For this third installment, I’d like to lay out the evidence I have for this side of my Stumpf metaphorical brick wall.
Details on the Brick Wall that Sparked the Dive into the Stumpfs in the Kathreinfeld & Klek / Zrenjanin Region
I was lucky enough to get some copies of family papers that were brought from Europe in 1951. Among those papers was a birth certificate, if that is what you would call it, of Michael Stumpf born in 1898. His parents were Michael Stumpf from Klek and Theresia Ritter from Kathreinfeld.
Snippet of a document. Preprinted form in Hungarian print and filled out in German handwriting. A dark cross is on the page, the results of photocopying a taped up document.
There are two Kathreinfed family books, but little new information was revealed. One covers much earlier years 1795 to 1841 (for births & marriages) and to 1873 (for deaths), which didn’t come near the people I knew. The other family book covers much later years starting in 1893 (for births),1895 (for marriages) and 1915 (for deaths) to 1947. Michael and Theresia were in this later book. Actually, it correctly added a daughter, Anna (born 1894, died 1896) to Michael and Theresia’s family, but it also had some misattributed information, including a son named Franz and Michael immigrating to New Jersey. That took some time and communication with the author to untangle [1]. The immigration to New Jersey actually belonged to a different younger Michael Stumpf and Franz was actually the son of a Nikolaus, a brother to this younger Michael. Since the church books are not available online, the only option I had to get more information was to have researchers in Serbia look at records in the archives, which I eventually did. Over a few years, two different researchers and a few requests yielded some useful information [2].
The first big break was the marriage record of Michael Stumpf and Theresia Ritter [3]:
Michael Stumpf and Theresia Ritter's marriage entry. Entry from church book no. 14; 1893 28. May, Michael Stumpf and Theresia Ritter.
The parents of Theresia Ritter are David Ritter and Magdalena Janzer! With this clue, I have tracked David Ritter’s family back through Nitzydorf to Fejér, Hungary. As for help with the Stumpf side, disappointingly, Michael’s parents are not listed. However, it turns out Michael was a widower and previously married to Klara Wolf. That was new information for me. (Klara Wolf, what an awesome name!)
Some more searching in the archives finally found Klara’s death and their two youngest kids’ baptisms in Rudolfsgnad. And happily, their third child, Johann, born in Rudolfsgnad in 1889 had a note of the couple’s marriage date! (God bless you, Rudolfsgnad priest.) They married in Lazarfeld in 1887 and the researcher was able to find the record:
Michael Stumpf and Klara Wolf's Marriage Entry. 1887 May Marriage Entry from the Lazarfeld church book with Michael Stumpf, son of Johann Stumpf and Katarina Hoffmann, marrying Clarae Wolf.
Michael’s parents were Johann Stumpf and Katharina Hoffmann!
Note that in both records, Michael’s birth place is Klek and his residence is Kathreinfeld.
The researchers in Serbia have not been able to find a marriage entry for Johann and Katharina in Kathreinfeld nor in Klek church books in the archives. Their marriage most likely took place in Klek. There is a gap in the Klek records for just about the time they’d be getting married and baptizing their son Michael.
Mind the Gap
There are gaps in coverage of the family books for Lazarfeld, Kathreinfeld, and Klek. The mid 1800s are just missing from the compiled family books. Sadly, there are also gaps in the records in the archives. The Klek church books have been searched from 1862 to 1864, but there is a gap in the Klek records prior to that timeframe:1858 to 1862. Surely the gap records would include the marriage entry and Michael's baptism. The missing marriage entry is likely the only place the couple's parents are listed, so will I ever know Johann's parents’ names? Finding a Johann Stumpf born about the right time definitely won’t be a slam dunk.Honestly, I don’t understand the gap. Were the sacramental entries recorded and then destroyed or lost? For just those 5 years? It seems like that would be less than its own volume. Or was the church without a priest and a neighboring priest performed the sacraments either in Klek or in his home church? Would they then be recorded in the neighboring church? Or a visiting priest took the records with him? It’d be interesting to assess the church books in the archives with these questions in mind. Sometimes I wonder what would be involved in volunteering to help compile a family book for Kathreinfeld!
Compiling the Family Groups
What I have concluded is that Johann and Katharina’s first son Michael was born in Klek (1861 to 1862, or maybe 1863) and then the family moved to Kathreinfeld and had more kids. With the help of the researchers, the entries for the rest of Johann and Katharina’s kids have been found in Kathreinfeld. I then found the couple and a few of their kids in the Großbetschkerek family book. It seems at some point the family moved from the village of Kathreinfeld to the city of Großbetschkerek.
