Second, but eldest surviving son of Joh. Conrad Kautz, Johann George Kautz was born on January 16, 1826. On January 19, 1848, George married in Merkel to Katherina Ells. Katherina had been born on July 5, 1929 in Walter, Russia. Together, they had five children that grew to adulthood. To assure that this could happen, George chose to leave their home in Russia when Alexander II reneged on the promise of Catherine that the German families would be free from military service for time eternal. His three sons were approaching the draft age. [George] Henry was born May 21, 1855. John George was born on July 20, 1860, and young Adam was born on September 23, 1867. At the age of 51, when most men would begin contemplating some sort of retirement, George Kautz felt compelled to join with a group of emigrants from neighboring Kratzke, Russia, giving up all that he had in Merkel, and take a risk on better life in America. A notation in the Makarovka article of the 1896 publication of A. N. Minkh's Historical and Geographic Dictionary of the Saratov Province states "In 1876, six revision souls, and in 1877, one revision soul moved to America, not receiving any payment for their property." [-Translation by Richard Rye.] There were seven persons in the family, but it was common practice for the Russian officials to omit a family member from the names on the passport to discourage emigration. In his article, The Russian Imperial Passport For Traveling Abroad (Clues, 1979, pt. 1, pp. 49-55, American Historical Society of Germans From Russia, Lincoln, Nebraska.), Alexander Dupper explained that when questioned, they would sometimes re-issue the passport with another family member's name missing. All in all, obtaining a passport was a very expensive and bureaucratic procedure.

These families, among the first 200 to apply for visas to travel to America, took a train from Saratov to Hamburg, Germany, where they missed their intended ship, and left the following day, August 9, 1876, aboard the S. S. Frisia. After fourteen days at sea, and the loss of at least two young children traveling with the Kratzke group, they arrived at Castle Gardens in New York harbor on August 22. This fabulous old structure, actually the converted Fort Clinton, had just burned out three weeks prior, such that they would have diverted the main structure to be processed. From New York, the group traveled by immigrant train to Kansas, where they set out to explore Kansas and Nebraska for possible settlement sites. The main body of the group settled in the vicinity of Russell, Kansas, where George Kautz filed his Declaration of Intention on October 9. Sometime after this, George Kautz, and his family, chose to part with this group and move to Lincoln, Nebraska, where they resided for a time, and later to York, Nebraska, where his daughter married one of his cousins, the recently arrived Frederick Kautz, in 1879. By the Fall of 1880, the Kautz family had settled on Homesteads in Hitchcock county, Nebraska, in the newly organized railroad settlement of Culbertson. There, George, John and Henry each homesteaded neighboring sites in the river bottom, just south of town. George later secured nearby farm for his youngest son, Adam. In 1881, to supplement his farm, Henry worked as a scrapper on the construction of the Burlington railroad line from Culbertson to Wray, Colorado. Daughter, [Katherine] Elizabeth and her husband, Johann Frederick Kautz, eventually made the first run on Oklahoma lands, in 1889, settling in the area of Stillwater, Kansas. Margaretha married Conrad Wagner, and was given 80 acres east of her father's farm. For some years, George had dairy cows and the sons delivered Milk into Culbertson. Adam and Henry, both, laid claim as the first milkman in Culbertson. George Kautz died on February 16, 1907. Katherina soon followed, on March 28. Both are buried in the Kautz family plot of the Culbertson cemetery. Ironically, disputes over their estate led to a dissolution of the family that stayed together through the trials of immigration. Conrad and Margaretha Wagner departed for California and Washington. Elizabeth lost all contact and her obituary suggested that two of her previously deceased brothers were still living! Henry and John rarely spoke, though neighbors, while Adam centered his life in the neighboring community of Trenton, Nebraska.