How It's Going: to Find All the Stumpfs in the Banat

RootsMagic to the Rescue 

I overcame my aversion to the daunting task of entering all the information from the large notecards with the Stumpf families into a new RootsMagic database [1] and just did it. I'm glad I did. I then scoured the genealogy databases and requested scans from the FamilySearch Family History Library [2] for Stumpfs in family books to add or connect in the database.  I was casting a wide net to find sources for Banat Stumpf folks.  I was meticulous with citing each source, but usually added it to the person’s name as opposed to each fact. That made more sense with a family book entry anyway. 

Thus far, I have cited 105 sources, on 842 people in 254 families in 41 trees, and 149 locations. 

Having it all in the database lets me easily navigate through the families as well as search for a name, including seeing my options for a given name. 

Partial List of Michael Stumpfs in the RootsMagic Database. 

I can see I have holes of missing data in what I have collected. I’m sure there is more STUMPF information in St. Georgen, Kathreinfeld, and Klek in the mid-1800s that is accessible in the regional archives. 

Ultimately, what I found were that two (most likely) brothers Jakob and Melchior Stumpf from "Pflaz" are the forefathers of the Stumpf families in the Kathreinfeld and Klek area. More on this in later posts. 

There are a few other STUMPF men who settled elsewhere in the Banat who don’t seem to be part of this group. I’ll write a post summarizing them as well. 

I uploaded the database to a RootsMagic webpage as well. You can explore here. There are 698 people in 196 families and 31 separate family trees.  By the way, all the citations I added at the person level did not load into the website for some reason. 

I didn't mean to, but I now have a wealth of information on the Stumpf families in the Banat. I started this blog to communicate what I have discovered and maybe even connect with interested family researchers.

Footnotes

[1] RootsMagic is a genealogy database that runs on your computer, as opposed to online trees that are in the cloud on a website (e.g. Ancestry.com or FamilySearch.org).  RootsMagic lets you manage your own file with data on people, places, and sources.  

[2] You can make requests from the FamilySearch Family History Library on their online request form.