Week #17 Documents

I was scrolling through the Ancestry hints one day when a photo of one of my 3x great aunts husband, William Seitz,  popped up. It was an odd photo that almost looked like a mug shot or official document photo so I checked it out. Turned out it was taken when he was registered on the "Kansas Registration Affidavits of Alien Enemy".

William Seitz

This was a type of document I had not seen before so I googled what that meant. This was the description found on the National Archives website: 

"Following the onset of hostilities during World War I, non-naturalized "Enemy Aliens" by definition, were required to register with United States authorities as a national security measure. Under the provisions of a Presidential Proclamation of April 6, 1917, non-naturalized female aliens were likewise registered as an additional national security measure that included those women of American birth that were married to enemy aliens. Registrants include school children, divinity students, former United States soldiers and sailors, Roman Catholic nuns, the elderly and the infirm. For the State of Kansas the registered aliens represent a broad cross-section of the German-born population of the State."

"Regulation 19 instituted a requirement for enemy alien registration. Registration involved completing a four-page form that required the registrant to provide family information, details of immigration, a physical description, a photograph, and fingerprints. 

More than 480,000 German enemy aliens were registered, 200,000 permits were issued, and 6,300 enemy aliens were arrested under Presidential Arrest Warrants. There are no surviving master lists of registrations, permits, or arrests.

Very few records of the enemy alien registration and permitting processes exist today. The records that do survive are incomplete. The series identified below are the only known registration records currently maintained by the National Archives. Researchers should be aware that enemy alien registration records have been identified at a variety of locations outside the National Archives, including state archives, historical societies, and county libraries. To date, the only states with known surviving enemy alien registration records are: Arizona, Arkansas, California, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota (state registration), New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon, and Wisconsin."

It's very rare to find your ancestors fingerprints anywhere so it's neat to see his. 

William was born in Germany March 17, 1849. I'm not sure when exactly he came to the US but he married Caroline Walter my 3x great aunt in Kansas in 1889. He remained in Kansas until his death in 1938. I have many other German Born Relatives in my family who would have been in the United States at that time but have not seen any other documents like this. But according to what I found online not many of these documents exist anymore. At least not for the states where my ancestors were. 

I know from speaking with an older gentleman where I work his family were Germans and living in Kansas. During WW2 his family and the predominantly German community that he lived in faced a lot of hatred even though he and his siblings were born in the US and his parents had been in the country well before the war. They spoke both German and English but when he went to college his teachers forbid him and any other students from speaking German. It makes me wonder what kind of hatred my Ancestors faced. 

Sources:

https://catalog.archives.gov/id/286181 

https://www.archives.gov/research/immigration/enemy-aliens/ww1