Business processes, most of which are automated by information systems, have become a key asset in organizations. Unfortunately, uncontrolled maintenance implies that information systems age overtime until they need to be modernized. During software modernization, ageing systems cannot be entirely discarded because they gradually embed meaningful business knowledge, which is not present in any other artifact. This paper presents a technique for recovering business processes from legacy systems in order to preserve that knowledge. The technique statically analyzes source code and generates a code model, which is later transformed by pattern matching into a business process model. This technique has been validated over a two-year period in several industrial modernization projects. This paper reports the results of a family of case studies that were performed to empirically validate the technique using analysis and meta-analysis techniques. The family of case studies demonstrates that the technique is feasible in terms of effectiveness and efficiency.