Existential Genealogy?

While reviewing the science news for the day I came across an intriguing article (really!) describing a study by Professor Carla Almeida Santos and her graduate student Grace Yan entitled "Genealogical Tourism: A Phenomenological Examination" (Journal of Travel Research 2010; 49; 56 originally published online 24 February 2009; DOI: 10.1177/0047287509332308). While the article itself is quite learned (and a bit inaccessible for the uninitiated) I found some of the interpretations of their work by the authors themselves to be quite insightful and in good agreement with my own existential experiences and feelings as an amateur genealogist.

A few worthwhile quotes from the authors press release describing their work:

"Genealogical tourism provides an irreplaceable dimension of material reality that's missing from our postmodern society," Santos said.

"Traveling to the old church where one's great grandparents used to worship in rural Ireland, or buying a loaf of bread from a tiny grocery store in the village where one's grandmother was from in Greece create a critical space to imagine and feel life as a form of continuation," says co-author and U. of I. graduate student Grace Yan.

"Genealogical tourism capitalizes on this (a world where mediated, inauthentic experiences have become such an ingrained part of everyday life that we're almost unaware of it) by allowing individuals to experience the sensuous charms of antiquity, and provides a way of experiencing something eternal and authentic that transcends the present," Santos said.

"According to our research, the baby boomer generation now constitutes the primary profile of genealogical travelers," Yan said. "Aging plays an important role in defining a person's choice of tourism, and genealogical travel is contemporary society's way of attaining a more coherent and continuous, albeit imagined, view of ourselves in connection with the past."

"Diaspora definitely plays an important role in popularizing genealogical tourism," Santos said. "Individual cultural and ethnic identities exist in fragmented and discontinuous forms in the U.S. Traveling to identify with an unknown past seems to give existence to meanings and values that the individual then carries forward on into their present."

Since diaspora is a ubiquitous condition in our multicultural country, "our ancestors' past seems less retrievable and almost mythical," Yan said.

"A lot of us may feel that there's a tension between the need to feel connected and the need to be individualistic," Santos said. "Genealogical travel gives us a practical way to explore those feelings and move toward a deeper understanding of our identities."

"Not only does it help to mitigate the desires and anxieties about our age, genealogical tourism also encourages us to take a more humanistic approach toward issues of belonging, home, heritage and identity," she said.

Bogner Family History - John Hau -1967

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Chronology of Events of John Baptist Bogner and his Wife Eva Barbara (Foerster) Bogner Compiled by John Michael Hau. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 1967

In 1967 John Hau published a Bogner Family History book describing the early history of the John Baptist and Eva Barbara (Foerster) Bogner family, who immigrated to the United States in 1885 from Trockau, Oberfranken, Bavaria, Germany.  The earlier immigrant family (1839) of Christoph "Chris" and Margaretha (Zielman) Bogner is also mentioned. For the benefit of those who may not be lucky enough to have access to a copy of this wonderful book, I have scanned it into a .pdf file which can be downloaded from my Microsoft Live Skydrive site at the public link above.

Etching Presented by Bogner Family to Village of Trockau in September 2007

In September 2007 Stephen and Audrey (Reyda) Bogner, traveling with Graham and Barbara (Schlenker) Skjenna, visited the old world home of the Bogner family in Trockau, Oberfranken, Bavaria, Germany.  On the occasion of this visit, Stephen was able to present a commemorative etching to the village of Trockau. 

"Presented by the Bogner Families of Canada and the United States, 

in remembrance of our ancestor Christopher Bogner, 

who left Trockau in 1839 for the American frontier. 

15 September 2007"

This etching is now held by the village library in Trockau.

At the same time, Stephen and Graham were honored to receive gifts of  beer steins from some of their new friends in Trockau and Buchanbach, the steins now being displayed prominently in their homes.

Johann Georg "George" Bogner (b.c. 1685)

In my research up to February 2010 the earliest Bogner ancestor whom I have been able to trace with confidence is George Bogner (b.c. 1685).

George Bogner was probably actually called Johann Georg Bogner, consistent with the tradition at the time. It is likely that he was born about 1685 +/- 5 years, making him between 17 and 27 years old at his marriage to Anna Schrüfer in 1707. He was almost certainly born in the Oberfranken region of Bavaria, most probably in or near the village of Kottweinsdorf, Bavaria where his son Johann (?) Bogner was born in 1709.

Kottweinsdorf is situated in Bayreuth, Oberfranken, Bayern, Germany, its geographical coordinates are 49° 49' 0" North, 11° 19' 0" East and its original name (with diacritics) is Köttweinsdorf. It is about 15 km W of Trockau - the village from which Christoph Bogner immigrated to America in 1839 and Baptist Bogner immigrated to America in 1885 - and about 6 km NNW of Gossweinstein - where some of the present day Bogner relatives still reside.

The Schrüfer family remains a very large and prominent family in the region, and traces its roots to the villages of Tuchersfeld (about 3km NE of Gossweinstein) and Hollfeld (about 17km NW of Trochau). Without knowing the significance of the village in the family history, I took this photograph when I drove through Tuchersfeld in September 2007:


A Christoph Schrüfer settled in the village of Gosseldorf by about 1600. Gosseldorf is only about 2km NW of Kottweinsdorf.

Anna Schrüfer was probably born about 1687 +/- 5 years, probably in or near Gosseldorf, making her 15 to 25 years of age at her marriage in 1707.

I suspect, but have not yet been able to confirm, that Anna Schrüfer was the daughter of Albert Schrüfer (b. 17 July 1653 Gosseldorf, Oberfranken, Bavaria, Germany; baptism 17 July 1653 Waischenfeld Church; m. Anna Sebald 05 July 1683 Waischenfeld Church; owned a sizable farm "Kastenlehn" at Gosseldorf which was sold by his widow Anna to her son Johann/Hans Georg Schrüfer after 1712; d. July 1712 in Gosseldorf; buried 23 July 1712 at Waischenfeld Church.) and Anna Sebald (b.c. 1660 at Etzdorf, Oberfranken, Bavaria, Germany; birthplace within the community of Leutzdorf, Pegnitz, Bayern, Germany and within the juristiction of the Gossweinstein parish and court; d. July 1723; buried 24 July 1723 at Waischenfeld Church)

If this is the case, then Anna Schrüfer was the grandaughter of Johann/Hans Schrüfer (b.c. 1610 Gosseldorf, Oberfranken, Bavaria Germany; d. October 1698 in Gosseldorf; buried 30 October 1698 at Waischenfeld Church) and Anna Beyer (b.c. 1630 in Behringersmuhle, Oberfranken, Bavaria, Germany; d. 17 September 1660 in Gosseldorf; buried September 1660 in Nankendorf, Oberfranken, Bavaria, Germany) who were married 18 November 1652 in Waischenfeld Church. Consequently, Anna Schrüfer would have been the great-granddaughter of Christoph Schrüfer who was born about 1585, probably in either Tuchersfeld or Hollfeld, and who died after 1644 in Gosseldorf.

A further study of the Schrüfer ancestors, and their connections to the Bogner family is certainly warranted. It has been reported that the local authority on the Schrüfer / Schruefer family history is Dr. Werner Schruefer (St.-Kassians-Platz 7a, 93047 Regensburg Phone 0049 941 566415). Apparently he has published a book on the family, unfortunatley only available in German, and it is said that it does not reference the Gosseldorf Schrüfer family.