Contents
Whose family are you here for?
Showing both families — every line on the page. Pick a side to hide the other
family's ancestors; Earl, Kristin and their three children stay on either way.
Person · Hattie Elizabeth "Liessi" Ladusch
The record
- HHomethe fan · what changed · open questions
- MMigrationbirths and deaths on a map, by decade
- TTimeline609 entries · 5 eras
- PPeople290 cards, by generationHattie Elizabeth "Liessi" Ladusch
- LLines13 surname pages
The evidence
- DDocuments896 thumbnails, filterable
- SSourcesS1–S1207, with where each is cited
The findings
- How the wall came downProeger line
- The glass patentsProeger line
- How the Caffey half was closedCaffey line
- What the DNA saysits own page
- Four routesMigration
- The asymmetryLines
- Open questions20 questions
- Add to this recorda form, read by Earl
How to read this record
Every claim is tagged
Most family trees flatten everything into the same confident typeface. This one does not.
The three research tags below are the whole point of the exercise: they say what a document
proves, what the weight of evidence suggests, and what nobody has found yet. A fourth marks
what the family stated directly, where no document has been retrieved at all — it is kept
separate on purpose and is never quietly promoted to confirmed. A fifth, added on
13 September 2026, marks biological evidence: a DNA result is not a document, and it is not
testimony either. Two further labels mark where this page withholds information
rather than lacking it.
ConfirmedAttested by a document that was actually retrieved and read — a census sheet, a
government index, a grave marker, a family-written obituary.
ProbableStrongly supported but not nailed down: a user-contributed tree, a masked index field,
or a chain of consistent circumstances. Believable, not proven.
Not foundSearched for and not located. This is a statement about the search, not about the
person — the record may well exist somewhere unsearched.
Family testimonySupplied by the family and recorded on their word — no document has been retrieved for
it. Note the diamond rather than the dot: this is provenance, not proof, and it stands
apart from the three record tags above S24.
DNA evidenceBiological evidence consistent with a claim. It corroborates origins; it does
not by itself establish a person or a link. Note the bar rather than a dot or a diamond:
no DNA result on this page is ever counted as confirmed, because no document
was read for it S46.
Living — withheldThe person is living. By the privacy rule for this page, name and relationship are
shown, and at most a year the family has already published. Full dates of birth, ages,
places of residence and record identifiers are held back.
Research in progressA branch that is actively being worked on. The node exists in the structure so the
shape of the family is honest; the detail is simply not in yet.
- Born
- 28 March 1898, New Ulm, Austin County, Texas
- Died
- 3 March 1990, Hays County, Texas
- Children
- Raymond Will Kretschmar
- Sources
- 7
Life in the order the records give it
Birth1898
Born 28 March 1898, New Ulm, Austin County, Texas
a German settlement in the
Texas-German belt
S34Death1990
Died
3 March 1990, Hays County, Texas; buried Austin Memorial Park, plot
1-566-9
S34Record—
The NUMIDENT's "Liessi Ladusch" and the memorial's "Hattie Elizabeth
'Liessi' Ladusch" are the same woman
the nickname is recorded on both, which is
what ties the government record to the grave
S33S34Kretschmar, Ladusch, Landrock, Stein — four German surnames in one grandparent's
ancestry, out of New Ulm in Austin County. This is the real Texas-German line in the
family, and it is on Kristin's side.
