The Kaski & Untiedt Family Trees

 I think I just uncovered a weird coincidence. Two different children, biologically related to me, were given up for adoption. Those two children were raised together in the same home as siblings. However, the two children are from different branches of my family, that at the time, didn't even know each other and didn't live in the same towns. Still vetting and lots of questions, but the DNA is clear that they aren't related to each but are related to me, and the data is clear that they were raised in the house, both equally acknowledged in the obituaries of their parents. Wild.

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...

 Here's my weird family history find for today. My sister-in-law’s, Jen Kaski, 2 times paternal great-grandparents are Reverend George Washington Grabe and Margaret "Maggie" Dial. They were married in Randolph, Illinois.  Watching an ancestry show, Who Do You Think You Are? where the singer Melissa Etheridge traced her roots. While watching she traced her roots to Randolph, Illinois as well. It turns out that Randolph used to be a major trading hub for New France (Quebec). It was the first state capital of Illinois after statehood.  And here's the most fascinating part, Randolph was originally called KasKaskiA. Ok, so if your mind isn’t blown, mine is. Since Kaski is my maiden name, I know how uncommon it is, even as part of another word. You see lots of words with “ski” or some with “aski” but few with “Kaski”.  While my maiden name, Kaski, came from the name of a farm in Finland, the town name KasKaskiA was the name of the local Native American tribe that lived in ...

 I thought this was cool. It's a 1944 Sioux Falls, South Dakota phonebook page that lists both my great-grandmother Alvina Kaski, and my grandfather, Elroy Kaski. As the youngest child in the family, all his other siblings had fled the nest by 1944, and my grandfather was wrapping up high school.

My great aunt Elaine (nee Kaski) had been married to Albert Rothbauer, bearing two children from the marriage. In adding brief pieces of lineage related to the former Albert Rothbauer, I also came across the Petition for Naturalization of Jan (americanized as John) Rothbauer, Albert's father. I share some of the most interesting tidbits of my research here. In the screenshot of the petition below, you will note that the place of birth is listed as something like "Kerselderf, Austria, now Poland". Keying that in to my genealogy application, no such location could be found. Google was also not helpful.  So I went back to what I originally had for John Rothbauer's place of birth, Klimiec, Galicia, Austria. I also had trouble locating that specific location, but I could find some history of Galicia. Thank you Wikipedia. Here's a quick snippet. From Wikipedia about Galicia Galicia (/ɡəˈlɪʃ(i)ə/) (Ukrainian: Галичина, romanized: Halychyna [ɦɐlɪtʃɪnˈɑ]; Polish: Galicja; ...

 As a huge coffee addict, I found this connection to coffee worth its own post. My great aunt Erma Kaski was briefly married to Theodore W. Cook. Turns out that Mr. Cook is a Folgers descendant.  Theodore W. Cook’s great-great grandparents were Samuel Brown Folger and Nancy Hiller. Samuel and Nancy were the parents of Charlotte Folger and J.A. Folger. J.A. Folger was the founder of the Folgers coffee brand.  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._A._Folger

Howdy In-laws and Out-laws! This post is for you, Jenn, Robb, Nathan & Christina, Stephanie & Nate, Kayla & Kelly, Chuck & Inga and Chuck & Colby, Janice, and Marybeth! This is the last of a series of posts on the data I'm missing to build a complete descendant tree for my paternal great-grandparents, Mariah Alvina Ecklund and Peter August Kaski. This post focuses on Elroy Kaski, his kids, grandkids, great-grandkids and great-great-grandkids. Elroy is my grandfather on my father's side; so this is filling in all the blanks I have related to my siblings, their spouses, and kids, as well as my spouses and their siblings and spouses and kids. The ASK I have some holes for some people in this branch; maybe you hold the key that fits the door to that information.  Know the answer to any question below?   Post a Comment at the bottom of this page.  Note: All comments require my approval before becoming visible to others; if a comment contains confidenti...

Oh, I'm sure my great-aunt Elaine would be giving a finger wagging lecture about the things that aren't right in my questions below. This is the fourth of a series of posts on the data I'm missing to build a complete descendant tree for my paternal great-grandparents, Mariah Alvina Ecklund and Peter August Kaski. This post focuses on Elaine Kaski. The ASK I have some holes for some people in this branch; maybe you hold the key that fits the door to that information.  Know the answer to any question below?   Post a Comment at the bottom of this page.  Note: All comments require my approval before becoming visible to others; if a comment contains confidential data about a living person, I will keep the comment private, and update this post to reflect I've received the needed information. Contact Me using the Contact Me form in the green section on the far right of this page. Connect with me on Facebook  and message me through Facebook. All three contact methods wo...

