By Ken Kraemer
Many of you have probably seen the Kraemer family tree prepared by Marion Murphy Kraemer and Iris Kraemer Umhoefer a little over thirty years ago for the Kraemer Reunion in 1985. It was last exhibited at the unveiling of the new monument for Paul and Walburga Kraemer at the old St. Luke Cemetery in Plain, Wisconsin.
1985 Kraemer Family Tree
Well, Marty Kraemer is now working on bringing that tree up to date – and it is a Herculean task. First of all, he has had to find multiple contacts in each family line who can provide accurate information on members of the family for recent generations. There are seven different lines just for Paul and Walburga Kraemer’s children. Then there’s the Peter Kraemer line, which had ten children. And then there is the Alphonse Kraemer line of 12 children. The Peter Kraemer line alone stretches out sixty feet when printed out.
The new tree is so complex and large that it no longer can be done manually. So Marty is using a CAD (computer-aided-design) program to store, arrange and print the information for the new family tree. These CAD programs are normally used by architects and engineers for preparing construction drawings for all sorts of structures from buildings to bridges to utility systems.
Marty is undaunted by the task. He has completed 100% of the smallest family line – that of Frances Kraemer and Edward Weidner. Although the smallest, it is now almost as long as the entire Kraemer family line was in 1985. It is shown below formatted in CAD. One can also see from this chart that there are six other lines to be completed – one for each of Paul and Walburga’s children.
The Frances Kraemer and Edward Weidner family line 
The second family line is that of John Kraemer and his two wives – Mary Schutz and Mary Schwartz. Marty says that it is about 95% complete and also formatted on CAD. The Vince Kraemer family is one of the families in this line.
The John Kraemer families
The third is Joe Kraemer and Anna Brecthl line, which is about 90% complete and formatted on CAD. The Sylvester Kraemer family is one of those in this line.
The Joseph Kraemer families
The fourth family line is that of Mary Kraemer and George Laubmeier. It is about 50% complete, but Marty has contacted all the missing families contacted and he is simply waiting for their information. You can see that it is a work=in-process from the large empty space at the bottom all the hand-written changes and additions to the chart.
Mary Kraemer and George Laubmeier family line
The Theresa Kraemer and Martin Meister and the Margaret Kraemer and Joseph M. Ruhland families will be worked on after Mary Kraemer Laubmeier’s line is finished. There is no picture of these two lines as they are at the same stage as in 1985 presently.
The last picture is the Peter Kraemer family line. It is the largest of all the families and 100% complete. Although Peter had three wives, all eleven of his surviving children were from his first two wives who were sisters. Anna Ring Kraemer gave Peter seven boys (the long column on the left below) and she died in childbirth with the last boy. Anna’s sister Grace Ring Kraemer (the shorter column on the right) gave Peter three girls and a boy. The CAD drawing stretches more than 30 feet across Marty’s living room. Anna’s family will have to be done in double-column format in order to fit an 8 foot final height for all of the final CAD drawings.
So when Marty contacts you or anyone in your family, please encourage them to provide information to him quickly so that he can complete the job sometime in 2017. He needs help with the Laubmeier, Ruhland and Meister families. You can provide information directly to Marty at mkraem@charter.net or ask how you can help.
The plan then is to put all the families together on a single chart and mount it on some kind of permanent display board. We estimate the combined chart might be as big as 8 feet by 16 feet, or more than twice the size of the 1985 original chart.
Peter Kraemer family line
Kraemer history 