This is the family group I have reconstructed for Johann STUMPF and Katharina HOFFMANN [4,5]:
*abt 1838 Kathreinfeld †11 Dec 1919 Großbetschkerek
ꝏ
HOFFMANN Katharina
*abt 1843 Klek †21 May 1910 Großbetschkerek
1. Michael * abt 1862 Klek
2. Barbara *25 May 1865 Kathreinfeld †16 Feb 1867 Kathreinfeld
3. Margaretha *05 Feb 1867 Kathreinfeld
4. Jakob *26 Sep 1869 Kathreinfeld †24 Jun 1879 Kathreinfeld
5. Anna *30 Aug 1871 Kathreinfeld †02 Jan 1942 Großbetschkerek
Here is the family group I have assembled for Michael, again with lots of help from local researchers [6]:
*abt 1862 Klek
1.ꝏ 09 May 1887 Lazarfeld
WOLF Klara Tv. Nikolaus W. & Elisabeth Eck
*abt 1865 Lazarfeld †19 Oct 1892 Rudolfsgnad
1. Josef * abt 1887 ?Lazarfeld
2. Eva *10 Feb 1888 ?Elisenhain †28 Nov 1918 Großbeschkerek
or Torntalvarsarhely
3. Johann *25 Dec 1889 Rudolfsgnad
4. Marianna *11 Jul 1892 Rudolfsgnad †22 Aug 1892 Rudolfsgnad
2.ꝏ 28 May 1893 Kathreinfeld
RITTER Theresia Tv. David R. & Magdalena JANZER
*02 Sep 1868 Kathreinfeld
1. Anna *24 Sep 1894 Kathreinfeld †02 Nov 1896 Kathreinfeld
Michael and Klara's first two kids, Josef and Eva, are listed in the 100-year anniversary book for Rudolfsgnad as being born in Lazarfeld in 1883 and 1885, respectively. The book listed residents by house in 1891. However, no baptismal record was found in Lazarfeld and these dates seem too early. On Eva’s marriage record in Großbetschkerek, apparently her birth date is listed and her birth location is listed as Torntalvarsarhely or Elisenhain. I haven't seen the original church records for her marriage nor been successful in finding records for these two villages in the right time frame. I haven’t found Josef anywhere other than the Rudolfsgnad anniversary book. Therefore these birth dates and locations are not confirmed.
I did find Michael and Klara's third child, Johann, in Budapest as a barber. His godfather was a barber, so that must have led to an apprenticeship. Johann was in the marriage records in Budapest and named in the deaths of his daughter and first wife.
Thus My Brick Wall
The brick wall I am stuck with: the parents of the elder Johann Stumpf as well as the parents of Katharina Hoffman. You can see, dear reader, the seemingly small hurdle I needed to overcome that led me to start the collection of all the Stumpf families discussed in the first and second installment of this blog.Based on the results of the accumulation of Stumpf families, I assume I connect with Melchior Stumpf, whose descendants went to Kathreinfeld.
The only promising candidate to come out of this project is a Johann who was born in 1841 to Johann [Michael] Stumpf and Anna Maria Putz. Other possibilities are that Johann was actually born after 1841, which is outside the coverage of the Kathreinfeld family book and church records available through FamilySearch, or he was baptized elsewhere.
After all this extensive research, can I declare I have met the Genealogical Proof Standard of reasonably exhaustive search and declare this candidate Johann born in 1841 as the Johann with estimated birth of 1838 who married Katharina Hoffman? I still feel like I don’t have a strong enough linchpin to connect the two sides. What more do I need to feel confident?
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Footnotes
[1] I recently reviewed my correspondence from 2006 with the author of the Kathreinfeld family book, Roswitha Egert. In one of her e-mails, she gave me a rough outline of the origins of the Stumpf surname in this area and introduced me to the idea of several villages full of Stumpfs (my words).
[2] The two researchers in Serbia were Marta Istvan and Staša Cvetković.
[3] Michael Stumpf and Theresia Ritter are my 2xgreat-grandparents, in case you’re wondering.
[4] I'm using the format used in the family books, including the German abbreviation Sv for "Son of" and Tv for "Daughter of"; * is birth; ꝏ is marriage; † is death. I am using the abbreviation "abt." for about instead of the German "um."
[5] Sources for Johann’s family:
[6] Sources for Michael’s family: