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Latest Update: 1 March 1997 (Link to Russia Record Index
added)
Hutterites are a group of persons who are members of this Anabaptist and pacifist religion
that evolved as an outgrowth of the Protestant reformation of the early 1500's. The
Hutterites originated in various Anabaptist groups of the South Tyrol, Carinthia and
Moravia. They are neither Catholic nor Protestant. The best proof of this is that the
Hutterites were persecuted and killed by the thousands as heretics by both Catholic and
Protestants alike in past centuries.
They came together into a united group with a fairly common set of anabaptist pacifist and
beliefs as a small communal group in Moravia in 1528. They found themselves branded as
heritics and persecuted by both the Catholics (who burned them to death at the stake) and by
the Protestants (who decapitated them) in Europe.
This religious group was named after Jacob Hutter, a Tyrolean and Moravian Anabaptist
leader, who was burned to death at the stake in 1536 as a heretic by order of the Holy
Roman Emperor, a Hapsburg King.
The early Hutterites lived in Austria, Bohemia, Moravia, Slovakia, Transylvania (then
Hungary) and Wallachia (southern Romania) before continuing on to two major locations in
European Russia (now the Ukraine). They emigrated to South Dakota starting in 1873 and
then went elsewhere to Canada about 1918 and later some returned to America.
Many Hutterite descendants now live in small colonies in western Canada (Alberta, Manitoba
and Saskatchewan) and the north central and western United States (Montana, North Dakota,
South Dakota and Washington State where they still practice their communal living and their
pacifist and Anabaptist beliefs. As a closed society with good genealogy records going back
for centuries, they have been recognized over a decade ago in the literature by Hostetler and
others as an ideal group for genetic research. This is a case of genealogy is helping genetics
research.
While Hutterite preachers have been diligent in recording the family histories and vital events
of their colonies in church books, to our certain knowledge none have ever been microfilmed
nor made generally available. Up until now, it was generally considered that the scanty
published genealogy was limited to the two German language books available at the Family
History Library (FHL). However a recent literature search reveals that considerably more
printed material exists.
The original churchbook extractions, provided to FEEFHS by Evan Eichler, Ph.D. of Livermore California, are a
rare new find of major significance to family historians. It proves to be special opportunity
for FEEFHS to serve family record searchers worldwide by publishing these extractions of
an original Hutterite Church register for the first time on the world wide web.
This material includes the distillation of some excellent genealogy research done by Evan
Eichler, a leading human geneticist. Evan discovered his own Hutterite roots by accident
almost two decades ago and has visited Canada and Austria in searching for his ancestors
since then. His eMail address is posted on his extraction pages for use by Hutterite record
searchers
FEEFHS is also fortunate to have received permission from Johns Hopkins University Press,
publisher of "Hutterite Society" (1974, 1997)
to republish two Appendices representing four lists of related Hutterite Colonies. One list is
of locations in Europe where colonies once existed. The other is of places in North America
(Canada and the United States) where about 400 Hutterite Schmeideleut, Dariusleut and
Leherleut colonies have existed or do exist today.
FEEFHS has been in contact with the author, retired Professor John A. Hostetler, the leading Hutterite scholar. He has
encouraged us to make information about his Hutterite writings more widely available
through the web and via our printed FEEFHS Newsletter. He is also cooperating with
FEEFHS in a joint effort to update the names and locations of colonies from his lists of 1974
to the present day.
In addition, Tony Waldner of the Forest River Community has granted us the right to
republish the index to his Russia Record: Hutterite Family Records 1700-1874
(published 1996). and he has copies for sale.
Also, Plough Publishing House of the Bruderhof Foundation has kindly granted us
reprinting rights to parts of the The Chronicle of the Hutterian Brethren - I
(published 1984) including Appendix 3: a list of current place names with German language
equivalents and Appendix 4: six maps of 16th and 17th century European places of
sigificance to Hutterites. Plough also has copies of this book for sale.
Perhaps the most interesting and rewarding aspect of this FEEFHS online collection to us is
knowledge of the certain fact that perhaps as many as 100,000 Hutterite ancestors living in
Canada, America and elsewhere in the world today are decended from this handful of two
dozen unique surnames. Most descendants and record searchers outside of the existing
Hutterite communities have no knowledge of this fact.
Thus it seems safe to say that if the surname you are searching for appears in this material,
you can be reasonably assured that you are quite probably related to a line of the Hutterite
pioneers listed here, perhaps as a fifth or sixth cousin.
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