Discoveries, Connections and a Lifetime of Memories
By Mary Bolich
One of the highlights for many on the Luxembourg Legacy tours is Family Day, when participants are paired with Luxembourg volunteer drivers and guides for a day of exploring ancestral villages.
Kevin Wester, Luxembourg Legacy founder/CEO said Family Day, which his tours have offered for 15 years, provides an unforgettable experience for tour participants.
“Across the board on tour evaluations the past 15 years, tour participants have listed the experience of Family Day as the highlight of their tour. At Luxembourg Legacy, we do everything in our power to make it a one-in-a-lifetime encounter. Some tour participants have found ancestral homes and even met distant relatives still living in the home.Others have learned of fascinating family stories nearly lost over time. But at the very least, our Family Day allows people to walk in the footsteps of their ancestors. It’s a real spiritual experience,” Kevin said.
During the Luxembourg Legacy May 2026 tour, Lion Tales tagged along with Monica (May) Smith on her Family Day, which began on a warm, sunny Monday morning. Monica was introduced to her volunteer guides, Jeanne Meyers-Kaysen and her sister Margot Groff-Kaysen, in the Parc Hotel Alvisse lobby before setting off for Wormeldange, a commune and small town in eastern Luxembourg along the banks of the Moselle River.
The first stop was St. Jean Baptiste church in lower Wormeldange, where we were met by local resident and genealogist Susi Mannes-Konert. After Monica and Susi chatted over historical documents and books, Monica went up to the choir loft.
A retired music teacher and lifelong vocalist, Monica picked up a hymnal and began to sing, which surprised and delighted the group. It turns out that musical talent is in her genes.
According to Susi, dating back to 1794, Monica’s Wormeldange winemaking ancestors, who had been christened at St. Jean Baptiste, were founding members of the now 176-year-old local choir and were soloists and organists in the church. One of her relatives served as parish council president.
Susi, who has been an avid genealogist since she was a child, said connecting with Monica was especially meaningful to her.
“For me, meeting Monica was quite an emotional moment, especially when she sang in our church and when we discovered that we are cousins—even if it is fifth degree,” said Susi, whose ancestors were wine growers in Wormeldange from at least 1792 until the present (the family winemaking tradition will end with her and her husband as their sons are pursuing other careers). Since the tour, Susi and Monica have stayed in touch via email to exchange information and old photographs of family on both sides of the ocean and they plan to reunite on Monica’s future trips to Luxembourg.
Monica said her impromptu solo felt like a natural thing to do.
“I feel really at home in churches because I’ve been singing in choir lofts for 30 years, and as a child, I listened to my dad, who had a beautiful tenor voice, sing for every wedding and funeral in our church. So, I picked up a book of Marian hymns and flipped to a melody I’ve been singing for decades and just sang. It felt like I was walking in my ancestors’ footsteps,” said Monica, whose ancestors emigrated to Mineral Point, Wisconsin, where she grew up.
We were unable to locate a family plot in the St. Jean Baptiste cemetery, but Susi said that Monica’s ancestors had definitely been buried there. Because burial space in Luxembourg is limited, cemetery plots are leased. When a family doesn’t renew the concessions or stops paying the fees, the plot is made available to a new family.
A beautiful ancestral home
After seeing the church, we walked around the corner to the Walsen House, a beautiful tangerine-colored home where Monica’s great-great grandparents Nicholas Henry May and Barbara Schumacher lived. Historically, before Napoleon’s reign over Luxembourg, houses in Luxembourg had names and not numbers. Often the house name wasn’t the same name as the ancestral family that lived there and house names were retained after a house was sold to another family. Walsen House is currently uninhabited but still owned by descendants who are Monica’s very distant cousins. The crucifix on the exterior of the house dates to the 19th century and is from St. Jean Baptist church.
“Seeing the house was like being given a beautiful gift. I keep thinking about that house all the time,” Monica said recently as she reflected on that day. “All my relatives have always been good, thoughtful Christian people who loved their Catholic faith. It was very meaningful to see the crucifix on the house knowing that my Luxembourg ancestors were a big part of the church community and had a very strong faith.”
