The Green Ratzlaff book

In 1958 the descendents of Jacob Ratzlaff produced a genealogy book that listed a short history of Jacob and his children.  The book is a small, light green, hardback volume, entitled History of Grandfather Jacob J Ratzlaff And Descendants; 1958.  Unfortunately it lacks any publication or production information so I am unsure of where it came from or who wrote it. 

The book is a very important resource as it lists Jacob’s children and such details as birth places and some immigration information.  However, two key pieces of information appear to be dubious.  In the book, Jacob’s middle initial is listed as “J”.  In multiple U.S. Census listings, Jacob’s middle initial is listed as “H”.  Furthermore, his father’s name, as can be seen from the Tobias Unruh baptism records, was Heinrich.  The common practice at the time was for a son’s middle name to be his father’s first name.  Therefore Jacob’s middle initial in all likelihood was “H”.  Also, the book lists Holland as the place of Jacob’s birth in 1842 and that’s probably not correct.  The California Mennonite Historical Society (CMHS) has produced the GRANDMA database which lists over a million low-german Mennonites.  The names are taken from a huge number of primary sources which have been used to create family trees (http://www.grandmaonline.org/gw-asp-2/login.asp).  CMHS researchers have found that Jacob’s father, Heinrich, was probably a resident of Karolswalde, therefore making it unlikely that Jacob was born in Holland.

Jacob Ratzlaff, (8/12/1842- 12/21/1926).

Married Anna Foth (05/24/1842-04/08/1912) in 1862.

The family emigrated in 1893 to Durham or Moundridge, Kansas from Volyhnia (probably Menziliski).

Children:

Henry (1863-1916)

(born Zabara, married 1887 to Mrs. Katherine (Base) Unruh (b. 06/30/1860), daughter of Benjamin and Anna ((Nightengale) Base)  emigrated 1893 with father Jacob  (spelled his surname “Ratzloff”)

Eva (1864-1949)

(born Zabara, Volhynia, married John Nightengale (d. 1899) emigrated 08/26/1909, landed in Galveston,TX, bound for Durham, KS)

Andreas (1869-1934) (wife, Susanna Wedel)

(born Leeleva, emigrated 1907, arrived at Hillsboro, KS, 05/29/1907)

Bernard (1871-1952)

(born Menziliski, married Marie Schultz, daughter of Cornelius and Leona (Jantz) Schultz, 1892)

            Adam (1881-1950) (born Volyhnia)

            Lena (1883-1934) (born Volyhnia)

            John (1890-1954) (born Volyhnia)

Also born to Jacob and Anna were 4 children who passed away in childhood.  3 babies died in infancy and another daughter, Elizabeth, passed away at the age of 15 years.  Elizabeth must have been born prior to 1878 since she had already passed away by the year 1893 when the family emigrated to USA.

Karolswalde Mennonite villages, Volhynia

The first place I can positively locate my Ratzlaff ancestors is in Volhynia, Russia.  Mennonites began settling in Volhynia in the late 1700s.  The largest Mennonite settlement in Volhynia was centered near Ostrog in Karolswalde.  Karolswalde was settled in the very early 1800s (http://home.arcor.de/pulin/karlswalde/tips.htm).  Villages associated with Karolswalde in the Ostrog area included Antonovka, Jadwanin, Karolsberg, Fuerstendorf, Fuerstenthal, as well as several others (http://www.gameo.org/encyclopedia/contents/K3760.html/?).
Karolswalde (also known as Karlswalde and Holendry Slobodkie), as well as several of the other villages, can be seen on this map from the 1800s.  They are marked “Col” because they were German colonies.  Fuerstendorf (Leeleva, Lesna) is marked as Nikitskaya.

