This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/Vm.2ADE/1184.2.1 Message Board Post: I now have a book book on the first 100 years of Buhler Kansas by Rhonda Hiebert that may answer my question. It appears that in the early 1500's the Mennonites were being persecuted in the Netherlands and moved to Prussia where they were well treated and prospered until 1780's when the Prussians became less benovelent so they packed up and moved to Russia's Ukraine and "Chortitza" where Catherine the Great offered them the land to establish their own Germanic colonies. But by 1870 there was pressure on these peaceful people to serve in the Russian army so they largely immigrated to the United States. I guess that in all this moving around they sort of lost their Dutch connection.