Oh, I had not seen these before! Fascinating. Menzel keeps surprising me.
By the way, another Berlin 18th century crypt that was opened and scientifically analyzed pretty recently is the one of the Parochialkirche. From a German article:
All of the buried are members of the reformed Berlin upper class. Different families, some of them aristocratic, some of them middle-class, but always endowed with considerable wealth, shared the tombs. In addition, there have always been individuals who died unexpectedly and found acceptance in the tombs of relatives, friends or work colleagues. With the exception of great governesses and chamber women, there were no professions among the women, which was in line with the usual views at the time. The men were predominantly officials of the court, either as court bakers or stewards responsible for the court society, or as secret councilors or ministers in politics, whereby an accumulation of legally trained people is noticeable. Military personnel were also buried, including many general officers. But we also find scholars such as doctors, professors and students, theologians as well as wealthy merchants and bankers.
Also, regarding the mummification: The climate in the crypt is well suited for a complete mummification due to the well thought-out ventilation system via windows and openings between the chambers. The fact that this process could not always take place is due to the treatment of the deceased before they found their final resting place in the crypt. According to the records in the church registers, an average of three to six days passed from death to burial, for children usually only one day. During this time, the corpse was exposed to the climatic conditions in which the body began to decompose. The warmer the weather, the faster this process went. For this reason, there is a connection between the time of year in which the burial took place and the degree of mummification.
I mostly dismissed it as a possibility for Peter because of the money aspect and because of its location, which is on the opposite side of the Spree island. But who knows. (One place that might still have the information = old church records (IF they survived WWII), but it seems like none of them are digitized and neither is there a name index, which means that if you want to look someone up, you need to know the church you want and then look at the record in person. ... unless the Mormons got hold of it at some point I guess. :P ETA: WAIT. I totally forgot. Cahn, you don't happen to have access to FamilySearch, do you?)
Ooh, cool, a well designed crypt can dry out the air, that's cool! I was just going with "damp climate" = "not great for mummification." And indeed that was true as far as it went, but the crypt can compensate, awesome. Filing that away.
I mostly dismissed it as a possibility for Peter because of the money aspect and because of its location, which is on the opposite side of the Spree island. But who knows.
Yeah, I mean, it's not actually much farther from Brüderstrasse and the street behind it on the water than the Neue Kirche, and you have to cross the water to get to either, but who knows.
Walking distance using today's roads from the middle of the street behind Brüderstrasse to:
Neue Kirche: .95 km Parochialkirche: 1.2 km Garnisonkirche: 1.3 km
Neue Kirche is the closest, though! Definitely a contender.
old church records (IF they survived WWII)
I know, I was chatting with my friend right about the time you wrote this, and he was saying that where Peter was buried is probably out there to be found, and I said, "Well. Berlin. WWII. Bombing. Maybe, maybe not!" (I still hope, though.)
Here's a new thought: maybe what's more easy checkable is where the Knyphausen family usually buried their dead. Because as we've seen, all the connections Peter's multinamed son had came from Ariane's side. The Knyphausens really were one of the big Prussian noble families (Peter married upwards there). Them having a crypt or several at their disposal would make sense, as would Ariane burying Peter in it.
That is a thought! Due to getting sucked into Fredersdorf, I haven't had time for more than a quick google, but I've found two crypts in East Frisia where Knyphausens are buried, but so far no indication whether Peter's father-in-law, who was a younger son, was buried there, much less Peter himself.
Peter married upwards there
Most definitely. Unfortunately, I suspect being the husband of a younger daughter of a younger son didn't improve his chances of being buried in a Knyphausen crypt. But I will keep my eyes peeled! Maybe father-in-law Friedrich Ernst started his own crypt in the vicinity of Berlin, for the younger line.
Might put the Parochialkirche back into consideration, what with aristocratic great governesses (->Ariane) and ministers (->Friedrich) being buried there, but a cursory search for Knyphausen crypts or even just graves in Berlin didn't give me anything either.
What I did find while looking for that? That there was an urn monument made of white marble for Andrew Mitchell inside the Dorotheenstädter Kirche (which doesn't exist anymore, courtesy of WWII).
Also, that Dodo v. Knyphausen, Ariane's brother, envoy to Paris and London, belonged to Heinrich's Rheinsberg circle later on and that they hated on Hertzberg together, Heinrich for political reasons, Knyphausen also because he got into some money dispute with him. Dodo and Ariane's younger brother on the other hand (Thiébault calls him "le beaux Knyphausen"), who also belonged to Heinrich's circle, had an affair with the wife of English envoy Elliot, got into a duel with him, almost arrested, and then married her once she and Elliot got a divorce. His family wasn't thrilled apparently, because he got buried in the Nicolaikirche, in his wife's family crypt.
Wow. This really is the fandom of 18th century tabloids!
The East Frisian churches I found were Bargeburer and Jennelter. I'd be surprised if they shipped Peter all the way to East Frisia (during wartime, no less!), but I list them in case you find anything else cool. (I would be interested to know if his big name father-in-law was buried there or not.)
That there was an urn monument made of white marble for Andrew Mitchell inside the Dorotheenstädter Kirche
The one commissioned by Heinrich, or a different one?
ETA: Ah, yep, that's the one, per Selena:
Mitchell's friends, including Heinrich, having come together to celebrate him by putting up the now completed bust showing him in the (now destroyed Dorotheenkirche)
Oh, wait! Ariane and Dodo's cousin, not younger brother.
(And I found a 19th century list of well-known people buried in the Parochialkirche, with no Knyphausen on it, so that's probably not it.)
A bust? "Bau- und Kunstdenkmäler von Berlin" says it was a marble urn, with the Order of Bath insignia on it, hm. I see the source for the bust is Thiebault, so I guess the urn is probably more reliable.
Hmmmm. I just checked again. Both the Mitchell dissertations say "bust", not "urn", as does Bisset (editor of Mitchell's papers), who also quotes the Thiebault passage in full. (The second dissertation also quotes it partly and translates it into English.) When reading your comment, I wondered whether Thiebault, writing decades later, might have confused an urn and a bust in his memory, but he does say he was present on the occasion itself, and at the time he's writing, there are enough people still alive whom he knew would be able to say "no you weren't!" if he hadn't been. Anyway, here's the original Thiebault. Cesar was Heinrich's long time secretary who shows up in Lehndorff's diaries now and then from the early 1750s onwards.
“Un an environ après sa mort, M. César, d'après les ordres du Prince Henri, m'envoya un billet où l'on m'invitoit à me trouver tel jour à midi, en froc à l'angloise, cheveux en queue ou avec une perruque ronde, sans épée et sans aucune sorte de costume particulier ou décoration, mais en bottes et avec chapeau rond et baguette à la main, en telle église où le Chevalier avoit été inhumé, pour y assister à l'installation du buste de ce digne et respectable ami des hommes et de la vertu. Nous nous trouvâmes environtrente hommes à cette cérémonie, ayant à notre tête le Prince qui avoit fait faire le buste, et qui le faisoit placer en présence de tous ceux qui avoient eu le plus de part à l'estime et à l'amitié du défunt. Le Prince n'avoit lui-même que le costume qu'il nous avoit prescrit, sans cordon ni ordres. Après la cérémonie, nous nous rendîmes tous chez M. César. Comme le temps étoit fort beau, nous fîmes ce trajet à pied : lorsqu'on vint nous annoncer que le dîner étoit servi, nous passâmes dans la salle à manger, sans aucune sorte d'attention pour les rangs. Le Prince lui-même, ainsi que tous les autres convives, marcha dans la foule et avec ceux près de qui il se trouvoit. On en usa de même pour les places, en se mettant à table. Le hasard seul décida des voisins de chacun de nous : le dîner fut d'ailleurs fort gai, et chacun se retira ensuite comme et quand il le voulut. Cette manière d'honorer la mémoire d'un homme aussi estimé et aussi chéri, est, à ce qu'il me semble, la plus digne de lui, et du Prince qui en avoit conçu le projet."
