Our forebears possessed originally as free lords--domini et nobiles (Latin for lords and nobles)--a province of that time named Hassegau (Hasse district) beside the Boesenburg (Boesen castle) and were well-to-do with an allodial estate between Wettin and Mansfeld. (Footnote: The free lordly rank of the Middle Ages has nothing in common with the free-lord title of our time.) The Boesen castle, which was formerly our family seat and which lay 10 kilometers west of Wettin, was in older times called Bisini castle or the Seat of the Landed Gentry. In two ancient documents it is identified as the ancestral estate of our forebears ("our fatherly estate which lies there at Boesenburg"). The castle was apparently destroyed in 1263 and has not been rebuilt. Nevertheless the property was in the possession of the family till 1367.
In the course of the 13th century our ancestors gave their freehold estate for the most part to the church, or sold it. Then they stepped into an administrative relationship to the counts of Mansfeld, the counts of Anhalt, and the bishops of Merseburg. Administrators of this kind in the Middle Ages formed the kernel of the lesser nobility, who through knightly war service and supply of equipment stood in a service-and-loyalty relationship to the lords of the territory
The soldier and knight, Tedolfus Busz, mentioned in our oldest document of 1230, was born about the turn of the 12th to the 13th century, and is our family father. Beginning with him we can trace an uninterrupted, well-documented male line of descent. That an inquiry reaching farther back into our ancestry may prove feasible seems improbable, inasmuch as noble family lines in general cannot be traced beyond the middle of the 12th century.
Of course there are other names in documents of earlier centuries whose similarity with our name is rather striking. These facts have given rise to conjectures of genealogical relationship which have developed into regular family traditions and also have been mentioned in genealogical works. If we in the following paragraphs go into one or two of these "family traditions," as well as into a heraldic legend, it is only to inform our family members concerning such undemonstrable ties with the past, which have no historical value.
Some have, for example, conjectured that they could derive our ancestry from the kindred of the Bucco family, some of whom, dukes of Thüringia and counts form the borders of Sorbe, died in 908 in battle against Hungary. Their family was designated as that of the Buz (tribus quae buzici dicitur), and two family members (Dedo, who died in 957, and Burkhard, who died in 981) were counts of the province of Hasse.
The foregoing conjecture depends on the similarity, in the oldest writings, of the names Busz and Buz, as well as on the fact that our forebears settled in the province of Hasse.
Another conjecture would link our ancestry with the kindred of Boso, who after leaving the monastery of Saint Emmeram at Regensburg became the first bishop of the diocese of Merseburg and resided there from 968 to 970. It is supposed that after the death of Boso a relative, "from the Regensburg home area" took over the land holdings of the bishop and that this relative of the bishop should be looked upon as the father of our family.
This theory rests solely on the similarity of the names Boso and Bose. It is to be noted, however, that although the name Boso appears at that time (869 to 967) in the genealogies if the old Burgundian ruling houses, the name Bose began to develop into its present spelling in our third generation from Tedolfus Busz, from 1317 on.
Finally, let us look at one more legend:
The legend entwines itself around our coat of arms, the shield of which was for the first time made with a red border in 1553, and the helmet decoration of which has displayed since 1593 a pointed cap on the crest. This cap has six red-pointed cockfeathers stuck in it.
These alterations by the new art of escutcheon-changing, which had arisen in the boom days of heraldry, are linked rather implausibly and arbitrarily with the year 933 -- a time that was 600 years past! At the time a Bosian ancestor had distinguished himself in a defensive campaign against the Huns, and hence the "blood-color" in our coat of arms and the "Hun's cap" decoration.
Very likely there can be contained in these traditions and legends now and then a small grain of the factual; but this is no reason for accepting them uncritically. In the following genealogical compilations we exhibit only the items which rest on a documentary basis.
Our genealogical synopses correspond to the division into lines, branches, twigs and houses as used in the "Genealogical Handbook of the Nobility"
The synopsis entitled "Relationship of the Families" shows the geographical spread of our family, including the extinct twigs and houses.
The synopsis called "The Male Line" serves, in connection with "Table of Family Numbers", as an inquiry into the blood relationship of the family members living in 1956.
By means of the "Table of Family Numbers" each cousin can find his family number, by which he is represented not only in "The Male Line" but also in his family chart and his family list.
All lady cousins will find their places in the family chart and family lines by means of the family numbers of their men-- fathers, sons, or brothers -- as shown in the "Table of Family Numbers".
The family chart of 1902, mentioned in our Foreword, is outdated by the new charts given here, which are quite complete up to 1956. Futhermore the following chages have been carried out:
Family Chart 2 shows the "Frankish branch"
Family Chart 3 shows the "Frankleben branch"
Family Chart 4 shows the "Ammendorf branch"
Family Chart 5 shows the "Vogtänd branch", minus the Texas house
Family Chart 2 shows the genealogy of our most richly blooming house of Texas, which is also included in the part of "Male Line" dealing with this house.
Before their family numbers, Family Charts 2 to 6 bear the following identifying letters:
| Frankish branch, which now blooms only in the Ellinghausen twig | |
| Frankleben branch | |
| Ammendorf branch | |
| Vogtländ branch | |
| Texas House |
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