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cahnI'm trying to use my other account at least occasionally so I posted about my Yuletide gifts there, including the salon-relevant 12k fic that features Fritz, Heinrich, Voltaire, Fredersdorf, Saint Germain, Caroline Daum (Fredersdorf's wife), and Groundhog Day tropes! (Don't need to know canon.)
Peter Keith in the archives!
Date: 2023-01-03 04:58 pm (UTC)I promise to get the files uploaded, I'm just doing my best to transcribe them, and also I need to reread what exactly I'm allowed to do with the images legally. I've also reached out to
In the meantime, here are my discoveries so far:
1. For best cost-benefit ratio, we need to place orders of at least 10 USD at a time, since that is my bank's minimum for an international wire transfer, so my 4 euro order ended up costing twice as much. Not a big deal, but something to keep in mind in future: let's batch these orders.
2. Peter Keith has beautifully legible handwriting, bless him! It's not beautiful in the sense that it's copperplate or amything, but it's beautiful in that even this non-French speaker can read almost everything he wrote. *hearts* to you, Peter.
3. The archive catalog says 8 pages, but after you subtract blank pages and covers, it's 4 (v. short) pages.
4. The first document is a letter from August 17, 1745, asking Fritz to please release him from his idleness (proof Peter didn't go to war!), especially as he now has a new kid, and Peter would be so happy if Fritz could be the godfather.
What's interesting is that thanks to Family Search, we know the kid was born August 14, and that on August 15, he was baptized with Fritz as godfather. And of course we know that Fritz was waging war in Bohemia at the time. So Peter actually made Fritz (provisional?) godfather and then asked for acceptance afterward? Was that how it worked with royal godparents, you waited to see if it was going to survive, had them baptized with the royal's name in the register, and then asked to see if said royal would accept? Is that what Trenck did with Joseph?
5. The second document is from 1750, March 12 I think, and it's Peter asking Fritz for money. Apparently the pension he was paid by Queen Caroline of England was 3 years in arrears in 1740, plus he had travel expenses to get to Lisbon, so he had to borrow money while he was in Lisbon (the only debt he ever accrued!), and in the last 10 years it's been impossible to get the money he's owed paid by the British. And what little money his wife has is going toward their children's education. So can Fritz pleeeeeaaase?
6. The third document is 5 lines with no indication who it's by or to. It's barely legible, I can only make out a few words. I'm going to need help with this. Then there's a marginal note of a few words that's even less legible. My guess from context is the paragraph is a secretary making a note about what he has done or thinks they should do about Peter's request, and the marginal note is Fritz-the-illegible making a final decision. But I could be wrong!
Conclusions: my fanfic where Peter says in 1750 that he never asks Fritz for anything anymore was wrong! But I was right about most of the family money going toward the boys' education, and I was surprisingly right about his debts! I had him being financially responsible and not getting in debt while working for Fritz, which I later thought might be unrealistic because if you were at court, there were certain obligations, but if he can be trusted to tell the truth here, I was pretty close! Of course, I did not predict his British pension being 3 years in arrears nor his inability to get it back. I imagine that once he was living in Prussia, and especially after Fritz invaded Silesia a few weeks later, the British court went, "Not our problem."
7. We can order things!!! Once I get a reliable source or sources for transcription help, more orders will follow.
Re: Peter Keith in the archives!
Date: 2023-01-03 08:53 pm (UTC)"I have no other ambition than to be useful to you"--either Peter finally figured out the magic words to say to Fritz after the dismal failure of 1740, or else Fritz finally had 10 years of evidence to convince him that Peter wasn't pushing for high office or influence, or both.
Btw, almost all the chronology in that fic was either deliberately wrong or else I knew at the time that it was going to turn out to be wrong when we had more evidence--and so it has come to pass. But I'm delighted that we're finding answers to almost all my questions and connecting all these dots!
Biggest outstanding question: Where was Peter buried? Second biggest outstanding question I can think of: when did his younger son die?
Re: Peter Keith in the archives!
Date: 2023-01-04 08:19 am (UTC)On the one hand: if you think about it, it makes sense in that with the mail needing sometimes months to arrive unless you're a royal with a special courier of your own at hand, in an age with high children mortality and were you believe the child's soul is at stake, you want that baptizing done quickly. So I bet that's how Trenck did it, not just with Joseph but also Amalie, only asking after the fact, so to speak. Plus in the Peter and Fritz case, Fritz is at war, so who knows when the letter will find him.