I then checked Lehndorff's diaries, and in volume 3, under January 1774, we have: Der Karneval ist vorüber, und wir haben unser gewöhnliches Leben wieder aufgenommen. Ich bin viel beim Prinzen Heinrich und in der Gesellschaft Knyphausens und der Gräfin Dönhoff. Prinz Heinrich läßt dem verstorbenen englischen Gesandten Mitchell, den er mit Recht sehr geschätzt hat, ein Marmordenkmal errichten.
I quoted in German because Schmidt-Lötzen (aided by Volz) is himself translating from French, of course. "Marmordenkmal" - "marble monument" - could be either an urn or a bust. Then again, I don't see why the Bau- und Kunstdenkmäler Berlins should describe it as an urn if it's a bust. So all we know is that it was of marble and in memory of Mitchell, I suppose!
Hm, yeah, "buste" is bust, no other meaning as far as I know. Bau- und Kunstdenkmäler is from 1893 and it even has a photo of a different monument in the same church, so I don't see that it's anything but an urn at least at that point, more than a hundred years later ("Geschichte der Dorotheenstädtischen Kirche" from 1887 concurs, saying it's "very fine work"). ... maybe Thiebault needed glasses. ;)
Yes! I do have access to FamilySearch! I looked up Peter Keith but he doesn't seem to show up except once, as "Pierre Christophle Charles Keith" (I expect the second name is a typo) with spouse "Oriane Louise" (so definitely our Peter) and son Frideric Louis Keith, who is the one who actually has the record. Attached to Frideric's record is what appears to be a baptismal registry page (I can download a jpg of the page if desired) with the citation as follows:
"Deutschland, ausgewählte evangelische Kirchenbücher 1500-1971," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CS86-HB3V?cc=3015626 : 19 October 2019), > image 1 of 1; Records extracted and images digitized by Ancestry.com. German Lutheran Collection, various parishes, Germany.
If there is anything in particular you want me to look up to see if they have, I can totally do that, let me know!
(There is a note that says "Due to contractual obligations, FamilySearch cannot offer expanded access to historical records that are restricted to family history centers and affiliate libraries, despite the temporary closure of these facilities. We apologize for the inconvenience caused by COVID-19 precautionary measures.")
ETA: Actually It looks like anyone can make an account with FamilySearch? I don't know though if I have additional access because I'm accessing through an LDS account. I suspect though that this access just means that they can link me up to my own ancestors faster.
! This is awesome! I didn't really expect much, because Carl Ernst Reinhard apparently didn't have kids and Friedrich Ludwig seemed to have dropped off the face of the earth address calendar, but this might suggest that he did have descendants?
(I can download a jpg of the page if desired)
I think we don't even have a birth date for Friedrich Ludwig, so the jpg would be very appreciated.
This means that at least some of the church records from that time did survive, which is great. It also seems like it's a Lutheran church, which is helpful in narrowing things down for Peter. (Nicolai's Berlin book gives a list of all churches in Berlin and their denominations, i.e. Lutheran, Calvinist, or both.) Also interesting that it's in French, I never thought about that. Hm.
And yeah, I saw that making an account was possible, but I wasn't sure about access levels as a non-member either, so thank you so much for checking!
but this might suggest that he did have descendants?
Actually -- no, it's only the record of his baptism, no other records, so what it suggests is that someone got around to indexing the particular baptism register that Friedrich Ludwig was in. (So the way this works is that members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints are strongly encouraged -- very strongly encouraged -- all to do our part in indexing documents like this, in whatever languages we can speak. We're encouraged to do at least a page a week; some do more. Even accounting for all the people like me who don't actually do it (probably well over half the active membership don't), that's a veritable army of people constantly indexing.) (This also means that -- even though they try to build in redundancy -- there is a great potential for error as these are primarily amateur volunteers, as you will see.)
