There appear to have been a few different clans of Ratzlaffs
living in the Ostrog, Volhynia, area around the mid-19th
Century. Based on the Tobias Unruh
baptism record, shiplists from ships which carried mainly Volhynian Mennonites
to America, data from GRANDMA, and other bits and pieces from here and there,
it looks like there were no more than 4 Ratzlaff clans in the area at this
time. 1) the Heinrich Ratzlaff family
which included my great great grandfather Jacob, and great grandfather Andreas;
2) the Andreas Ratzlaff family which included the brothers Peter and Andreas
Ratzlaff; 3) a second Andreas Ratzlaff family made up of Adam, Benjamin, Tobias
and Bernard; and 4) the Heinrich Hans Ratzlaff family made up of Heinrich Hans’
5 sons Johann, Benjamin, Abraham, Tobias and Andreas.
First of all, a word about names. The name Andreas looks to have been a very
popular name with the Mennonites of Volhynia.
All 4 of these clans have men named Andreas Ratzlaff, and all 4 will be
discussed. We have Andreas son of
Andreas, born in 1822; Andreas son of Andreas, born around 1830; Andreas son of
Heinrich Hans, born in 1833; and Andreas son of Jacob, born 1869.
In no particular order, the first clan included my Ratzlaff
ancestors, the Heinrich Ratzlaff clan.
This clan cannot be traced decisively back to its origins in Przechowka,
but may very well be related to Johann Ratzlaff (b 1726) of Driesen,
Neumark. Heinrich Ratzlaff himself lived
and died probably in Karolswalde. He had
4 children, all of whom have been discussed in detail earlier. His eldest son, Henry, may have never left Russia . His other children and their families lived
in Volhynia; Jacob with his family until their emigrations in 1893, 1907 and
1909; Benjamin with his family until they left for the Holy
Land in 1877; and Susanna (Boese) and her family until they
emigrated in 1875. (Benjamin’s family
would also later emigrate to America ). This family lived in the villages of
Antonovka, Lileva and Mezelski.
The second Ratzlaff clan was made of the 2 sons of Andreas
Ratzlaff; Peter (b1826) and Andreas (b c 1830).
I am also related to this clan in that this Peter Ratzlaff married Anna
(Koehn, Foth), the widow of Heinrich Foth, by the late 1840s. This Anna (Koehn, Foth) was the mother-in-law
to my ancestor, Jacob Ratzlaff (b 1842).
Peter became step-father to Jacob’s future wife Anna Foth. The ancestry of Peter Andreas Ratzlaff and
Andreas Andreas Ratzlaff is not known beyond their father, and I don’t know at
this time whether the father (Andreas) lived in Volhynia or not. In all likelihood he did; he would probably
have been born around 1800 and that’s right about the time when the German
Mennonites began coming into Volhynia. However,
in my notes, I found an indication that Peter was born in Ostrower
Kaempe , West Prussia (Ehrental in
German, today known as Ostrów Świecki, Poland ),
but I don’t know if that’s accurate or not.
I also don’t know in which Volhynian villages specifically these
Ratzlaffs lived. Koehn family documents
indicate they lived in the Ostrog area but don’t name any villages. This Peter Ratzlaff left for America aboard
the SS Vaderland in December, 1874.
Peter may have been buried in Carson Township ,
Minnesota (Mountain Lake Canton , KS America
aboard the SS Waesland. At this point I
don’t know where they lived in America
or when Andreas passed away.
An interesting sidenote here involves the Buller
family. This Andreas Ratzlaff (b c 1830)
was married to a Katharina Buller.
Katharina’s father was David Buller (born 1785 in Jeziorken, died after
1828 in Antonovka). My great-great-great
grandmother, Maria Buller (b c 1820, grandmother to Susanna Wedel) was the
daughter of a David Buller, born 1785.
It’s entirely possible that this Katharina and Maria were sisters,
thereby forming another link between these two Ratzlaff clans. This David Buller was also descended of
Ratzlaffs, through his grandmother, Buscke Ratzlaff (b c 1716), a sister to the
previously mentioned Johann Ratzlaff (b 1726).
The third Ratzlaff clan was also made up of an Andreas
Ratzlaff and his sons; Andreas Ratzlaff (b 1812 or 1822 in Antonovka) and his
sons Adam (b c 1836), Benjamin (b 1839), Tobias (b 1843) and Bernard (b
1844). This man and all 4 sons appear to
have lived in Antonovka during the 19th Century. Andreas was born in Ostrower Kaempe , West Prussia
His first son, Adam, lived in
Antonovka until his premature death between 1867 and 1874. After Adam’s death, his widow, Eva Wedel,
re-married to a Benjamin Peter Jantz, and the whole family emigrated to America
aboard the SS Vaderland in December of 1874.
The family lived near Canton , KS , and then moved to Oklahoma .
The next son, Benjamin, married an
Eva Nachtigal. The couple along with
several children emigrated to America
in 1880, after which time they lived in Durham ,
KS Montezuma , KS
The third son, Tobias, was on his
second wife by the time he and his family emigrated to Marion County, KS,
aboard the Vaderland in December of 1874.