On the other hand: a pregnancy takes nine months. You'd think it makes sense to ask potential high ranking godfatahers and -mothers before the kid is born during the seven or so months you know about the impending arrival?
I dimly seem to recall something about FW changing his mind with Ferdinand, not on the godfathers but which one the kid was to be called after in daily life, with him first being called August after August the Strong, and then Ferdinand after *mind blanks* But that doesn't say anything as to when permission was asked even among royals.
Oh, and Leopold is called Peter Leopold because MT in an effort to win Elizaveta over to the cause against Fritz and for Austria asked her to be godmother to Leopold, with the name "Peter" taken from Elizaveta's father since they hardly could call the kid "Elisabethus".
I'm glad Peter has such legible handwriting! And I have another, not that important queston. I'm just curious as to whether he ever found out he was suggested as a candidate for Prussian envoy in London and that Fritz rejected this idea?
Re: Peter Keith in the archives!
Date: 2023-01-04 04:27 pm (UTC)* Except not in France, at least according to Horowski! Where they would sometimes wait years, and this one noble didn't even get a first name until he was 20-something and finally needed an official name to put down in the register so he could hold some office. How the French squared that with infant mortality and Catholicism, idk. Maybe all their babies just went to limbo!
Ferdinand after *mind blanks*
Ooh, good question. Who were the royal Ferdinands of 1730? There was future Ferdinand VI of Spain (mentally ill guy who almost got married to poor niece Isabella of Parma), who I think would have been Prince of Asturias (Spanish equivalent of crown prince) at the time? He's the only one coming to mind, though there are enough minor German princes running around that there's probably one there I'm forgetting.
ETA: Oh, duh, there's a Ferdinand of Brunswick, much closer to home!
I'm glad Peter has such legible handwriting!
My decision to choose Peter as my research subject is vindicated! <3
And I have another, not that important queston. I'm just curious as to whether he ever found out he was suggested as a candidate for Prussian envoy in London and that Fritz rejected this idea?
Ooh, yes, I have many questions that are not that important for my essay-in-progress but are actually of more personal interest to me than the death of his younger son. I just feel like I need that one to check all the boxes and feel like the essay is complete.
If I ever find out the answer to the envoy question, you'll be the first to know!
Re: Peter Keith in the archives!
Date: 2023-01-05 01:48 pm (UTC)Re: Peter Keith in the archives!
Date: 2023-01-05 08:27 pm (UTC)Btw, I heard back from
Re: Peter Keith in the archives!
Date: 2023-01-21 12:16 am (UTC)Re: Peter Keith in the archives!
Date: 2023-01-21 05:19 am (UTC)Spoiler: someone(s) indexed a WHOLE LOT of stuff in OCTOBER 2021, omg, just months after we were looking before! So now there is a burial record for Peter, among other goodies :D What a time to be alive! If this had been twenty years ago it would have been MICROFICHE. Probably microfiche only existing in Germany!
Nikolaikirche
Date: 2023-01-21 02:53 pm (UTC)Heee! You also said Peter and Ariane had only been linked in December 2022, and her name is so badly misspelled that you wouldn't have found her and her baptism record otherwise!
Peter: was buried January 2, 1757 in the Nikolaikirche. What I have found so far on the Nikolaikirche:
1. Goes back to the 1200s and is the oldest intact church in the center of Berlin.
2. Was a popular burial site over the centuries.
3. Was predictably partially destroyed by bombs in WWII. I have not yet determined the preservation state of burials from Jan 2, 1757, but you can guess that this will become a major research interest of mine soon. ;)
4. Was beautifully restored and is a museum today. You can walk around inside on Google Maps using street view, and if you're in Berlin, you should go! It is huge, really cool looking, and looks like there are a *ton* of elements of historical and art historical interest. (Highly recommend the street view from the inside, it's almost like visiting the building (except I'm having trouble reading the plaques and informational panels, dammit).)
5. Was located 1 km from Peter's house.
Nitpick: I entered the Nicolaihaus as Peter's address, though it wasn't where Peter was living when he died. We don't have the address, we just know it was adjacent or nearly adjacent to the Nicolaihaus, where he had lived previously.
That reminds me, Selena, you mentioned when this came up previously that you would visit the Nicolaihaus when you were in Berlin, to pay respects to Peter, but I presume also because Nicolai is also of interest to salon (and there will be more detail on him in the house/museum). Did you ever end up going?
Something I'm curious about: when Nicolai was writing about Peter in the 1790s, did he know he was living in the house Peter used to live in?