In fact... I wonder if Friedrich Ludwig died very early, as the record says that he was baptized "en chambre" because of "maladie." Also, there is a birthdate of 10 August 1745 attached to the record which I think is an error; as far as I can tell the birthdate given in the record is 14 August?
I also went looking for Carl Ernst and found a record... of him as the husband of Oriane Luise. Lol. But it turns out that what this was taken from (there is also very little about him) is the burial record of Oriane Luise! I am having trouble reading this at all besides a mention of Knyphausen, maybe you guys will do better. I assume that it says Carl Reinhard survived her but I suppose it could also be someone (possibly the record writer) getting confused by all those names for Peter :P
No citation BUT it says "Parish register of baptisms, marriages and burials for Parochialkirche in Berlin, Brandenburg, Germany. For earlier years see Dom Kirche." (1703-1877) (!)
But sadly I went back to Dec 1756 in the burial register and as far as I can tell there is no record of Peter's burial in Dec 1756 or Jan 1757. (Possibly someone should check me, though... it's better not to trust anything I do this late at night.)
:DDD Thank you! This is fascinating. And thank you for explaining how it works - I wasn't sure if an existing record meant that somebody had looked him up specifically, but obviously not. Still, lots of great information.
if Friedrich Ludwig died very early as the record says that he was baptized "en chambre" because of "maladie."
He can't have! We have one mention of him by name in 1764, working as a trainee at the Berliner state court, and I don't believe Peter and Ariane (or Oriane apparently) reused the name - while it's not completely unheard of, IMO another, later born kid would have been too young to be a trainee in 1764 (we also know he went to university in between). So either he was a sickly child but rallied - or maybe Ariane herself was too sick? I don't know how these things worked exactly.
As for the rest of the baptism record, I read 14th of August as the birth date as well, at ten in the morning, which might be how the confusion happened. What's interesting is that the register doesn't seem to belong to any one church, though. The other entries on the page all name different churches for the baptisms and the common theme here are the French preachers. The relevant one for us is "le pasteur de Combles", which I believe is Pierre de Combles, who worked at the Dorotheenstädter Kirche from 1728 to 1767 (i.e. the one where Andrew Mitchell was later buried).
Now, godfathers and -mothers! Male ones are Fritz (! although not too surprising with that name) and Frederic Henry de Cheusses, who was the Danish envoy in Berlin from 1743 to 1746 and came from a Huguenot family, just like the preacher. (He's mentioned in the Political Correspondence a couple of times and was envoy to Russia afterwards.)
ETA: Friedrich de Cheusses - the 1745 address calendar says he lived next to the Ilgen's house, which was the family of Peter's mother-in-law and might be where the connection comes from. Also, I had to smile at this description in his wiki record: He did not excel in excellent ability or rich initiative, but he looked good, was very reliable and especially extremely careful. These were precisely the qualities needed opposite Frederick II of Prussia and later opposite Pyotr Bestushev.
Female: Peter's mother-in-law, who apparently wasn't present, as it says she was represented by Ariane's younger sisters, Hyma Maria (the one who married Hertzberg later, but not yet) and Hedwig Charlotte.
Oh, and Peter is described as "premier Ecuyer de sa Majesté le Roi de Prusse, et Lieutenant Colonel dans ses armees natif de Poberow en Pomeranie".
