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George Contant

American outlaw

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMay 24, 2026
Entity authorityQ16066641
Source-derived summary

George C. Contant, aka George Sontag (April 10, 1864 – 1930), was an outlaw of the American West known mostly for train robberies. Like his older brother, John Sontag, he was originally from Mankato, Minnesota.

Background

Contant was the younger of two sons of Jacob Contant and the former Maria Bohn. After the death of their father in 1867, John Sontag took the surname of his stepfather, Matthias Sontag, his mother's second husband, a veteran of the Union Army during the American Civil War. George Contant however kept the original name though the two were usually called The Sontag Brothers. The two were frequent partners in crime. After he stole cigars from an employer, George Contant was sent to reform school in St. Paul, Minnesota. After a subsequent conviction for theft, Contant was imprisoned at the Nebraska State Penitentiary in Lincoln. Contant married Therese Landgraff on October 11, 1887, in La Crosse, Wisconsin; they had at least one child, George Contant.

Editorial summary

“George Contant” enters the record as american outlaw. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what George, Contant and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1864, 1930, 1867, 1887—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1864-04-10. Its strongest next move is a source search built around George, Contant and American.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“George Contant” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, George, Contant and American provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q16066641. VIAF identifies the subject as 38251881. The Library of Congress control number is n82013640. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1864, 1930, 1867 and 1887.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from George Contant” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.