Genealogy isn’t for the faint of heart. You run in circles.  You run into brick walls.  You dive head first down rabbit holes.

But there’s just something about it that I can’t quit.  And I’m sure a lot of you would understand exactly what I’m talking about.

This summer Michelle was looking into Burg-Reuland and found a source that said the last castle manager was named Johann Georg Franziskus Wolf. A Wolf in the same town as our Wolffs? And our Joannes Karl Wolff (Theresia Wolff Konzen’s father) had a son named Franz Georg Wolff… Franz Georg Wolff was born in 1797 in Burg-Reuland, but the timeline didn’t work for him to be THE Johann Georg Franziskus so it seemed like there was a good chance our Wolffs were related to him.

Soon Michelle found that Johann Georg Franziskus Wolf was also Joannis Francisci Georgis Wolff (the spelling of the name depends on the language used in records – Luxembourgish, German, French, Latin, etc.), the father of our Joannes Karl Wolff. And Joannis Francisci Georgis Wolff (JFG Wolff) was the castle admin of Burg-Reuland while the French Revolution was occurring.

How did JFG Wolff come to be the admin of Reuland Castle? The last lord of Reuland was Ferdinand von Berghes until 1736 when he died without issue. After that Reuland Castle was publicly auctioned and managed. Johann Wilhelm Lupus bought the castle, but in 1749 he froze to death in a snowstorm (yes, you read that right). On 19 May 1750, Johann Wilhelm Lupus’s daughter Anna Clara Elizabetha Lupus married JFG Wolff in Beaufort, Luxembourg. JFG Wolff was a bailiff, court judge, and lay judge in Beaufort. He took over as the castle admin after their marriage. On 6 Sep 1751, Anna Clara Elizabetha Lupus Wolff died during childbirth. We couldn’t find any record of the child.

JFG Wolff later married Maria Regina Teresia Massu (MRT Massu) – we have yet to find their marriage record – and they had 12 children together. Their children are:

• Maria Carola Antonetta Wolff born 13 Jun 1754 in Burg-Reuland
• Joannes Josephus Petrus Wolff born 21 May 1755 in Burg-Reuland
• Joannes Karl Wolff born 9 Aug 1756 in Burg-Reuland
• Maria Angela Wolff born 9 Nov 1757 in Burg-Reuland
• Joannes Henricus Wolff born 13 Oct 1758 in Burg-Reuland
• Antonius Wolff born 27 Mar 1760 in Burg-Reuland
• Maria Theresia Wolff born 11 Apr 1761 in Burg-Reuland
• Anna Maria Wolff born 22 Jun 1762 in Burg-Reuland
• Maria Catharina Josepha Wolff born 18 Jul 1763 in Burg-Reuland
• Joannes Baptista Wolff born 17 Jul 1764 in Burg-Reuland
• Damianus Emmericus Haztardus Wolff born 2 Feb 1766 in Burg-Reuland
• Franciscus Carolus Antonius Wolff born 13 Jun 1767 in Burg-Reuland

JGF Wolff married for a third time in 1787 to Catherine Böly in Kruchten, Germany.

Some sources claim that JFG Wolff was the final admin of Reuland Castle, but it actually seems like his son Joannes Karl Wolff was the final admin. According to “History of Burg Reuland, part 2: From the 15th to 18th Centuries” by W. Wittrock and K. D. Klauser, Joannes Karl Wolff was named as bidder of the castle in 1779. They also state that Joannes Karl Wolff was the last admin of the castle until he fled to Trier, Germany, in 1794 before the French arrived. This is the same story about the admin fleeing that has been attributed to JFG Wolff before. I’m leaning toward Joannes Karl being the final castle admin because this history cites source documents (which I currently cannot access online) and I haven’t seen any source documents cited for the JFG version.

P.S. Michelle says I make it all sound so simple 😆 So just a heads up, in reality this was a very tangled web.