I immediately thought, how many Claud Sartoriuses can there have been in the United States during the World War I era? My great-great-grandmother's brother was Claude Sartorius and I was hoping the record from the Investigative Case Files of the Bureau of Investigation, 1908-22 would provide me with new clues on my uncle's life.
I was wrong.
The image to the right is clearly for a Claud Satorius. Only problem is that this Claud Sartorius was from Idaho, not Illinois. A search of Ancestry.com's World War I Draft Registration Cards located a Claud Sartorius in Idaho (the one from the Investigative Case Files). Census and other records indicated that this Claud Sartorius was not the Claud Sartorius who was my uncle (and born in Illinois as a son of Hinrich and Trientje Behrens Sartorius).
What did Claud do? He made the mistake of criticizing the President and saying we needed the Kaiser. Probably not the best statement to make in Idaho in 1918. Of course, people say all kinds of things in poolhalls (not that I would know...)
This is just one of the thousands of neat images on footnote.com. The searching was relatively easy and for $1.99 I was able to view and download the image. I could even have added comments if I had wanted to and I just might go back and do that. For those of a distance from NARA this site with the available indexes it has is a significant time saver.
I'm going to keep looking in their databases...sooner or later someone will turn up.