Now, the burial register, which is in German. It's interesting that my hunch re: Parochialkirche + Ariane's great governess position seems to have been correct after all, but I'm still doubtful that it's where Peter was buried, which seems to correspond with your findings. I sure wish the guy writing the burial register had the same lovely handwriting as his French colleague, though, because it's hard to read. I believe the columns are "death date" (unreadable on our page), "dead person", "age" (71 years), "cause of death" (?? - I think it might be saying "Steckfluss" for Ariane, but I'm not sure), and "heirs", so yes, Carl Reinhard shows up as the last one (although I can't read the first line there). I also see the note that Ariane was great governess to the ["something"] Queen, but the rest of it? ..... okay, it says she was a widow (verwittwete Frau) and that she was buried in crypt number five, which I think cost 60 "no idea what the currency is here" (plan of the crypts), but there are still two unreadable-to-me lines there. Hmmm.
Oh, great! Yeah, of course he could have recovered if he had in fact been ill, as could (or presumably did) Ariane if she was the one who was ill, though I suppose after mildred and selenak told us about all those dead babies I was primed to imagine that was what was going on here too. Glad that it wasn't!
I am chuffed that Fritz was his godfather, awwww. (I can't believe I stopped reading before I got to that part!)
I knooooow the burial register guy has awful handwriting, thank you for deciphering it! I wonder what other burial registers FamilySearch has that we can ransack...
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timeasmymeasure
Re: Corpse portraits
Date: 2021-03-28 08:30 pm (UTC)By the way, another Berlin 18th century crypt that was opened and scientifically analyzed pretty recently is the one of the Parochialkirche. From a German article:
All of the buried are members of the reformed Berlin upper class. Different families, some of them aristocratic, some of them middle-class, but always endowed with considerable wealth, shared the tombs. In addition, there have always been individuals who died unexpectedly and found acceptance in the tombs of relatives, friends or work colleagues. With the exception of great governesses and chamber women, there were no professions among the women, which was in line with the usual views at the time. The men were predominantly officials of the court, either as court bakers or stewards responsible for the court society, or as secret councilors or ministers in politics, whereby an accumulation of legally trained people is noticeable. Military personnel were also buried, including many general officers. But we also find scholars such as doctors, professors and students, theologians as well as wealthy merchants and bankers.
Also, regarding the mummification: The climate in the crypt is well suited for a complete mummification due to the well thought-out ventilation system via windows and openings between the chambers. The fact that this process could not always take place is due to the treatment of the deceased before they found their final resting place in the crypt. According to the records in the church registers, an average of three to six days passed from death to burial, for children usually only one day. During this time, the corpse was exposed to the climatic conditions in which the body began to decompose. The warmer the weather, the faster this process went. For this reason, there is a connection between the time of year in which the burial took place and the degree of mummification.
I mostly dismissed it as a possibility for Peter because of the money aspect and because of its location, which is on the opposite side of the Spree island. But who knows. (One place that might still have the information = old church records (IF they survived WWII), but it seems like none of them are digitized and neither is there a name index, which means that if you want to look someone up, you need to know the church you want and then look at the record in person. ... unless the Mormons got hold of it at some point I guess. :P ETA: WAIT. I totally forgot. Cahn, you don't happen to have access to FamilySearch, do you?)
Re: Corpse portraits
Date: 2021-03-28 10:18 pm (UTC)I mostly dismissed it as a possibility for Peter because of the money aspect and because of its location, which is on the opposite side of the Spree island. But who knows.
Yeah, I mean, it's not actually much farther from Brüderstrasse and the street behind it on the water than the Neue Kirche, and you have to cross the water to get to either, but who knows.
Walking distance using today's roads from the middle of the street behind Brüderstrasse to:
Neue Kirche: .95 km
Parochialkirche: 1.2 km
Garnisonkirche: 1.3 km
Neue Kirche is the closest, though! Definitely a contender.
old church records (IF they survived WWII)
I know, I was chatting with my friend right about the time you wrote this, and he was saying that where Peter was buried is probably out there to be found, and I said, "Well. Berlin. WWII. Bombing. Maybe, maybe not!" (I still hope, though.)
Knyphausens?
