he have had a child out of wedlock, and it was covered up by calling my Katharina the daughter of his older brother Peter?  And then Johann Bartel revealed the family secret eight decades later to the Meade County coroner?  I think that is unlikely because if she were the illegitimate daughter, she would have been with the mother and not with the father’s family.

In this case all we can do is weigh two pieces of evidence regarding her parentage against each other – the census recorded three months after her birth versus the testimony of a son-in-law on her death certificate 81 years later.  With nothing better to go on, I have to choose the census that shows her father was Peter Peter Bergman because it is a contemporary source recorded by an enumerator from the village who should have known, but I will keep in mind that the death certificate shows Jacob Barkman as her father in case I find some new evidence later on.