Andreas Ratzlaff, born 1833

Andreas Ratzlaff, husband of Maria (Janzen) Ratzlaff, was born in Antonovka, Volhynia, in 1833.  Antonovka lies just a couple miles west of Karolswalde along the road from Ostrog to Kuniv.  Karolswalde and Antonovka were the two Mennonite parishes in the Karolswalde Circuit.  Antonovka was associated with Fuerstendorf (Leeleva) and Menziliski (Waldheim) among others (Leeleva and Menziliski are locations associated closely with the Jacob Ratzlaff family).  Andreas Ratzlaff was the youngest son of Heinrich Hans Ratzlaff (1784-1848) and Maria Sawatzky (1797-1891).  The CMHS GRANDMA database indicates that all six of Heinrich Hans’ and Maria’s children were born in Volhynia.  In 1837, the family moved from Volhynia to the Molotschna Mennonite Colony in South Russia.  Following Heinrich Hans’ death in 1848, Maria and some of the children moved back to Volhynia and lived in the Heinrichsdorf village near Zhytomyr.  http://www.gameo.org/encyclopedia/contents/volhynia_ukraine.

GRANDMA doesn’t specify for certain whether Andreas moved back to Volhynia with his mother.  Therefore at this time I’m not sure about Andreas’ chronological whereabouts.  Nevertheless, this Andreas Ratzlaff had strong ties to the Antonovka parish villages in Volhynia and moved between this parish and the Moloschna at least once.

My great great grandfather Jacob also lived in the Antonovka parish villages.  We can’t be certain in which village he was born.  GRANDMA tells us that Jacob was born in Karolswalde in 1842, but doesn’t give a source for that information.  However, GRANDMA also indicates that two of Jacob’s younger siblings, Benjamin and Susanna, were also born in Karolswalde.  Susanna was born in 1850, so if the GRANDMA information is correct, Jacob and his family lived in Karolswalde until at least 1850.  During the first several years of the 1860s he lived in Zabara, as that is the location of his baptism in 1862 and his first child’s birth in 1863.  Sometime by 1869, though, the family moved to the Antonovka parish, as my great grandfather Andreas Ratzlaff was born in Fuerstendorf (Leeleva) in 1869, and the rest of the younger children were probably born in Menziliski. 

Jacob (b 1842) and Andreas (b 1833) traveled together to the U.S.A. in 1893, so obviously they had some sort of relationship.  Jacob lived in Volhynia while Andreas lived in the Molotschna, but perhaps their families were acquainted prior to 1837.  Perhaps they dealt with one another after Andreas’ mother returned from the Molotschna to Heinrichsdorf after 1848.  Whatever the case, they obviously rendezvoused in 1893.  They both shared the last name Ratzlaff and were of a similar age.  I don’t believe they were brothers though, as GRANDMA indicates otherwise.  Could they have been cousins?

GRANDMA doesn’t indicate, and I don’t have any other sources at this time that tell us, where or when Jacob’s father, Heinrich, was born.  However, given the birth dates of Jacob and his siblings, Heinrich must have been born in the neighborhood of 1800 and must have lived in Karolswalde by 1842.  We can be fairly certain that his name was Heinrich, as that’s the name indicated in the Tobias Unruh baptism records.  There are some indications, though, that his name may have been Jacob.  GRANDMA mentions this, and that would also solve the mystery of why the green Jacob Ratzlaff genealogy book lists “J” as Jacob’s middle initial.

Andreas (b 1833) Ratzlaff’s father, Heinrich Hans, was born in 1784.  GRANDMA doesn’t tell us for certain where he was born, but his father’s name was Johann Ratzlaff and he had as many as 13 siblings and 6 half-siblings.  Many of these siblings were born in the Mennonite villages near Driesen, Brandenburg.  Johann Ratzlaff was born in 1726 in Kolm, and died in 1805 in Driesen.  Again, we don’t know where Heinrich Hans was born, but we do know that he lived in Volhynia by 1820, where his children were born.  GRANDMA lists that Heinrich Hans had a younger brother by the name of Heinrich, who was born in 1798.  It’s troublesome that Heinrich Hans shared a first name with a sibling; there may be an inaccuracy there.  If a different first name could be attributed to Heinrich, it would alleviate the worry of two siblings with duplicate first names.  GRANDMA lists no further information for this Heinrich Ratzlaff beyond his birth date. 

In his book, The Helpless Poles, Abe J. Unruh discusses the origins of the Mennonites who lived in areas of Russia which have a strong Polish background, including Volhynia.  Unruh makes the assertion that many of the Mennonites from the Brandenburg villages of Brenkenhoffswalde and Neu-Dessau made their way to Volhynia in the early 19^th century.  Based on this information, Jacob Ratzlaff’s father or grandfather may very well have had ties to the Brandenburg villages.

1)      Andreas and Jacob travelled to the U.S.A. together in 1893.

2)      Andreas and Jacob were both born in the Karolswalde or Antonovka villages.

3)      Jacob’s father, Heinrich, was probably descended from Brandenburg Mennonites and was probably born around the year 1800.

4)      Andreas’ father, Heinrich Hans, was born in the Brandenburg village of Neu-Dessau and had a brother named Heinrich who was born in 1798.  Their father’s name was Johann Ratzlaff.

