Extracted by Tim Janzen
This set of web pages makes available an extraction I have done of a list of heads of households in the Molotschna Colony in South Russia in 1863. The original document from which the list has been extracted is located in File #21178 in Fund 6, Inventory 4 in the Odessa State Archives in Odessa, Ukraine.
Due to a poor harvest secondary to heavy snow the previous year the Mennonites in the Molotschna Colony were in need of loans of grain. These loans came from grain stored by the colony. There were typically loans of both winter wheat and summer wheat.
The documents in the file are arranged by village. For each village there was a list of heads of households who received grain loans as well as a corresponding list of heads of households who signed the document. Those who signed the document appear to all have been landowners in the village. Those who received grain loans were in some cases landowners and in other cases were landless (Anwohner or Einwohner). In some cases almost all of the landowners in the village also received loans (Kleefeld, Hutterthal, Johannesruh) whereas in other villages relatively few of the landowners received grain loans.
There are a total of 1,958 heads of households listed in the merged versions and 2,352 heads of households listed in the original version. There are lists for 47 villages in the Molotschna Colony, as well as the two nearby Hutterite villages, Johannesruh and Hutterthal. The 47 villages in the Molotschna Colony for which there are lists are as follows:
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No data is given for the following villages in the Moloschna Colony:
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In addition, there are three village lists that were created between January 31, 1863 and February 12, 1863 that are also included in the beginning of File 21178. These lists are for the villages of Alexanderkrone, Hierschau, and Rueckenau.
File 21178 is among a large group of files from Fund 6, Inventory 4 which were microfilmed in 2002 at the Odessa State Archives. Microfilms of this material are available at the following Mennonite Archives:
- The Center for M. B. Studies in Fresno, California
- The Center for M. B. Studies at Tabor College in Hillsboro, Kansas
- The Mennonite Historical Society of British Columbia in Abbotsford, B. C.
- The Mennonite Heritage Center in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
If you have any questions about this material feel free to contact me: 
© 2011 Mennonite Historical Society of Alberta
Last Updated 29 Apr 2011
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