Reinhard SCHIMPF 1841-?
Fifteen persons with the natal name Schimpf were among the 350 plus emigrants who came to Victoria from Nieder-Weisel during the gold-rush period of the 1850s. One of them, who was aboard “Sunshine” with the largest group ever to leave the village, was identified on the passenger list only as a 19 year old male labourer, ‘R Schimpf’. He was on the same ticket as ‘Elizth Adami‘, 25, spinster.
In the Nieder-Weisel Family Books there is only a single entry for any R Schimpf – Reinhard born on 6th July 1841 to Anna Maria nee Krausgrill, wife of the baker Christoph Schimpf. The couple had eight children, but none of the other five who survived took part in the emigration, nor did any of their first cousins. The only two male Schimpfs born in Nieder-Weisel during the period 1836-40 have been accounted for.
When “Sunshine” reached Melbourne on 29th January 1857, 12 weeks out of Liverpool, the Nieder-Weiselerns went to Ballarat to meet up with earlier migrants from their village. This is the last record there is of R Schimpf in the Victorian archives. About one-third of all the emigrants from Nieder-Weisel eventually returned to Germany, or went on to New Zealand; R Schimpf was probably one of them.