Kountz Family National Foundation

04/10/2022

This past week we received notification that the headstone had been installed. Thank you so much, to all the donors that helped make this happen. This couple is the origin of our family in America, and now they have a suitable memorial to show the world that they were here. This wouldn't have been possible without all the help you generously gave. Thank you again. And special thanks to Adam Starnes who took some time out of his day to take this picture for us.

11/11/2021

This holiday, we again would like to memorialize our uncle, great uncle, and cousin Sergeant John William Kountz (1919-1944) Service # 35109194. John William was born to John George Kountz and Florine Loretta Kissell in Louisvile, Kentucky. US military aid to the Allies grew significantly during 1941. It did not go unnoticed by the Kountz family. John and his best friend Johnny O’Brien (pictured together in uniform before deployment) heard the call to serve, and so enlisted in the military in October of that year two months prior to the bombing of Pearl Harbor which marked America’s official entry into the battle. They were separated when John was assigned to the 168th Infantry Regiment, 34th Infantry Division and sent to Ireland and never saw each other again. Johnny O’brien kept photos from his time with John (attached), which he passed down to his children, who in turn passed them on to us to store in our archives.
John was deployed to North Africa and fought in Tunisia, where he served with distinction. At the completion of that campaign, his regiment was sent to Italy where wrote about enjoying swimming in the waters. On 28 September, 1943, he participated in the drive North to take Benvenuto. Before his unit reached the river Voltuno, they encountered opposition and he was injured in his neck and feet. He was removed from the fight to recover in a hospital for a few months, and rejoined his unit in January of 1944 as they beat back the Bernhardt Line defense, taking Mount Trochio. They did not rest there, but pressed on across the Rapido River in an attempt to take Monastery Hill, which would give them control of the town of Monte Cassino. John went missing during the first battle of Monte Cassino. His body was later found and he was pronounced deceased as of January 30th, 1944. The following is an excerpt from the history of his unit during this time:
“28 September 1943, the 34th, part of the U.S. II Corps, drove north to take Benevento, crossed the winding Volturno three times in October and November, assaulted Monte Patano and took one of its four peaks before being relieved, 9 December 1943. In January 1944, the Division was back in II Corps front line battering at the Bernhardt Line defenses. Thankfully, after bitter fighting through the Mignano Gap, they were able to take Monte Trocchio without resistance as the German defenders withdrew to the main prepared defenses of the Gustav Line. On 24 January 1944, during the First Battle of Monte Cassino they pushed across the Rapido River into the hills behind and attacked Monastery Hill which dominated the town of Cassino. While they nearly captured the objective, in the end their attacks on the monastery and the town failed. The performance of 34th Division in the mountains is considered to rank as one of the finest feats of arms carried out by any soldiers during the war. In return they sustained losses of about 80 per cent in the Infantry battalions."
Many Kountzes and Kountz ancestors have fought for the United States over the years, and some of those ancestors had died in their service as well. The loss of John had such a profound effect on his family and community, however, that we feel it more strongly than most. We have letters in our archives from businesses and churches and other organizations who worked with and knew John, sending their condolences to his family. We have the relics of his family’s grief, the letters he sent home were lovingly preserved, his patches, his medals were kept. His photo never left the mantel, and everyone in his family had their own copy. He rests now in Plot G Row 12 Grave 3 in the Sicily-Rome American Cemetery, Nettuno, Italy.
His hometown of Louisville enlisted a sculptor to design a memorial listing the names of all of Kentucky’s war dead, to be installed in Iroquois Park. The plan was ultimately abandoned. Today, to memorialize John, a brick was ordered to be laid in a memorial in Albuquerque, New Mexico, engraved with his name, theater of service, and death date. It will be installed at the end of this month.
Thank you, to all Kountz family and friends, who served or are still serving. To those who served in Vietnam, welcome home.

10/18/2021

To all the Kountz family members that we’ve come to know over the years; thank you for your friendship and support in this work that we do. We’ve come to the point where we want to take the next big step in the work on our family history, and that is to place a headstone at the grave of our immigrant Kountz ancestor John Christian Kountz and his wife Lena Miller. The two are interred in an unmarked plot (lot #55 s ¼) at St. Louis Cemetery in Louisville, Kentucky. (photo below)

Our Director Michael Kountz spent some time in Louisville on a research trip recently, and visited the grave site. We had hoped that a stone had been present at some point, but had sunk below the surface. Unfortunately, tests conducted at the burial plots proved that to not be the case. The Catholic Cemeteries Foundation manages the grounds of St. Louis, and very graciously drew up a proof for a memorial to be placed on the site. (photo below) The cost to build and place the memorial was quoted as a reasonable $2120.00.

