How it all started!
At the early age of 16 I got interested in the origin of our family and started with a genealogical tree. Back then I lived on the Luxembourg side of Oberbesslingen, which is called Beeslek. On the attic of our house I found an old furniture, which turned out to be the escritoire of my great-great-grandfather named Franz Bourggraff. He was known by the name of Schulfranz. In the middle of the 19th century he worked as a teacher. I found a letter, which another Bourggraff, a relative of my family, sent from America. In this letter he wrote that he and a friend, who also came from Beeslek, found gold which valued up to 6,000 US $. However, the gold was stolen. Unfortunately, this letter got lost. Meanwhile I have found out that this relative was Joseph Bourggraff, who emigrated to America in 1888. We lost track of him. Joseph Bourggraff was a cousin of my grandfather.
At the early age of 16 I got interested in the origin of our family and started with a genealogical tree. Back then I lived on the Luxembourg side of Oberbesslingen, which is called Beeslek. On the attic of our house I found an old furniture, which turned out to be the escritoire of my great-great-grandfather named Franz Bourggraff. He was known by the name of Schulfranz. In the middle of the 19th century he worked as a teacher. I found a letter, which another Bourggraff, a relative of my family, sent from America. In this letter he wrote that he and a friend, who also came from Beeslek, found gold which valued up to 6,000 US $. However, the gold was stolen. Unfortunately, this letter got lost. Meanwhile I have found out that this relative was Joseph Bourggraff, who emigrated to America in 1888. We lost track of him. Joseph Bourggraff was a cousin of my grandfather.
As I got more and more interested in the origin of my family, I visited one day Rev. Eugen Jost in Niederbesslingen.
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He owned a registration card which contained all the data of every family in that town that was stated in the old registration books of the church. The oldest book we got hold of was a wedding registration book that went back to the year 1616. That’s where I gathered the first information about the Bourggraff family. I still treasure these two pages. Though I wanted to investigate about the early members of my family, I decided to postpone this adventure until my retirement.
Since I have spent a considerable amount of time with investigations about the Bourggraff family and have had many very interesting encounters. I am collecting all this in a family chronicle. Most of the family data of my ancestors was provided by the national archive of Luxembourg. I have filed them and they are available if anyone is interested. For even further information I will provide a family chronicle, which I am still working at right now.
Since investigating about my family, I discovered that I am part of a big family clan. I am looking forward to meeting and getting to know all living family members. As a Christian I have started to pray for them each day, and I am also closing in the late members in my prayers.
Arno Bourggraff
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