Date: 2021-03-29 04:57 am (UTC)Re: Knyphausens?
Date: 2021-03-29 08:51 pm (UTC)Peter married upwards there
Most definitely. Unfortunately, I suspect being the husband of a younger daughter of a younger son didn't improve his chances of being buried in a Knyphausen crypt. But I will keep my eyes peeled! Maybe father-in-law Friedrich Ernst started his own crypt in the vicinity of Berlin, for the younger line.
Re: Knyphausens?
Date: 2021-03-29 08:59 pm (UTC)What I did find while looking for that? That there was an urn monument made of white marble for Andrew Mitchell inside the Dorotheenstädter Kirche (which doesn't exist anymore, courtesy of WWII).
Also, that Dodo v. Knyphausen, Ariane's brother, envoy to Paris and London, belonged to Heinrich's Rheinsberg circle later on and that they hated on Hertzberg together, Heinrich for political reasons, Knyphausen also because he got into some money dispute with him.
Dodo and Ariane's younger brother on the other hand (Thiébault calls him "le beaux Knyphausen"), who also belonged to Heinrich's circle, had an affair with the wife of English envoy Elliot, got into a duel with him, almost arrested, and then married her once she and Elliot got a divorce. His family wasn't thrilled apparently, because he got buried in the Nicolaikirche, in his wife's family crypt.
Re: Knyphausens?
Date: 2021-03-29 09:10 pm (UTC)The East Frisian churches I found were Bargeburer and Jennelter. I'd be surprised if they shipped Peter all the way to East Frisia (during wartime, no less!), but I list them in case you find anything else cool. (I would be interested to know if his big name father-in-law was buried there or not.)
That there was an urn monument made of white marble for Andrew Mitchell inside the Dorotheenstädter Kirche
The one commissioned by Heinrich, or a different one?
ETA: Ah, yep, that's the one, per Selena:
Mitchell's friends, including Heinrich, having come together to celebrate him by putting up the now completed bust showing him in the (now destroyed Dorotheenkirche)
Re: Knyphausens?
Date: 2021-03-29 10:39 pm (UTC)(And I found a 19th century list of well-known people buried in the Parochialkirche, with no Knyphausen on it, so that's probably not it.)
A bust? "Bau- und Kunstdenkmäler von Berlin" says it was a marble urn, with the Order of Bath insignia on it, hm. I see the source for the bust is Thiebault, so I guess the urn is probably more reliable.
Re: Knyphausens?
Date: 2021-03-30 05:26 am (UTC)“Un an environ après sa mort, M. César, d'après les ordres du Prince Henri, m'envoya un billet où l'on m'invitoit à me trouver tel jour à midi, en froc à l'angloise, cheveux en queue ou avec une perruque ronde, sans épée et sans aucune sorte de costume particulier ou décoration, mais en bottes et avec chapeau rond et baguette à la main, en telle église où le Chevalier avoit été inhumé, pour y assister à l'installation du buste de ce digne et respectable ami des hommes et de la vertu. Nous nous trouvâmes environtrente hommes à cette cérémonie, ayant à notre tête le Prince qui avoit fait faire le buste, et qui le faisoit placer en présence de tous ceux qui avoient eu le plus de part à l'estime et à l'amitié du défunt. Le Prince n'avoit lui-même que le costume qu'il nous avoit prescrit, sans cordon ni ordres. Après la cérémonie, nous nous rendîmes tous chez M. César. Comme le temps étoit fort beau, nous fîmes ce trajet à pied : lorsqu'on vint nous annoncer que le dîner étoit servi, nous passâmes dans la salle à manger, sans aucune sorte d'attention pour les rangs. Le Prince lui-même, ainsi que tous les autres convives, marcha dans la foule et avec ceux près de qui il se trouvoit. On en usa de même pour les places, en se mettant à table. Le hasard seul décida des voisins de chacun de nous : le dîner fut d'ailleurs fort gai, et chacun se retira ensuite comme et quand il le voulut. Cette manière d'honorer la mémoire d'un homme aussi estimé et aussi chéri, est, à ce qu'il me semble, la plus digne de lui, et du Prince qui en avoit conçu le projet."