This is our first ever call to all descendants and cousins of the Kountz family. We need your help to honor our ancestors with a memorial. A permanent monument to show the world that they were here, and for our family to visit and remember them. We need your donations.

The Kountz Family National Foundation is a 501 c(3) nonprofit entity, and all donations are tax deductible. Each donor will get a receipt by email confirming the tax-deductible status of their donation for the purpose of filing with their yearly tax return. 100% of every donation from now until December 31st 2021 will go to the memorial fund. A list of other programs that require donations can be found on our site here: http://www.kountz.org/extrapgs/kfnf.php Donations can be made through the paypal link on that site which will also be provided below, or contact us privately for an address to mail checks.

You may also donate using the donate button attached to the post below. All donations made via that method will receive the tax-deductible receipt at a later time.
https://www.paypal.com/donate?token=1Zpk9ZtDzEX70N4sDw8OAYUdhlXsUfmVPzSvHiyzdbOGrYfIwY8vssq_c6tXYzYGJLSwt_bE5FEvntoa

06/10/2020

These past several months have provided ample opportunities to further our mission to restore and preserve our family’s historical records. At the moment, we’re proudest of the document humidification chamber built by Director and Lead Archivist Michael Kountz. We have been granted custodianship of several record collections over the years, some of which included tightly rolled documents and photographs. Many of these had been rolled up for over 80 years, and cannot be unrolled without risking severe damage to the document.
When placed in the humidification chamber, layered between sheets of a special material that prevents direct contact with condensation, the documents absorb moisture at a controlled, very slow rate. The fibers in the paper begin to relax and take up their original form, allowing the document to lay flat again.
After the document spends some time in the chamber and can lay flat again, it is pressed between archival blotter sheets in order to extract the moisture. Pressure is applied to ensure it remains in its new shape once dry, and we end up with the following results:

08/19/2019

These photos were texted to us for identification. They came to us from the collection of Elizabeth Ann (Betty) Kountz, and are now in the possession of a relative in Louisville. For those of you who knew Betty and spent time in her home, do you recognize any of these photos?

At least one of them show studio marks from Indiana, which makes it likely that some may be from the Kountz branches that left Louisville for Indiana.

02/09/2019

This is the memorial card for John Christian K***z(Kountz), our immigrant ancestor. Memorial cards are mementos given out after a loved one's death as tributes to their memories.

This card comes to us from a thoughtful gentleman in Louisville, who discovered it in an old book. Using the information on the card, he tracked down my research on John, and through that found my contact info. Thanks to his efforts and generosity, we now have one of only two known pieces of personal documentation of John's life, the other being the photo of him at the house he built in Indiana.

This card is in route to our Director, who will evaluate it for preservation purposes, catalogue it, and place it in our collection.

If you have any documents or artifacts pertaining to the Kountz family, and would like to have them preserved for the sake of posterity, feel they might aid in research, or are just a little interesting and you want to share, please reach out to Michael Kountz at 505-304-1871, or contact us through facebook, and we will be happy to help you.

Things we are interested in receiving include documents and photographs, letters and written memories(write things down before they're lost!), and personal belongings of our ancestors.

12/22/2018

One of the many activities our Foundation is involved in is a comprehensive DNA study of the genetic markers unique to Kountz family members. The primary component of the study involves using the Y-DNA found only in men in order to locate our K***z family overseas, the ancestral home of our family, and to contribute to the scientific understanding of our family’s specific genetic markers. I will save the details of this part of the project for a later post, when broader advances toward our goals have been made.

A side project we’ve been working on involves comparing the DNA segments shared between descendants of John Christian K***z and Magdalena Miller. These two were the progenitors of one of the major Kountz families now spread throughout the USA. When descendants of this couple take an Autosomal DNA test, like the kind found at Ancestry.com, or the Family Finder test at ftdna.com, we can look at the segments of DNA shared between them. These shared segments of DNA were imparted to each of them from their common Kountz ancestor couple. We can then take these segments and lay them on a map, shown in the picture attached to this post. Eventually, as science progresses and we get better tools for applying this data, we hope to be able to identify what traits and conditions are imparted to us by these segments of Kountz DNA.

John Christian K***z K***z and his wife Magdalena are the oldest known heads Kountz family. My father shares about 12.5 percent of his DNA with this couple. The picture of a chromosome map provided here is his portion of DNA that we’ve been able to match to John and Magdalena. We need more family members to test, in order to find more of the segments, as not everyone gets the same DNA passed down to them. Others in the family, living a generation closer to this couple, would share about 25 percent with them. That is a huge amount of DNA, and that is why having the older members of the family take these tests is a priority for our study.

