The Origin of The Genglers

Peter Gengler was born 23 December 1816 in the town of Nospelt, in Canton 
Capellen, a town and canton in what would later become Luxembourg. Since 
Luxembourg did not yet exist, he was technically born in Holland, and that 
is what he told both the immigration authorities when he came to the US, 
and the census-taker in 1880. His son Dominic, however, was born in 1842 
after Luxembourg was given its sovereignty and he claimed in differing 
records to be from Holland, as the family immigration records showed, or 
from Luxembourg as his birth and baptismal records indicated.


              The Location of Nospelt in Luxembourg

In the 1740s some Gengler's lived in what is today known as Hachy, Luxembourg
Province, Belgium. Hachy was also known as Hertzig in German. It is located 
9 km (6 miles) west of Arlon in the Ardennes.

The earliest proven direct line of Al Falter's Genglers lived in about 1750 
in Vichten, Canton Ettelbruck, a small town about 10 km (6 miles) southwest 
of the town of Ettelbruck. Ettelbruck was a small village then, and it is 
a small town today. It is a beautiful town populated by friendly, helpful 
people but it has relatively few claims to fame. One claim it does have is 
stems from the famous World War II Battle of the Bulge. The Battle of the 
Bulge was a desperate German counterattack against the invading American 
Army forces in Luxembourg. It was near Ettelbruck on Christmas eve of 
1944 that General George Patton, the American Commander, defeated that 
counterattack and the German forces. Today, Ettelbruck has in its city 
park a large statue of General Patton commemorating the defeat of the Nazi 
forces in the Battle of the Bulge, and who defeated them, thus freeing 
Luxembourg.

The majority of the Genglers in the United States can trace their ancestry 
to the Genglers of Vichten. While it is known that Johann lived there, it 
is not proven that he was born there. Most (but not all) researchers believe
that Vichten was his birth village; others believe that his ancestral home 
is one of the small villages in the parish surrounding Vichten. St. Michael 
Parish of Vichten includes the nearby villages of Obervichten, Niedervichten,
Schandel, Oberschandel, Niederschandel, Heidersheid, Bockholz, Zalen, 
Koernich, and Külzer. And at one point in time, there were Genglers in 
almost all of them.

Based on my research, it appears that it is quite possible Vichten is the 
original home of the Gengler family, in view of the very large number of 
Genglers in the earliest records from Vichten parish, and the fact that 
the second-earliest Gengler found in any records in Luxembourg came from 
there. He was Michael GENGLER of Obervichten who, on 21 May 1728, was 
recorded as a godparent in St. Michael's parish records. Only one earlier 
Gengler entry has been found elsewhere in Luxembourg. While that record 
predates the Vichten records, it appears that that circumstance is only 
a function of the survival of the Vichten parish records. Those Vichten 
records have a lot of Genglers in them, but do not go back far enough to 
encompass all the earlier Genglers. The very large numbers of Genglers 
in those records provide circumstantial evidence that Vichten was the 
first location of our Gengler ancestors in Luxembourg.