After snapping photos of Monica at the Walsen House, we drove to Brasserie Beim Pier, a lovely restaurant at a horse stable nestled in the picturesque hills of Moutfort. We enjoyed good conversation over an exceptional lunch before getting back on the hilly, curvy, treelined roads to our next destination: St. Wendelin chapel in Wormeldange-Haut (upper Wormeldange). According to Susi, the chapel, along with 80 percent of the buildings in Wormeldange, was destroyed by American bombs at the end of World War II and rebuilt in the 1950s.
Next, it was off to a chapel atop a steep, vineyard-covered hill, a site known as Koeppchen. The 101-year-old hilltop chapel is dedicated to St. Donatus, the patron of protection from storms and one of Luxembourg’s favorite saints. We enjoyed a sweeping view of Wormeldange and the Moselle and were able to pick out the Walsen House from that vantage point.
Family farm now a golf resort
Finally, we drove to Mercure Luxembourg Kikuoka Golf and Spa resort in Scheierhaff. Jeanne, a longtime volunteer genealogist, pointed out an old house across a small valley from the resort, which is the site of one of the original farms in the area.
In a follow-up email, Jeanne explained: “Monica has an ancestor who was born in that old house (or in an older house at that site) in 1708 named Henry Goedert. Monica is the fifth great-granddaughter of Henry via an ancestral line from other towns in Luxembourg: Schuttrange (Mathes family), and Beyren (Mathes and Steffes families), and finally the couple Mathias May and Anna Maria Steffes, great-grandparents of Monica. A second house, built towards the end of the 19th century, was sold to Japanese investors, who built the golf resort in the early 1990s where Monica’s ancestors once farmed.” That house is part of the resort buildings.
To top off a long, adventurous, emotional day, we relaxed and chatted over refreshing drinks at the golf resort bar before driving back to the hotel. There, we bid a fond Äddi to Jeanne and Margot, thanking them for a memorable day.
Family Day fosters networks of connections
Jeanne, who lives in a suburb of Luxembourg City, has participated in Family Day for many years, and got especially involved after participating years ago in René Daubenfeld’s Building Bridges tour to the Midwest and experiencing a warm reception by the Luxembourg societies in the United States. She said she enjoys acting as host to people interested in genealogy and showing them areas she is familiar with. She also really likes corresponding with people prior to their visit to get information and staying in touch afterwards. Volunteering for Family Day has provided new connections with fellow Luxembourgers, as well.
“Thanks to Family Day, I have met local people in Luxembourg who agree to help with research, mainly finding old houses or the sites where ancestral houses had been built, which makes Family Day an unforgettable experience for all of us. I like to think of Family Day as visitors, hosts and the local contacts coming together as a “Family of Man,” something so well illustrated by the American Luxembourgish photographer Edward Steichen,” Jeanne said.
A life-changing experience
For Monica, the Family Day experience was a full-circle moment.
“In the spring of 1979, when I was a 22-year-old student studying music in Vienna. I traveled to Luxembourg to research my ancestry. I went to the archives in Luxembourg City and worked with an archivist there who found my May ancestors dating back to roughly 1700. I can’t even tell you what prompted me to do that, but I came home with all this information, and it sparked an interest in our ancestry among my family. My uncle took my information and created the May history through my generation, and in the early 1990s, my sister Mary Ann expanded on that and created the “May History in Mineral Point” book for the museum there. So, to return after all this time and experience Family Day was extremely enriching and so much more than I could have ever imagined. I’m overwhelmed by Jeanne’s, Margot’s and Susi’s generosity of time and effort and I’m so grateful that people like them find such joy in creating that experience for people like me.”
Monica still has her original notes from her ancestral research trip to Luxembourg City in 1979.
Monica also gave a shout-out to Kevin.
“Kevin has dedicated decades of his life helping people make these connections to their heritage and the experience he creates through the Family Day outings is pretty remarkable,” Monica said. “I really want to express my gratitude to him.”
Back L-R: Anna (May) Demuth, Peter May, John May, Matt May, Barbara (May) Demuth; Middle L-R: Mathias May and Anna (Steffes) May; Front L-R: Elizabeth (May) Demuth Steil, Nicholas May. This photo is included in Monica’s sister Mary Ann (May) Goggin’s book on the May family history.
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