Tobias Unruh (http://www.gameo.org/encyclopedia/contents/U57983.html/?searchterm), the elder of the Karolswalde villages during the mid-1800s, also served as elder for the village of Michalin near Berdichev, as well as for the villages of Dossidorf (Dosildorf, Zabara) and Waldheim (Waltajem, Solianka), northeast of Slawuta.  This map from the late 1800s shows the relationship between Dosildorf (upper right hand corner) and Karolswalde (circled at left).  The distance from Dosildorf to Karolswalde is just under 40 miles in a straight line.

Unruh kept records of those who he baptized and my great great grandfather, Jacob, appears among those records.  Jacob was baptized, along with several others, in Zabara in 1862.  Unruh’s entry lists Jacob as the son of Heinrich:

Die  Taufe in Dossidorf, welche in die Gemeine zu Antonowke gehoeren

1.  Jacob Jacobs Sohn                          Koehn                    in Dossidorf         

2.  Jacob Heinrichs Sohn                     Schmidt                 in Dossidorf

3.  Jacob Heinrichs Sohn                     Ratzlaff                  in Dossidorf

                                Die Jungfrauen:

1.  Eva Heinrichs Tochter                   Schmidten              in Dossidorf

2.  Anna Heinrichs Tochter                Koehnen                in Dossidorf

3.  Helena Heinrichs Tochter              Schmidten             in Dossidorf

4.  Anna Heinrichs Tochter                Koehnen                in Dossidorf

Diese hier auf diese Seite aufgeschriebene 3 maennliche und 4 weibliche Seelen sind auf ihrem Verlangen durch dem heiligen Worte Gottes und dem Befehle Jesu Christi im Beisein viele Zeugen getaufet und durch eine Handaufnehmung als Glieder in die mennoniten Gemeine zu Dossidorf am 21.ten Junius Neuenstyls 186  auf- und  angenommen worden. Als nehmlich vom Aeltester Tobias Unruh zu Karolswalde.

Przechowka Mennonites move into the Netzebruch

For various reasons, Mennonites began to leave Prussia by the mid-1700s.  In 1765, several families from the Przechowka congregation moved to the Netzebruch area near Driesen (Drezhdenko in Polish) which was in the Neumark area of Brandenburg.  These families founded the villages of Neu-Dessau, Franzthal and Brenkenhoffswalde.  http://www.gameo.org/encyclopedia/contents/N478.html

Central Eastern Europe, 1782:

In 1791, other Przechowka Mennonites settled near Machnowka, just south of Berdichev, in Volhynian Russia.  http://www.gameo.org/encyclopedia/contents/M5000.html/?searchterm=volhynia.

By 1819, the Przechowka Mennonites began travelling to the Molotschna Mennonite Colony in South Russia and by 1830 the Przechowka congregation in Prussia was mostly extinct.  Przechowka was the mother congregation of the Alexanderwohl and Gnadenfeld villages of the Molotschna Colony.  http://www.gameo.org/encyclopedia/contents/A44239.html
Ukraine in the mid 1800s:

Prussian Mennonites near Przechowka

Schwetz (Sciewie), Poland, lies about 75 miles south of Danzig (Gdansk), on the northwest bank of the Vistula River.  In the 17^th and 18^th centuries, Mennonite villages flourished in the Vistula delta area.  Many congregations could be found surrounding Gdansk (Danzig), Elbing, Malbork (Marienberg), and Stuhm, and even as far south as Schwetz.  Later, Mennonites colonized even farther up the Vistula River, inhabiting villages around Gabin (Gombin) and Warsaw.  http://www.gameo.org/encyclopedia/contents/prussia/?searchterm=prussia.  This is how the area looked in the early 1800s:

According to the Przechowka Churchbook, Ratzlaffs lived in the villages of Przechowka (Wintersdorf in German), Bekieszyce (Beckersitz), Jeziorken and Konopat (among others).  Here’s a view of the area from a Polish map dated 1879:

This map, also from the late 1800s, shows Jeziorken (upper left) in relation to Wintersdorf (Przechowka) and Konopath:

Traces of the Mennonite villages can still be seen today on satellite images.  The Polish paper packaging company Mondi Packaging Sciewie, SA, occupies area immediately to the north of Przechowka.  Konopat still exists.  http://wikimapia.org/#lat=53.3827652&lon=18.3940315&z=14&l=0&m=b

The first Ratzlaff

Mennonites began settling in the Schwetz (modern-day Polish = Swiecie) area perhaps as early as the mid 16^th century.  By the mid 17^th, Przechowka was an established Mennonite congregation affiliated with the Groningen Old Flemish Societeit, the most conservative branch of Mennonites (http://www.gameo.org/encyclopedia/contents/P780.html/?searchterm=przechowka) in West Prussia.

