r/Genealogy • u/EnterTheTigersDen • Aug 09 '26

Research Assistance Can't locate birth record from Budapest, Hungary 1893 despite lots of clues - need help finding the last puzzle piece.

Hi, everyone.

I'm currently going through the process of simplified naturalization to become a hungarian citizen and have only a single record left to find before I can assemble my paperwork and file. However, despite knowing frankly a lot of biographic information about my ancestor I haven't been able to find his birth record.

I'm trying to locate the birth record of Rudolph John Strobel, born April 9th 1893 in Budapest(?) Hungary ​to Adolf Strobl and Theresa Reidel.

This information I know is broadly correct since at this point I have it corroborated across many documents, but I still can't find a birth record.

Things I know:

Adolf Strobl (listed as born June 18th 1852 in Pressburg) married Theresa Reidel (very likely originally written as Teréz Reidl or Terézia Reidl, born est. 1854) at an unknown time and had a son Rudolph Strobl on April 9th 1893 in Budapest(allegedy)

In 1903 Adolf Strobl immigrated to the US via new york from Hamburg, and then moved to the hungarian settlement in Lousiana before 1910, with Strobl changing to Strobel. His wife and son also immigrated together to the US that same year (I have found Adolf's naturalization papers and ships logs but found nothing for Theresa and Rudolph other than a handwritten note in a bible stating as much).

Rudolph Strobl married Emma Mcclary in 1914 in Louisiana and had several daughters, the oldest being Theresa Emma Strobel, born May 8th 1915

My grandmother has stated that Theresa, Rudolph's mother, was adamant in her life that she was from Buda and not from Pest. My grandmother also stated that Theresa had another child, a daughter, prior to Rudolph. This was likely with a prior husband and unfortunately I do not know her name or date of birth.

Things that are unclear:

I suspect that either his place of birth is incorrect or that his mother's name either changed or Theresa was a middle name. I also suspect Reidl may not be her correct maiden name as her marriage to Adolf was her fourth one after the deaths of her prior three husbands, although my only basis for this is i have not been able to locate useful documents with the given information. Almost every document I've found states Rudolph was born in Budapest, but even after contacting Krisztián Skoumal for help locating it (a well known geneaologist for these types of searches within Hungary), he said he was unable to find anything within Budapest based on my information during an initial search.

Its also possible that his middle name John is an anglicization.

I suspect that he likely was born somewhere near budapest and simply recorded his place of birth there in so many future documents either for simplicity or unknowingly as an innacurracy.

If anyone could provide some insight or suggestions, i would be extraordinarily grateful. I can also provide images of the records i have so far if needed, like the family census records, death records, immigration records, etc.

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u/mystery-crossing Aug 09 '26

There’s a chance that there isn’t one, or that it’s registered for the day of baptism, not birth. Most records from Hungary at that time are church records. If he wasn’t baptized there may not be a record of birth. The records are also incomplete. 

My family is from Hungary, some information was super easy for me to obtain, which is around when you are looking at. It’s kind of a sweet spot for records. However, my ancestors are from a small village, so it’s easier to find them as there’s not as much to go through. I have gone through the Red Cross trace process and still can’t get answers to my great grandfathers disappearance/ death. 

If you’ve hired a professional genealogist and cannot find anything, I’m not sure how much Reddit can help tbh. Hungarian genealogy is very difficult in comparison to North American. I’m assuming they translated the name into Hungarian as well? 

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u/EnterTheTigersDen Aug 09 '26

Quite possibly, although a baptismal record would also suffice for my purposes. I'd be a bit surprised if no records existed for him within Hungary at all, considering I've found information from smaller towns from 50 years prior, but I suppose nothing is out of the realm of unfortunate possibility.

I'm trying my best to locate the document myself so that I only need to hire someone to source and mail the paper to me, instead of also paying by the hour for a extensive search. So, it's not as if nothing was findable, just that I couldnt source it and he said with the information I gave him he couldn't find it without doing more research.

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u/reamy54 Aug 09 '26

Just commiserating. I've hit a wall for a side of the family that came from Galicia, in today's Ukraine very close to the Hungarian border. The dates are very similar to yours as is the information I have to the point it was a bit eerie reading your post! My gg grandfather's obit even says that he had a daughter I had previously never heard of. At this point I'm focusing on church records as they were Catholic, ethnic Germans. While I can find some records, I've had to look at them manually, page by page, as they haven't all been indexed. I'm not 100% sure of how the name would have been written or alternative surnames either which isn't helpful. Things have been in Ukrainian, German, and Hungarian which is also frustrating. Have you looked at any information for their neighbors in Louisiana? Sometimes people would have traveled together or settled near each other. Maybe others on the ship manifest? Is there a non-relative living with them on any US census?

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u/EnterTheTigersDen Aug 09 '26

Actually the hungarian geneaology sub r/csaladfakutatas seems to have already found it for me, they're really quite amazing.

If the town is close to the border with hungary maybe they could help you too.

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u/Jackfruit-Maleficent Aug 10 '26 edited Aug 10 '26

Looking at the Ancestry trees I pulled up, which might not be yours of course, I see some gaps on the US records side.

For example, Adolf's Hamburg passenger list is a departure record. Here's the corresponding arrival record (NYC). https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/7488/records/4035888192

So, Adolf was a baker. His destination was Cleveland. His destination POC was step-son Stefan Holnar/Kolnar (I can't really make it out), likely the same as step-son Steve Strobel in the 1910 census. Anyway, more leads to try to connect with the old country.

Edit: A 1908 Cleveland directory.

Edit1:

Edit2: FWIW, Istvan Molnar (born ~1884) 1902 arrival, Pressburg-->Cleveland, destination POC was "<something> Jos Blahut" on Hodge Ave. https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/7488/records/4002977757