[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Estonian church records

Sun Jan 5 10:57:27 PST 2014

Hi Paul,

Annenhof (the Estonian name would be Lilli-Anne) was a support manor of the 
knight manor Schloß Sommerpahlen (the Estonian name Sõmerpalu). In 1912 
Annenhof together with two other support manors - Petrimois (Peetrimõisa) 
and Mustel (Mustja) was divided into farm land and 40 German families from 
Volhynia were invited to live there. As far as I know, some of the German 
colonists brought land from local peasants too. You can consider it as a 
reaction against the russification politics which started in Baltic 
governorates about 1880-1890.

I just make a copy from the e-mail I have sent to Beth Burke, who has also 
asked me about the German colonies in Estonia:

This piece of history of German colonies in Estonia is very interesting
indeed. You have to draw the line between these colonists and Baltic
Germans - this is a different story. Very brief summary would be as follows:

The German peasant colonies in Estonia were established appr. in 1912-13
when some German families came from Poland, Volhynia and Volga area and
gained land (just buying from local peasants). There were 3 such colonies -
the biggest and the most important one was the Peetrimõisa or Heimthal
colony. In 1934 there were 198 inhabitants in the colony plus 115 persons
living outside of Heimthal. There were 35 farms (with farm names like
Kleinhof, Neumanshof, Mittelhof, Osthof, Friedenthal, Neuhof, Marienberg,
Birkenruhe, Birkenthal, Sorgenfrei, Johanneshof, Wilhelmshöhe, Eckhof,
Sonnenburg, Strasshof, etc.). The capacity of the land owned or rented by
colonists were 627 hectares. In 1926 a school-house and a church were built.
The church was badly damaged during the WWII and afterwards, but now it has
been restored - a very beautiful small church (I have visited it a couple of
years ago).

The location of the Heimthal German church
http://xgis.maaamet.ee/xGIS/XGis?app_id=UU82&user_id=at&punkt=666875.2,6423005.8&zoom=807.853496319149&setlegend=FUUKAT102_82=0,FUUKAT103_82=1&LANG=1

The other colony was in Viira village, appr. 20km north-east from Heimthal,
with only 8 German families and 100 hectares land.

And the third one was in Visusti-Kaarepere area, not a compact settlement,
the members of the colony did not own the land, they used to live here and
there all over the Tartu and Viljandi di counties. In 1936 there were all
together 50 German families with appr. 300 members. The centers of the
colony were the Visusti and Kaarepere villages
http://xgis.maaamet.ee/xGIS/XGis?app_id=UU82&user_id=at&punkt=645852.4,6504942.4&zoom=17691.6051916225&setlegend=FUUKAT102_82=0,FUUKAT103_82=1,UUKAT1L_82=0&LANG=1

Well, I can add one more link to a map from 1935-1939 
http://xgis.maaamet.ee/xGIS/XGis?app_id=UU41&user_id=at&punkt=666904.3,6423057.4&zoom=8038.37529192574&setlegend=UU41_ajal=1,FUU1511=0,FUU6722=1,UU41_topo=0&LANG=1

You can see the German farms there, the word "Kool" in the middle means 
"school" - it was the location of the German school and the church.

The Sommerpahlen manor with its support manors were situated in the Urvaste 
Parish (Kirchspiel Anzen), but the Heimtal Germans did not went to Urvaste, 
they preferred the neighbouring parish church in Kanepi (German name 
Kannapäh) due to logistic reasons perhaps. You can find the parish member 
list of Heimtal congregation here: 
http://www.ra.ee/dgs/_purl.php?shc=EAA.1267.1.304:3  It's mostly written in 
Cyrillic, so it's perhaps hard to read for someone not familiar with 
Cyrillic text. The later version of parish member list of Tallinn Oleviste 
German congregation to which the Heimtal or Peetrimõisa sub-congregation was 
connected to and which's link I have added to my e-mail below, is perhaps 
easier to read.

The Heimtal church looks like this nowadays 
http://urvaste.eelk.ee/abikirikud.htm - well restored, a wonderful place 
(sorry, the page is only in Estonian).

Best regards
Katrin

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Paul Rakow" <paul.edward.luther.rakow at desy.de>
To: <ger-poland-volhynia at sggee.org>
Cc: "Katrin Hanko" <katrin at bokser.ee>
Sent: Sunday, January 05, 2014 7:38 PM
Subject: Re: Estonian church records

>
>    Hello Katrin,
>
>          Thanks for telling us about these Estonian church books!
>
>          I'm interested because a relative of mine (Philip Gruenke)
>  was living in Estonia from about 1910 to 1920.
>
>          He lived in a village called Annenhof near an estate called
>  Sommerpahlen.  Some time later (in the 20s?) I believe the village
>  was renamed Heimtal, after the original Heimtal in Volhynia.
>
>      Do you know which Lutheran congregation Annenhof would belong to?
>  Was it one of the villages in the compact colony you talk about?
>
>                  Thanks,
>                     Paul Rakow
>
>  "Katrin Hanko" <katrin at bokser.ee> wrote:
>
>> Hi!
>>
>> Sure. The church books are available at the Saaga web-page, which is a 
>> collection of digitized records of National Archives of Estonia and 
>> Tallinn City Archve. First you have to sign in, it's free of charge and 
>> available for everyone. http://www.ra.ee/dgs/explorer.php
>>
>> The parish member list of the Peetrim?isa German congregation starts 
>> here: http://www.ra.ee/dgs/_purl.php?shc=TLA.31.2.23:3
>> It was the compact colony (three villages in fact as far as I remember) 
>> of Germans from Wolhynia, Poland, etc., in south-east of Estonia.
>> And there were other German immigrants, they did not form such a compact 
>> colony, but used to live scattered in the areas of Palamuse, ?ksi, 
>> Sangla, etc.
>>
>> There are some links I have found about them so far:
>> http://www.ra.ee/dgs/_purl.php?shc=EAA.1261.1.649:30
>> http://www.ra.ee/dgs/_purl.php?shc=EAA.1266.1.668:35
>> http://www.ra.ee/dgs/_purl.php?shc=EAA.1266.1.668:2
>> http://www.ra.ee/dgs/_purl.php?shc=EAA.1261.1.649:28
>> http://www.ra.ee/dgs/_purl.php?shc=EAA.1261.1.649:36
>> http://www.ra.ee/dgs/_purl.php?shc=EAA.1261.1.649:46
>> http://www.ra.ee/dgs/_purl.php?shc=EAA.1266.1.668:26
>> http://www.ra.ee/dgs/_purl.php?shc=EAA.1266.1.668:27
>> http://www.ra.ee/dgs/_purl.php?shc=EAA.1261.1.649:21
>> http://www.ra.ee/dgs/_purl.php?shc=EAA.1261.1.649:29
>>
>>
>> Best regards
>> Katrin
>>>  ----- Original Message -----
>>>  Subject: RE: [Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Scheppel village
>>>
>>>
>>> Katrin, can you supply the weblink to these sites that you are referring 
>>> to?
>>>
> 