I then checked Lehndorff's diaries, and in volume 3, under January 1774, we have: Der Karneval
ist vorüber, und wir haben unser gewöhnliches Leben wieder aufgenommen. Ich bin viel beim Prinzen Heinrich und in der Gesellschaft Knyphausens und der Gräfin Dönhoff. Prinz Heinrich läßt dem verstorbenen englischen Gesandten Mitchell, den er mit Recht sehr geschätzt hat, ein Marmordenkmal errichten.
I quoted in German because Schmidt-Lötzen (aided by Volz) is himself translating from French, of course. "Marmordenkmal" - "marble monument" - could be either an urn or a bust. Then again, I don't see why the Bau- und Kunstdenkmäler Berlins should describe it as an urn if it's a bust. So all we know is that it was of marble and in memory of Mitchell, I suppose!
Re: Knyphausens?
Date: 2021-03-30 10:11 am (UTC)FamilySearch
Date: 2021-04-01 05:06 am (UTC)"Deutschland, ausgewählte evangelische Kirchenbücher 1500-1971," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CS86-HB3V?cc=3015626 : 19 October 2019), > image 1 of 1; Records extracted and images digitized by Ancestry.com. German Lutheran Collection, various parishes, Germany.
If there is anything in particular you want me to look up to see if they have, I can totally do that, let me know!
(There is a note that says "Due to contractual obligations, FamilySearch cannot offer expanded access to historical records that are restricted to family history centers and affiliate libraries, despite the temporary closure of these facilities. We apologize for the inconvenience caused by COVID-19 precautionary measures.")
ETA: Actually It looks like anyone can make an account with FamilySearch? I don't know though if I have additional access because I'm accessing through an LDS account. I suspect though that this access just means that they can link me up to my own ancestors faster.
Re: FamilySearch
Date: 2021-04-01 02:11 pm (UTC)earthaddress calendar, but this might suggest that he did have descendants?(I can download a jpg of the page if desired)
I think we don't even have a birth date for Friedrich Ludwig, so the jpg would be very appreciated.
This means that at least some of the church records from that time did survive, which is great. It also seems like it's a Lutheran church, which is helpful in narrowing things down for Peter. (Nicolai's Berlin book gives a list of all churches in Berlin and their denominations, i.e. Lutheran, Calvinist, or both.)
Also interesting that it's in French, I never thought about that. Hm.
And yeah, I saw that making an account was possible, but I wasn't sure about access levels as a non-member either, so thank you so much for checking!
Re: FamilySearch
Date: 2021-04-02 05:20 am (UTC)Actually -- no, it's only the record of his baptism, no other records, so what it suggests is that someone got around to indexing the particular baptism register that Friedrich Ludwig was in. (So the way this works is that members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints are strongly encouraged -- very strongly encouraged -- all to do our part in indexing documents like this, in whatever languages we can speak. We're encouraged to do at least a page a week; some do more. Even accounting for all the people like me who don't actually do it (probably well over half the active membership don't), that's a veritable army of people constantly indexing.) (This also means that -- even though they try to build in redundancy -- there is a great potential for error as these are primarily amateur volunteers, as you will see.)
In fact... I wonder if Friedrich Ludwig died very early, as the record says that he was baptized "en chambre" because of "maladie." Also, there is a birthdate of 10 August 1745 attached to the record which I think is an error; as far as I can tell the birthdate given in the record is 14 August?