Right now there is a very generous sale going on at www.ancestry.com for their DNA test, as well as www.ftdna.com. www.23andme.com also has a sale. These are the only three companies we can recommend testing with, as they will provide you with the raw DNA data needed to make the comparisons talked about above. If you would be interested in contributing to any of these studies, please do not hesitate to contact Michael Kountz for help navigating the process. He would be happy to answer any questions you may have and share information about the projects you’d be interested in. The sales mentioned above will most likely end at the end of this year.

09/01/2018

No family's history is without its stains and blemishes. This particular Kountz family line is no different. In early December of 1930, 18 year old Malcolm Stewart Kountz of Indianapolis led a group of three other youths in series(well, two, really) of calculated armed robberies involving a theater and a loan company. Using a rented car, the other youths acted as lookouts and drivers while Malcolm perpetrated these crimes with a revolver and a blackjack. The attached photos are copies of articles written about the events in the Indianapolis Star, and go into great detail about how the crimes were committed. These details were provided to the police after Malcolm and his crew were caught, based on a tip provided. Malcolm was later arraigned and indicted, going on to serve time at Pendleton for his involvement.

It is currently unknown how much time he spent away, but it did not do much to curb his criminal inclination. At the age of 21, he went on to organize a robbery at a drug store with a partner. Police responded quickly, and Malcolm fled with his partner in a stolen vehicle. Shortly thereafter, the vehicle crashed, and both men fled into an open field. Malcolm's partner surrendered upon being ordered by police to freeze, but Malcolm refused. Police then opened fire on Malcolm, shooting him in the back of the head and killing him instantly.

Malcolm was the son of Harry Welling Kountz, the 8th child of our immigrant ancestor John Christian K***z.

02/03/2018

ALL MALE KOUNTZ FAMILY MEMBERS, PLEASE JOIN OUR DNA STUDY:

https://www.familytreedna.com/group-join.aspx?Group=K***ziKuenzi

Many of the Kountz families in America today are descended from one John Christian K***z, who came to America from the Grand Duchy of Baden, Germany in 1852, presumably alone, and settled in Louisville, Kentucky. In Louisville the name K***z changed to Kountz (pronounced Koontz). From there the Kountz family spread to Indiana, Florida, Arizona, Tennessee, Ohio, California, Illinois, New Mexico, Nevada, North Carolina, and can be found in many other states as well.

The problem faced by descendants of this man is that no records are currently available regarding his pre-American history. The court book that held his immigration records is the only to have been stolen from the Kentucky archives. The church records for his family were lost in transit to a new home. No ship record has yet been found to document his journey to America.

Many years and thousands of dollars have been spent in the attempt to locate the records of John Christian K***z’s origin, but no progress had been made. Then Michael Kountz, a direct descendant of John, took his first Y-DNA test with FTDNA. The Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation collected over 100,000 DNA samples and familial pedigrees from all over the world. It had a publicly accessible database that allowed people with their own Y-DNA test results to compare their results to the Sorenson database. Michael submitted his Y-DNA results to be compared with the database, and found some very interesting results. Four members of the Sorenson database, all with a variant of the last name “Kinsey,” showed as being descended from the same man as Michael, and that man lived relatively recently.

The pedigree information that accompanied those results showed that each member traced their lineage back to the same person: one Christian K***zi from Switzerland. According to these pedigrees, Christian K***zi was born in Bilten, Konolfingen District, Switzerland abt 1700. Christian died Nov 1774 Alsace Twp, Berks, PA, at 74 years of age. His body was interred 1774 in Kinsey Cemetery, Kinsey Homestead, Oley, Berks Co, PA. The similarity of the name K***zi to K***z is exciting. Given that he immigrated in the early 1700’s, though, it is clear that the Kountz’s in America are not descended from him. Instead, Christian K***zi and John Christian K***z share a paternal ancestor in relatively recent history.

This means that perhaps a brother or an uncle stayed behind in Switzerland to raise their family, which moved at some point to Baden, Germany, before coming to America in 1852. It is our ultimate goal to use this group to connect the American branches of this family to those still living in the ancestral homeland: Switzerland, or even Germany. The descendants of this man and his family exhibit a wide variety in the spelling of their surnames; Kountz, Kinzy, K***zli, and Kinsey are some examples.

To contribute to this group, a male with one of these surnames (or a similar name) must test Y-DNA to at least 67, though we will not turn away anyone who has tested less. While that is our primary objective, we still welcome members of any Kountz family, male or female, who have taken any DNA test. These can help link family members together who may not know that they’re related. The descendants of Christian K***zi who tested with the Sorenson Foundation were all of Haplogroup I1, as well as one descendant currently in this group. Michael Kountz is also I1. More specifically: I-A6397.

Many of the Kountz families in America today are descended from one John Christian K***z, who came to America from the Grand Duchy of Baden, Germany in 1852, presumably alone, and settled in Louisville, Kentucky. In Louisville the name K***z changed to Kountz (pronounced Koontz). From there the Koun...