A Clue! A Clue?: The Quest for Michael Stumpf Continues

In a previous blog post I located multiple pieces of potential evidence for my great-great-grandfather Michael Stumpf, who left Austria-Hungary to go to the U.S. in 1907 and whose fate is unknown.  It turns out there are a lot of Michael Stumpfs running around the early 1900s in northeast U.S! I eliminated evidence as belonging to different Michael Stumpfs, leaving only one potential clue: the 1910 North Tonawanda, Niagara County, New York census. 

I have been unsuccessful finding anything for him until...

A European Incoming Passenger List

While attending a genealogy meeting [1] with Kate Townsend presenting "Follow the Records and See Where They Go!" I became aware of a dataset called "UK and Ireland, Incoming Passenger Lists, 1878-1960" in Ancestry.  Not expecting anything, I checked for Michael Stumpf and was rewarded with an entry!

Fig. 1. Screen grab of Ancestry's entry for Mihaele Stumpf in "U.K. and Ireland Incoming Passenger Lists, 1878-1920"

Here's the info:

• Ship Victorian of the Canadian Pacific Ocean Services Ltd. Steamship Line 
• Departed from St. John, New Brunswick, Canada
• Arrived in Liverpool, England on 3 Jan 1921
• Mihaele Stumpf in transit to Hungary
• Labourer / age 58 (est birth 1863) / citizen of Hungary / last permanent residence in U.S.A.
• There's a number 2 on the list after the "In Transit to Budapest, Hungary" tick marks. Does this mean anything or just a stray keystroke?

This could be my Michael.  There isn't any other data to distinguish him from other Hungarian Michael Stumpfs and since he is traveling alone, family members weren't there to be clues.  

Also on ship continuing on to Budapest is Gyorgy Surnyak, from Battonya who went to US in 1905.  Researching him did not yield any clues to Michael.

I checked the U.S. to Canada Border Crossing dataset in Ancestry, and did not find Michael there.  There's no departing passenger data on the Canadian side. There are no records for train travel in Europe or from the U.K.  I checked for newspapers in Liverpool and in St. John, New Brunswick, but didn't find any clues.

If Michael returned to Hungary in 1921, that means he:

• Spent 1907 to 1920 in the U.S., possibly including April 1910 in North Tonawanda, NY when he was unemployed.
• Spent WWI 1914 to 1919 in the U.S.
• Probably stuck because of the war
• That's 13 years.  Where was he?!!

Frustration Continues

Not quite ready to call this a success.  I'm not sure what evidence I would need to confirm it, but if I find him back in Hungary after 1921, that's a good sign it is him.

P.S. Death Notice for Michael Stumpf's Wife, Theresia Ritter! 

Someone on one of the Banat/Donauschwaben mailing lists shared about a digital archive Bibliothek des Digitalen Forums Mittel- und Osteuropa.  They have digitized and made searchable newspapers among other things. There I found the death notice for Therese Ritter in the Temesvarer Zeitung on 01 Aug 1923! [2]  It is in German:

In der Vorstadt Josefstadt ist in einer Waggonwohnung am Bahnhofe die Witwe Michael Stumpf geb. Therese Ritter im Alter von 65 Jahren gestorben.

[In the Josefstadt district, in a wagon apartment at the train station, the widow of Michael Stumpf, née Therese Ritter, 65 years of age, has died.]

A summary of the details: 

• Therese Ritter, widow of Michael Stumpf
• died on 1 Aug 1923, or maybe 31 or 30 Jul 1923?, in the Josefstadt neighborhood of Timisoara
• She lived/died in a train car apartment at the train station
• She was Roman Catholic

I didn't even know she had lived in Timisoara. Waggonwohnung am Bahnhofe is an old train carriage used as apartments.  And, a clue about Michael; he had died before Aug 1923.  ...Or, he never returned to Theresia and was assumed deceased.

Footnotes

[1] I encourage the attendance of genealogy meetings. Join your local society and attend the meetings.  You never know when you'll learn about a key resource, a new tool or technique, or just get some inspiration. Attending or watching online meetings or lectures is good too.

[2] "Todesfälle." Temesvarer Zeitung. 1 August 1923. Das Digitale Forum Mittel- und Osteuropa (DiFMOE). difmoe.eu : 2023.