The Mennonite congregation was well-established and we can see from the church records that many Ratzlaff families were members.  According to the Przechowka Churchbook, the first Ratzlaff was a soldier in the Swedish army who laid down his sword to join the Mennonite Church.  As the Prussian government forbad conversions to the Mennonite faith, Ratzlaff was forced to travel to Holland to be baptized into the Church.  Upon his return he joined the Przechowka congregation.  In the Przechowka Churchbook, we can see that his son, Hans, was born about 1610.  Hans had five sons, and from there the Ratzlaffs quickly became one of the most numerous families of the congregation.

The claims the Przechowka Churchbook makes to the first Ratzlaff being a Swedish soldier are entirely plausible as the Swedish Army was indeed operating in the Vistula area in the first quarter of the 17^th century.  The Swedish-Polish War raged from 1600 – 1629 and the Swedish King, Gustavus Adolphus, led his Swedish troops into the areas around the Vistula: Pomerania, Mecklenburg, and East and West Prussia.  The Swedish troops are well-documented as having moved through the Prussian Grosswerder and Kleinwerder which were inhabited by many Mennonites at the time.  Cities and villages that were affected include Danzig (Gdansk), Elbing, Pilawa (Pillau), Gniew, Nowy and Brodnica (among many, many others).  Mennonite congregations existed in or near all these locations.

Our first Ratzlaff ancestor was impressed with the simple folk living along the Vistula.  At some point during the military campaigns in the early 1600s, he decided to drop his sword and join the Mennonite Church and settle in the village of Przechowka.

My Ratzlaff family origins

As far as we know at this point, the Ratzlaff family originated near Schwetz, which today is in central Poland, in the early 17th century.  Ratzlaffs lived in the Mennonite villages of Przechowka, Beckersitz, Jeziorken, etc., along the banks of the Vistula River.  Because of migrations and the destruction of records, I lose track of my Ratzlaff ancestors during the 18th century.  The 19th century, however, finds my great great great grandfather Ratzlaff, Heinrich, living in Karolswalde, Russia.  Karolswalde, along with several adjacent small villages, was a german colony founded in the early 1800s, just south of the city of Ostrog, Russia.  Heinrich's son, Jacob Ratzlaff, was born in 1842 in Karolswalde and emigrated to Marion County, KS, in 1893.  Jacob's son, Andreas (my great grandfather), was born in 1869 in Leeleva (Fuerstendorf in german).  Leeleva lies several miles SW of Karolswalde and can be found on a current map of Ukraine under it's modern name, Lesna.  Andreas Ratzlaff and his family emigrated to Marion County, KS, in 1907.

If you are interested in Ratzlaff (or Ratzloff) family history and want to know more, please visit the blog and website of my 3^rd cousin, Gordon Ratzloff, at http://fammail.blogspot.com/ and http://ceilingunlimited.com/fammail/.  Gordon is the great grandson of Henry J Ratzloff.  Henry was the eldest brother to my great grandfather, Andreas Ratzlaff.  Gordon’s website and blog contain a lot of personal information that gives a wonderful feel to the Ratzloff/Ratzlaff family.  Gordon shares photos and anecdotes in an attempt to personalize his Ratzloff, Ratzlaff, Holdeman and Nightengale (Nachtigal) families.  Particularly if you are descended from Jacob Ratzlaff (1842-1926) you should visit Gordon’s site and check out his information.