Research Page Chapter 1: Legends Myths and Castles
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This Research page contains material which may not be included in my manuscript The Falkenburgs
An American Colonial Family: Chapter 2 Colonial Roots. In There are two reasons this material does not appear in the manuscript. First, in an effort to manage the size of the book or the flow of the story, I decided that some details should be relegated to research notes. In other cases, I simply don't know all of the facts needed to make a coherent presentation. Those notes are found here. In many cases they are notes to myself and may not represent fully explored and documented fact. If you have navigated to this page from a Google search, and you have not seen my manuscript, you may wish to follow the link below for a more complete story of the colonial roots of the Falkenburg/Falkinburg family.
Link to manuscript: The Falkenburgs:An American Colonial Family
The Castle Valkenburg
During a business trip to Aachen, Germany a number of years ago, I was told by my hosts that I should go to see the Falkenburg castle in the province of Limburg, Netherlands. This castle is located just seven miles from the German border and twelve miles from the center of Aachen. My German hosts did not see any difference in the spelling . In their minds Valkenburg and Falkenburg were the same.
Recently, there has been DNA evidence linking one line descending from an early Falkenburg ancestor to the family van Valkenburg. The town of Valkenburg grew up around the Valkenburg Castle. The castle was built in 1115 by Gosewijn I Heinsberg. The castle was besieged many times during the Middle Ages, and was occupied by the French in 1672. Clearly, Falkenburgs or Valkenburgs from this area were not part of a royal family who built this fortification. The Dutch family van Valkenburg literally means from Valkenburg.
Link to tour guide to Castle Valkenburg
16 JUN 2016
Last updated 9/18/11
© 2009 to 2011 Donald R. Falkenburg