Join me in this book as I stumble my way across das Mutterland to learn all I can about my maternal and paternal surnames, Karle & Kaiser, and my other forty-five ancestral surnames (Adolf, Andreas, Arp, Arnst, Becker, Bopp, Burbach, Dagenheim, Foht, Freund, Geringer, Grun, Hart, Heiland, Hermann, Hess, Heylmann, Hieronymus, Horn, Ikstadt, Kohler, Kramer, Lieders, Maurer, Michel, Neumann, Nicolausen, Nillmayer, Popp, Roth, Rudolph, Schaeffer, Scherer, Schiller, Schmiedt, Schneider, Schutz, Simon, Steitz, Trieber, Trippel, Vogt, Werner, Will, Zeichmann). Read how the Black Death, and the 30 Years and 7 Years Wars plagued them. Learn of the Catherine the Great "Scam" and its effect on the Volga Germans. Share their fear as the Russians close in. Travel with them to their new homeland in the Americas." Traces the origins of Karle & Kaiser from about 50, 000BC. Covers DNA tracking, pre-German history, religion, the Volga life and villages, and escape to the Americas. Over 560 pages, 200 pictures, 80 maps.