5)      If this Heinrich was also known as Jacob, two Johann Ratzlaff offspring wouldn’t have the same name.

Could Johann Ratzlaff’s son Heinrich be Jacob Ratzlaff’s father?  Given the above information, it certainly looks possible.  If that were the case, Jacob and Andreas would have been first cousins.

Jacob Ratzlaff emigration

The green Jacob Ratzlaff family history book mentioned earlier indicates that there were 21 people traveling together in the Ratzlaff party aboard the SS Polaria.  Since the Polaria’s manifest lists Andreas and Maria among the Jacob Ratzlaff family, I feel fairly confident saying these folks were all travelling together.  The manifest can be seen in its entirety here: http://collectionscanada.gc.ca/databases/passenger/001045-119.01-e.php?&sisn_id_nbr=3134&interval=20&&PHPSESSID=9spml0cqkh6h5jtp2mdde4jle4

It’s hard to say which other travelers were with the Ratzlaffs.  Immediately above Maria Ratzlaff’s entry are names that appear to be a Nightengale widow and her son.  I can’t tell what the first names are though.

The Jacob Ratzlaff family did have ties to Nightengale (Nachtigal) families in Russia, and there were many Nightengales living in the Karolswalde area.

According to the CMHS GRANDMA database, there was a married couple by the name of Andreas and Maria Ratzlaff who were both born in 1833, making them 60 years old in 1893.  This could very well be the Ratzlaff couple in question.  GRANDMA indicates that Andreas became deceased in 1892.  GRANDMA does indeed indicate that Maria travelled aboard the Polaria in 1893 so maybe the 1892 death date for Andreas is incorrect.  Otherwise, the information GRANDMA has for this couple is quite sketchy.  Maria’s maiden name was Janzen and the couple had eight children total.  They lived in Alexanderkrone and Fuerstenau in the Mennonite Molotschna Colony when their youngest children were born.  GRANDMA doesn’t list any further information for them.   The youngest two children, Johann and Heinrich, were born in1859 and 1861, respectively, in the Molotschna Colony.  Neither Johann nor Heinrich ever left Russia; both dying there in Mennonite Colonies years later.  No children are listed for Johann.  Heinrich, however, had several children.  Some of these are listed as having emigrated to the Fernheim, Paraguay, Mennonite Colony probably in the 1920s.  Andreas and Maria may have been the only members of this family to ever make it to the U.S.A.

Jacob Ratzlaff family emigration to USA

Mennonites settled in Russia in the 19^th century for various reasons.  The St. Petersburg government gained control of South Russia during this time and wished that the fertile steppe be converted into valuable farmland.  In Volhynia, the Russian serfs were being freed and the landowners needed knowledgeable farmers to work the land.  Many Germans, including Mennonites, Lutherans and Baptists, were invited into Russia because of their acumen for working the soil.  Some, like the Mennonites in South Russia, were granted special privileges excusing them from military duties or exempting them from taxes.  By the mid-century mark, Ukraine was dotted with German colonies; farmers or cottage industrialists who did not assimilate with the native Ukrainians and Russians.  As time wore on and the nationalistic spirit grew, the Russian government began to desire that the Germans living in their midst become more “Russian” in culture so it instigated changes in its former policies that were favorable to the German colonists.  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Germans_in_Russia_and_the_Soviet_Union)

Mennonites in Volhynia and South Russia greatly valued their German heritage and had no desire to assimilate with the native Ukrainians or Russians.  Furthermore, their religion forbad them military service, so they began to leave Ukraine.  The mass exodus of Mennonites began in 1874 as they began to find new homes in the U.S.A., Canada, and South America. (http://www.gameo.org/encyclopedia/contents/U568.html)

The Jacob Ratzlaff family also began to look into leaving Volhynia.  In 1893 most of the family packed up and left, bound for Marion County, Kansas.  A generous resident of Marion County, Bernard Jantz, paid the travelling fare for the Ratzlaffs.  The travelling party consisted of 21 people and they boarded the SS Polaria, bound for Montreal, Canada.  The SS Polaria was a ship of the Hamburg-America Line and departed Hamburg, Germany, on June 10, 1893.  After a brief stop at Antwerp, Belgium, on June 14, 1893 the ship embarked on its cross-Atlantic voyage and reached Montreal, Canada on June 27^th.  (http://www.norwayheritage.com/p_shiplist.asp?co=haaml)

Members of the Jacob Ratzlaff family who made the voyage were:

     Jacob and Anna,

     Henry (Heinrich), wife Katherine and their children Tobias and Karolina,

     Bernard and his wife Marie,

     Adam,

     Lena (Helene),

     John (Johann).

Jacob and Anna's other two children, Eva and Andreas, both stayed in Russia at this time.  They both would travel to the U.S.A with their families at later dates.

Bernard and Maria’s names appear on the first page of the manifest of the SS Polaria where they are listed as farmer and wife:

The names of the rest of the Ratzlaff party appear on the second page:

Joining the Jacob Ratzlaff family on the voyage was an Andreas Ratzlaff (note that this is NOT Andreas Ratzlaff, the son of Jacob Ratzlaff) and his wife Maria.  The SS Polaria manifest gives Andreas and Maria’s ages as 60 at the time of the voyage in 1893.

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