The Kaski & Untiedt Family Trees

Draft registration cards are a very valuable family history research record. They usually provide the legal name, address, next of kin, employment record, and description of the registrant. Currently, my family history database has more than 300 registration cards as evidence for these types of facts. Despite having read through hundreds of these records, in my reading tonight, I learned that I really had a deep lack of understanding of how the draft process worked. Excerpted below are some of the very interesting bits I discovered thanks to Ancestry! Source: https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/3172/ "Men who registered were given bluish green certificates to prove they had registered. The certificate was embossed with an eagle at the top and merely stated who had registered where on what date. This certificate was signed by a registrar. In Utah, the Salt Lake Tribune stated that law officers could demand to see this registration certificate at any time, and a man without...

 George Washington Grabe is the 3x great-grandfather of my nieces, Sophia & Sienna Kaski. At the age of 18, he enlisted in the 30th Illinois Infantry Regiment of the Union Army. The Civil War was in its third year. He would travel on foot from Camp Butler, Illinois to Warrenton, Georgia: more than 900 miles. On April 18, 1864, his regiment left Camp Butler, hiking the first 200 miles to arrive in Cairo, Illinois. There they joined with the Tennessee River Expedition under General W.Q. Gresham. On April 30, 1864, they arrived in Clifton, Tennesse. Five days later, they left Clifton marching on to Pulaski, Tennessee. Who could have imagined that 180 years later, Private Grabe's great-great-great-granddaughters would live within 30-60 miles of these last two Tennessee locations? Learn more about Fort Pulaski thanks to this link from the National Park Service . Heading out of Tennesee, the regiment then moved onward to Athens and Huntsville. On May 25, 1864, the regiment began the...

I had the pleasure of digitally archiving the records and pictures held by my Uncle Don Untiedt. The pictures included below were all together in a single album. However, I have no additional notes on who or where these pictures were taken.  Do you have any answers about the subject or location? In one picture there is a sign for "Dirty Woman Creek". When I Google that, there is such a place located in Colorado. However, if there were other "Dirty Women" creeks, it's reasonable that over time they have been changed to something more P.C. However, given the potential Colorado connection, I'm tagging these as part of the Untiedt line for now. [Update: since originally posting this, I was able to read the top of one building which is excerpted below. It reads "Pikes Peak Motor Co". Googling that name there is such a place located in Penrose, Colorado.] Do you recognize any of the buildings? Any of the children? Maybe the horses? Is this Penrose, Color...

At the age of 26, Peter August Kaski brought our Kaski branch to the United States. He started the ship portion of his journey with a 40 hour trip on the SS Rollo from Gothenburg, Sweden to Hull, England.  Most emigrants would then take the Paragon Railway train between Hull and Liverpool. From Liverpool, Peter August Kaski then sailed for 10 days on the S.S. Aurania to New York, disembarking on April 24, 1903.  On the ship manifest below, Peter A. Kaski is listed on line 10. He declared having $12 in his pocket and was headed to Bryant, South Dakota. Originally, it was written that he was headed to meet his brother, J. Kaski, but that was then crossed out and replaced with the name Oskar Peterson of Deadwood, South Dakota. There is evidence that his brother, Jakob Krister Kaski was in Bryant by 1911, and is likely the brother referenced in this record. How he made his journey from New York to Bryant has, thus far, been lost to time, but we know he would end up in Bryant, Sout...

 So today I located the obituary of John Wiebener, father of the Arnold (A.H.) Wiebener referenced in my last blog post:  Missing money, a Gunshot, and a Bank Collapse . Turns out that John was a director of the bank that his son allegedly stole $137,000 from. The father, John, died in 1924, and the fraud was uncovered in 1931.  Was the son committing the fraud while his father served in this fidicuary role?  Was the son more trusted because his father was a director of the bank?  Just raised so many more questions in this interesting tale.

[ Trigger warning: suicide] I've recently located several news articles related to $137,000 of missing funds believed to have been stolen by Arnold Wiebener, a first cousin three-times removed.  Arnold's aunt was my great-great-grandmother, Annie Wiebener Schwager. Below are newspaper clippings from the Davenport, Iowa Daily Times on July 25, 1931. Arnold was a cashier at the Farmers' & Merchants' Bank in Durant, Iowa. It's believed that over many years he stole money from bank deposits and applied the funds against bad loans. Believing that his fraud would be discovered, Arnold shot himself in the basement of the bank, dying several days later. The bank could not sustain the loss, and was closed down permanently. Following his death, his widow also endured a legal battle regarding title of their property and deeds that were signed over to the bank after Arnold was shot but before he died. A time period that the widow aruged was under duress.  In my career, I...

 I've heard of "War Rations" and thought that applied to things like food and gasoline, but never heard that it also applied to car tires.  I came across this February 1943 The Dispatch of Moline, Illinois news article that referenced my great-uncle, Clarence Untiedt. It says he was issued a certificate for the purchase of Grade 3 rationed tires. Not only were car tires rationed, but it was "news-worthy" who got them. Slightly blows my mind. I was also amused by the adjacent heading that talked about the 7 million increase in the number of city bus passengers. The funniest part is that the tire ration is not listed as one of the reasons for the increased bus traffic; how could it not be? So I learned a new interesting piece of history today, and hope that you reading this, also finds a little smirk of joy.

  Wilhelm Mann, father of John Mann, was my 2x great-grandfather. Below is an excerpt from Dömitz, Germany baptismal records showing Wilhelm's baptism in December 1852. In addition, the record also shows the names of his parents and his godparents.