[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] looking for families Stelter and Dreusner

[Jerry Frank]

Gil,

You can find a brief history of Moravian Brethren in Russian Poland 
at 
http://www.sggee.org/parish_histories/MoravianPoland/MoravianGeneralHist.html 
.  We'd be pleased to have someone provide a similar summary for 
those in Volhynia.

As I understand it, the Moravian Brethren originally were, what we 
would call today, a para-church organization that sought to help 
existing church people to improve their piety and devotion to 
God.  Some Lutheran pastors would allow them to work within their 
congregations while others vehemently rejected them.  It seems that 
they evolved into a more formal independent denomination during the 
19th century.

I would say that the vast majority of Moravian Brethren in Volhynia 
were converted Lutherans.  A few of them migrated directly from 
Russian Poland.  This conversion process, especially in the area 
northwest of Zhitomir causes research problems for Baptists and 
Moravians because their records did not survive while the Lutheran 
ones did.  Depending on when the conversion took place, you may be 
able to bridge that gap by researching the Lutheran records.

Your Stelter cousins often attend our conventions when they are in 
Edmonton.  We have in the past featured Moravian Brethren history and 
genealogy when meeting in Edmonton because of its proximity to those 
settlements.   There are probably some articles about them in past 
Journals but have not looked up what those might be.


Jerry Frank - Calgary, Alberta
FranklySpeaking at shaw.ca


At 03:23 PM 14/12/2008, Gilbert A Stelter wrote:
>Hello all;
>I joined this group a few days ago and have been impressed by the 
>quality of the research many of you are doing.
>
>My name is Gilbert (Gil) Stelter and I'm a retired University 
>Professor of History (University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario. My wife 
>and I are planning to go to Volhynia next September.
>
>Both sides of my family are Germans from Volhynia. My grandfather, 
>Ludwig Stelter, was born in Radwanky(a), Poland in 1855 and migrated 
>to Vladimir-Volensk (near the Polish border) in 1867 with his 
>parents, married Amalia Demm. of similar background, in 1880. They 
>had two daughters, them migrated to Winnipeg in 1867. They must have 
>had contact, or been members of the Moravian Brethern in Poland and 
>Volhynia, because when they eventually ended up in Southern Alberta, 
>they contacted the Moravian communities
>around Edmonton, in particular, Bruederheim, and eventually moved up there.
>
>Those Moravian communities such as Bruederheim, had been founded by 
>Moravians from Volyhnia in 1894,led by Andreas Lilge, but I have not 
>found any information about where in Volyhnia they came from in the 
>official history of that congregation. Does anyone in this group 
>have more info?
>
>My mother's family name was Dreusner ( my email will not allow me to 
>write a u and unlaut)and called themselves Driesner in Canada. They 
>lived in some of the 200 some German settlements just to the north 
>of Zhitomer, about 60 miles west of Kiev. I have the names of the 
>communities involved there and will be visiting them with Donald 
>Miller, whom some of you know, next September.
>But its the Moravian connection I'm looking for at this point.
>Regards,
>
>Gil Stelter
>