While living in Antonovka, he first married Susanna Koehn, but she died
around 1871. Next he married a woman
named Anna, but she died soon after arrival in America . Finally, Benjamin married Helena Schmidt and
the couple are both buried in Montezuma ,
KS
The fourth son, Bernard, was born
in Antonovka and married Helena Unruh.
They with 4 of their children also emigrated to America aboard the Vaderland in
December, 1874. They are also buried in Montezuma , KS
These four sons were children of Andreas Ratzlaff and his
wife Helena Koehn. Helena died at some point around 1850 and
Andreas re-married to Wilhelmina Foth.
After Wilhelmina Foth’s death, Andreas married Maria Foth. At some point after his first wife’s death,
Andreas moved from Volhynia back into the Masovia, Poland , and lived in the upper
Vistula Mennonite villages of Deutsche Wymyschle, Wola Wodzinska and perhaps Wonsosz bei Gombin. Andreas also emigrated to America at some point by 1915 when he was buried
in Hitchcock , Oklahoma
Finally, the fourth clan include several sons of Heinrich
Hans Ratzlaff. Heinrich Hans was born,
probably near Neu-Dessau, Neumark, in 1784, a son to the previously mentioned
Johann Ratzlaff (b 1726). He married his
first wife, a Richert daughter, in Neu-Dessau, but she died shortly
afterwards. He married his second wife,
Maria Sawatzky, in Volhynia around 1820.
Maria had been born near Elbing, in Prussia . 5 sons and 1 daughter were all born in
Volhynia between 1821 and 1833, but the family moved to the Molotschna Colony
in 1837. Heinrich Hans died in 1848
after which point Maria and 2 of her sons, Abraham and Tobias, moved back into
Volhynia and were among the founders of the Heinrichsdorf, Volhynia, Mennonite
community. Heinrichsdorf was founded in
that same year about 12 miles northwest of Berdychev; about 84 miles southeast
of Karlswalde (today there are no traces of the village left, but it would have
lain directly northeast of the Ukrainian village of Vakulenchuk.
Abraham (b 1828) and Tobias (b 1831) both are listed in the
Heinrichsdorf churchbook. Abraham
married Anna Teske in 1853 and Tobias married Helena Nachtigal in 1858. The Heinrichsdorf community probably had
little to do with the Karlswalde villages, however, other than the fact that
Tobias Unruh served as elder for both communities. Children of Abraham and Tobias are both
listed in the Tobias Unruh baptism record.
Abraham and Tobias, along with their families and their mother Maria,
emigrated aboard the SS Colina in September of 1874, and settled in Turner County , South
Dakota South Dakota .
Heinrich Hans’ other children were Johann (b 1821), Maria (b
1826) and Andreas (b 1833). These children
were also born in Volhynia but grew up in the Molotschna Colony.
Johann, with his wife Ann Buller
and their children, emigrated to Minnesota
aboard the SS Vaderland in the summer of 1876.
Maria married a Johann Beier, but
died in the Molotschna in 1867. Johann
also died in 1867, leaving their 7 children orphans, the youngest of whom was
only 3 years old at the time of the parents’ death. The family must have spent some time among
the Mennonite villages in Crimea before Maria
and Johann’s deaths. The children were
named Johann, Helena, Anna, Abraham, Suzanna, Cornelius and Katherine. Johann, Abraham and Cornelius all emigrated
to the U.S.
in 1874. Members of Helena ’s
family made their way into Kazakhstan
after 1920. Some remained there during the
Soviet period (death dates recorded as recently as 1985) and may very well
remain in Russia
to this day. Others were able to make
their way into Germany . Anna’s family moved into the Millerovo, Russia ,
Mennonite village. It appears as if most
of this family eventually made their way to Canada
or Germany . Nothing more is known of Suzanna’s or
Katherine’s family at this time.
Heinrich Hans’ youngest child,
Andreas, married Maria Janzen and emigrated to the United States in 1893 aboard the SS
Polaria along with the Jacob Ratzlaff (b 1842) family. Andreas died shortly after arrival in America . Andreas and Maria left behind 8 children in South Russia . The
fate of the elder 6 children is unknown, while the 7th and 8th
children, Johann and Heinrich, moved deeper into Russia . Johann died in the Mennonite settlement of Orenburg in the
1920s. Heinrich and his family trekked
all the way to the Barnaul Mennonite settlement in Siberia
where he died in 1915. Several of
Heinrich’s children were among those Mennonites to escape over the border into China
during the early Soviet period. From Harbin , China
they were able to make their way to the Mennonite Colonies in Fernheim ,
Paraguay (http://wikimapia.org/#lat=-22.3891664&lon=-60.0085259&z=12&l=0&m=b),
and near Curitiba , Brazil South America today.
In addition to all these, a couple other Ratzlaffs appear in
the Tobias Unruh baptism records.
Elisabeth Ratzlaff was baptized in 1864 and Tobias Unruh lists her
father as Heinrich. There’s also another
Elisebeth (Elske) listed as the daughter of an Andreas Ratzlaff, baptized in
1861.
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