I also went looking for Carl Ernst and found a record... of him as the husband of Oriane Luise. Lol. But it turns out that what this was taken from (there is also very little about him) is the burial record of Oriane Luise! I am having trouble reading this at all besides a mention of Knyphausen, maybe you guys will do better. I assume that it says Carl Reinhard survived her but I suppose it could also be someone (possibly the record writer) getting confused by all those names for Peter :P
No citation BUT it says "Parish register of baptisms, marriages and burials for Parochialkirche in Berlin, Brandenburg, Germany. For earlier years see Dom Kirche." (1703-1877) (!)
But sadly I went back to Dec 1756 in the burial register and as far as I can tell there is no record of Peter's burial in Dec 1756 or Jan 1757. (Possibly someone should check me, though... it's better not to trust anything I do this late at night.)
Re: FamilySearch
Date: 2021-04-02 10:03 am (UTC)if Friedrich Ludwig died very early as the record says that he was baptized "en chambre" because of "maladie."
He can't have! We have one mention of him by name in 1764, working as a trainee at the Berliner state court, and I don't believe Peter and Ariane (or Oriane apparently) reused the name - while it's not completely unheard of, IMO another, later born kid would have been too young to be a trainee in 1764 (we also know he went to university in between). So either he was a sickly child but rallied - or maybe Ariane herself was too sick? I don't know how these things worked exactly.
As for the rest of the baptism record, I read 14th of August as the birth date as well, at ten in the morning, which might be how the confusion happened. What's interesting is that the register doesn't seem to belong to any one church, though. The other entries on the page all name different churches for the baptisms and the common theme here are the French preachers. The relevant one for us is "le pasteur de Combles", which I believe is Pierre de Combles, who worked at the Dorotheenstädter Kirche from 1728 to 1767 (i.e. the one where Andrew Mitchell was later buried).
Now, godfathers and -mothers! Male ones are Fritz (! although not too surprising with that name) and Frederic Henry de Cheusses, who was the Danish envoy in Berlin from 1743 to 1746 and came from a Huguenot family, just like the preacher. (He's mentioned in the Political Correspondence a couple of times and was envoy to Russia afterwards.)
ETA: Friedrich de Cheusses - the 1745 address calendar says he lived next to the Ilgen's house, which was the family of Peter's mother-in-law and might be where the connection comes from. Also, I had to smile at this description in his wiki record: He did not excel in excellent ability or rich initiative, but he looked good, was very reliable and especially extremely careful. These were precisely the qualities needed opposite Frederick II of Prussia and later opposite Pyotr Bestushev.
Female: Peter's mother-in-law, who apparently wasn't present, as it says she was represented by Ariane's younger sisters, Hyma Maria (the one who married Hertzberg later, but not yet) and Hedwig Charlotte.
Oh, and Peter is described as "premier Ecuyer de sa Majesté le Roi de Prusse, et Lieutenant Colonel dans ses armees natif de Poberow en Pomeranie".
Now, the burial register, which is in German. It's interesting that my hunch re: Parochialkirche + Ariane's great governess position seems to have been correct after all, but I'm still doubtful that it's where Peter was buried, which seems to correspond with your findings. I sure wish the guy writing the burial register had the same lovely handwriting as his French colleague, though, because it's hard to read. I believe the columns are "death date" (unreadable on our page), "dead person", "age" (71 years), "cause of death" (?? - I think it might be saying "Steckfluss" for Ariane, but I'm not sure), and "heirs", so yes, Carl Reinhard shows up as the last one (although I can't read the first line there). I also see the note that Ariane was great governess to the ["something"] Queen, but the rest of it? ..... okay, it says she was a widow (verwittwete Frau) and that she was buried in crypt number five, which I think cost 60 "no idea what the currency is here" (plan of the crypts), but there are still two unreadable-to-me lines there. Hmmm.
Re: FamilySearch
Date: 2021-04-03 05:25 am (UTC)I am chuffed that Fritz was his godfather, awwww. (I can't believe I stopped reading before I got to that part!)
I knooooow the burial register guy has awful handwriting, thank you for deciphering it! I wonder what other burial registers FamilySearch has that we can ransack...