Family parents, marriages, children, siblings
Children1929
🆕 Her son
Raymond Will Kretschmar, born 7 October 1929, died on
9 July 1980 at St. Elizabeth Hospital, Beaumont, Texas, aged 50. He lived at Nederland, was a veteran and an installer for Western Electric, and his death certificate (Texas state file no. 55851) names his parents as Will Kretschmar and
“Leissi Ladusch” Confirmed S968S436. It records his removal to Oak Bluff Memorial Park, Port Neches. added 29 September 2026
Parents1873
the 1900 census (Elizabeth, 2) and 1910 census (“Liccie”, 11) in their household
S34S326S327S328In the record
Generation 4 — Kristin's great-grandparents
- S33US Social Security NUMIDENT / Death Master File / VA-BIRLS, and the Texas Marriage and Divorce indexes — Caffey entries, republished verbatim at SortedByName.com. Government records. Supplies T.W. Caffey Jr's birth at "Salado Bell, Texas" and his parents Thomas W Caffey and Medie Stobaugh; Lucille's birth at "Austin Travi, Texas" and her parents Will Kretschmar and Liessi Ladusch; his Marine Corps service 1941–45; the shared Wimberley retirement ZIP; and the 1969 Caffey–Walker marriage and its 1980 dissolution. The Caffey pages 403'd on a second attempt the same day.
- S34FindAGrave memorials, Caffey / Kretschmar / Ladusch — Thomas Alan Caffey 274110930, Thomas Walton Caffey Jr 39163436, Lucille Lorene Kretschmar Caffey 39163435, Thomas Walton Caffey Sr 62147776, Medie Caffey Stobaugh 62147759, Willie Frank Kretschmar 41405071, Hattie "Liessi" Ladusch Kretschmar 41405070. Grave inscriptions, plot numbers and dates are transcriptions of stones. Family links on FindAGrave are contributor-asserted, not records — they corroborate here and are never the basis. Memorial 62147776 additionally quotes Texas death certificate #16496, which is a record.
- S326Texas death certificate no. 20521 — Emma Stein Ladusch, 1952. Texas, U.S., Death Certificates, 1903–1982 (Ancestry collection 2272, record 21537089). Read from the image. Born 21 March 1875, Texas; died 30 March 1952, Austin; father Henry Stein; informant Otto Ladusch, husband; buried Oakwood Cemetery.
- S3271900 U.S. Federal Census — Otto Ladusch household, Austin Ward 10, Travis County, Texas. Ancestry collection 7602, record 44319545. Read from the image. Otto 26, born Germany, immigrated 1883, married 5 years; wife Emma, born March 1875, Texas, 2 children both living; daughters Frieda 3 and Elizabeth 2.
- S3281910 U.S. Federal Census — Otto Ladusch household, 1617 Willow Street, Austin. Ancestry collection 7884, record 28679316. Read from the image. Otto 36, Emma, Freda 13, “Liccie” 11.
- S436Texas Birth Index, 1929, p. 1031 — Raymond Willie Kretschmar, Travis County. Ancestry record 152366261. Image examined, read 24 September 2026. Confirmed “KRETSCHMAR, RAYMOND WILLIE — county 227 [Travis] — Oct 07 — M — mother LADUSCH, LIESSI — father KRETSCHMAR, WILLIE F.” A state index, not the certificate itself. It gives Liessi's maiden name as Ladusch; the 1923 marriage licence calls her Mrs. Liessi Wolter.
- S968Texas Certificate of Death, state file no. 55851 (Jefferson County) — Raymond Will Kretschmar, died 9 July 1980. Ancestry record 751473946. Image examined in the Stage 2 reading, 24 September 2026. Confirmed Raymond Will Kretschmar, white male, born 7 October 1929 in Texas, age 50; died 9 July 1980 at St. Elizabeth Hospital, Beaumont, Jefferson County; married; a veteran of the armed forces; an installer for Western Electric; residence Nederland, Jefferson County. Father Will Kretschmar; mother's maiden name “Leissi Ladusch”. Removal 12 July 1980 to Oak Bluff Memorial Park, Port Neches (Davis Funeral Homes). Ancestry hinted this record to his mother through the mother field; he is the man on the certificate. The birth date matches the 1929 state birth index (S436). “Leissi” is a variant spelling of her nickname Liessi, given by an informant in 1980; the site keeps Liessi. The informant was his wife, who is not named here because she may be living. The cause of death and his Social Security number are on the image and are not transcribed. Collection: Texas, U.S., Death Certificates, 1903–1982 (db 2272, image 33154_b063081-02973).