FILL IN THE BLANKS This is the third of a series of posts on the data I'm missing to build a complete descendant tree for my paternal great-grandparents, Mariah Alvina Ecklund and Peter August Kaski.  This post focuses on Elton Kaski. The ASK I have some holes for some people in this branch; maybe you hold the key that fits the door to that information.  Know the answer to any question below?   Post a Comment at the bottom of this page.  Note: All comments require my approval before becoming visible to others; if a comment contains confidential data about a living person, I will keep the comment private, and update this post to reflect I've received the needed information. Contact Me using the Contact Me form in the green section on the far right of this page. Connect with me on Facebook  and message me through Facebook. All three contact methods work well for me; use whatever approach is easiest for you. Thanks in advance for your assistance. Elton Milton Merri...

  I NEED YOUR HELP This is the second of a series of posts on the data I'm missing to build a complete descendant tree for my paternal great-grandparents, Mariah Alvina Ecklund and Peter August Kaski. This post focuses on Elma Kaski, for whom I do not currently have contact with any direct descendants. I would love any help making this connection. The ASK I have some holes for some people in this branch; maybe you hold the key that fits the door to that information.  Know the answer to any question below?   Post a Comment at the bottom of this page.  Note: All comments require my approval before becoming visible to others; if a comment contains confidential data about a living person, I will keep the comment private, and update this post to reflect I've received the needed information. Contact Me using the Contact Me form in the green section on the far right of this page. Connect with me on Facebook  and message me through Facebook. All three contact metho...

I NEED HELP I've been digging through Ancestry for data on my paternal grandfather, Elroy Kaski, and am trying to build a comprehensive descendant tree for his parents, Mariah Alvina and Peter August. Since data on living people is usually protected, it can be hard to have a high degree of comfort when connecting trees. So, for each spouse who married in to that familial line, I am also gathering data of the spouse's parents, siblings, and grandparents. Having that extra information on the spouse's line, not only helps to tell the story of our direct relatives, but also makes it much easier to trace the relative through all the twists and turns of life. The ASK I'm breaking this down to 5 separate posts, each focused on a different child of Peter August and Mariah Alvina; maybe you hold the key that fits the door to that information. Do you k now the answer to any of my inquiries below?   Post a Comment at the bottom of this page.  Note: All comments require my approval...

This post is specifically for my nieces, Sienna and Sophia. Here's some of the family history I found for their Grandpa Gordon's side of the family. On Ancestry, several people have scanned in their old yearbooks, and so I found a couple different yearbook pics of your grandpa. The pic below reminded me of Sienna; I thought he has the same chin, smile lines, and grin.  Here's a pic of your Grandpa Gordon in high school, his senior year.  Here's a wedding announcement for when your Grandpa Gordon and your Grandma Phyllis were married in 1964. The picture below is your great-grandpa Grabe's draft registration card for World War II. Every man over 18 was required to register for military service. Notice how he was listed as living in Oakland, CA, but then it was later crossed out and on the side it has an address in Flint, Michigan. This is because your great-grandpa Grabe got temporarily transferred to Michigan during the war to work for Ford Motor Company, the same...

I spent November and December focused on researching my Kaski line, specifically my grandfather, his parents, and siblings. The matriarch of this line is Mariah Alvina Ecklund Kaski, my great-grandmother.   Her youngest daughter, Elaine, described Mariah as having dark brown eyes, auburn hair when young, then dark with a natural white wing; height of 5'4 with a 14.5 dress size. She loved to garden and had lots of house plants [just like her great-great granddaughters]; she also read a lot. She was a very hard worker, who was very close to her sisters. Illnesses included rheumatic arthritis. Mariah and Peter had a total of 9 children: one child died at birth. By 1930, the eldest child, Earl, had already moved out of his parent's home; the US census record from 1930 (screenshot below) is likely the only official record showing the Peter & Mariah family. My grandfather, Elroy M., was 3 years and 5 months old.

My grandfather, Elroy Kaski, passed away when my dad was 5 years old, so all I know about him are the few stories I've heard, and the things I've found through my family tree journey. Here's a few of the finds I thought my father and aunt and cousins might appreciate. Can you feel the love tonight? My grandparents:  Elroy Kaski & Delores Morud Phone Book, 1956 What's not to love about these old phone book directories? High school 1943 Can you imagine high school in 1943? How amazingly different his life must have felt to his parents who grew up in rural Finland and South Dakota. And how challenging a time, when the world was enveloped in the second world war. For my grandfather, his siblings were deployed and off fighting for the U.S. military while he, the youngest, stayed behind with his mother. Draft registration card, 1944 At the time he completed the draft registration card, WWII was a stark reality Elroy would have understood too well. 5 years in to WWII, my g...