P.S. If Peter's burial is still there in the Nikolaikirche, I *will* ask for a visit and pics next time anyone is in Berlin ;), but that is TBD. Stay tuned!
ETA: Btw, I have let
Re: Nikolaikirche
Date: 2023-01-21 03:17 pm (UTC)Re: Nikolaikirche
Date: 2023-01-21 03:39 pm (UTC)Re: Nikolaikirche
Date: 2023-01-21 04:17 pm (UTC)I hope the pandemic lets up and I feel safe traveling soon, because I just added the Nikolaikirche to the list of places I have to visit!
Re: Nikolaikirche
Date: 2023-01-23 06:15 am (UTC)Re: Peter Keith in the archives!
Date: 2023-01-21 07:31 am (UTC)That's awesome!
Re: Peter Keith in the archives!
Date: 2023-01-21 06:14 pm (UTC)November 1764! Exactly as we suspected: he's in the 1764 Berlin address calendar, living with his brother, and not in the 1765 entry, and by 1786, the older son is mentioned as the only living son of his parents. And remember, he was listed as baptized at home in 1745, because of illness.
Aww, that's sad. He was only 19. :/ And poor Ariane and Peter Carl Ernst Reinhardt, losing husband/Dad Peter in 1756 and son/brother Friedrich Ludwig in 1764. :(
ETA: I don't have a death date, but the burial date is Nov 17. Oh, interesting, looks like it was also the Nikolakirche! AWWW. (Not surprising, but remember that Ariane, as a great governess to the queen, was buried in the Parochialkirche.)
(So what happened is I asked
I have also accidentally found the burial record of Suhm's daughter who married a different (presumably distantly related) Lt. Col. von Keith: she died February 1785 and was buried in Neuwerk Rendsburg, Schleswig-Holstein.
Off to find more records!
Re: Peter Keith in the archives!
Date: 2023-01-21 08:47 pm (UTC)October 20, buried October 24 in the Parochialkirche! (At least according to the transcription, I'll leave deciphering the text to
So younger son (age 19) is with Dad (age 45), older son (age 78) is with Mom (age 71). <3
ETA: So here's an interesting point to add to the fact that Ariane was buried in the Parochialkirche because she was a great governess: her parents were married there*, she and at least one of her sisters [son and daughter of ETA: make that at least 3 of her siblings] were baptized there, her surviving son was buried there. I think this was also just the church the Knyphausens attended!
(I also think it makes perfect sense that Friedrich Ludwig was buried near the only parent who was dead at the time, and Carl Ernst was buried at the church near to the mother he'd been interacting with and probably attending church with, and possibly close to, until he was almost 50. I think the record says he was buried in the same crypt as his mother, but I'll wait for Prinzsorgenfrei to continue.)
* ETA again: Well, I could have sworn her parents were married there, but now that I'm looking at the doc I originally found, it doesn't name a church, and there's a completely different marriage record for them that says Berlin Dom.
Yes, I have found two completely separate records for almost all of these things: Ariane, Peter, and Friedrich Ludwig all have 2 burial records! Ariane has one in French and one in German. Peter has two burial dates (Jan 2 and Jan 3). Let's just say the record-keeping is iiinteresting.
Btw, this has interesting implications for searching, because apparently the Marienkirche collected data on who died when and where they were buried, somewhat after the fact (like monthly?) and added up how many burials per church. And they tend to just list the title, not the first name, so we've got Leutnant Keith for Peter, Resendarius (a mistranscription for "referendarius") Keith for Friedrich Ludwig, and Baronne Keith for Ariane. So you have to know your history as you scan the lists of results!
No baptism for Carl Ernst yet.
Re: Peter Keith in the archives!
Date: 2023-01-22 04:20 pm (UTC)Yes, absolutely. And may I say: given how thoroughly bombed Berlin was, and that church records not involving a Hohenzollern probably were low on the evacuation and safe keeping priority list, it's nothing short of amazing that all these records still exist and survived long enough to be digitalized.
Peter has two burial dates (Jan 2 and Jan 3)
Maybe someone transcribed badly? If you write 2 and 3 sloppily, I could see a mistake being made, but then I haven't seen the original.
BTW, I just checked Lehndorff who presumably attended the burial, but he doesn't mention the exact date in his lengthy and heartfelt entry on Peter in the 24 - 31 December 1756 section of his diary, and the next printed date is January 11 1757.
Re: Peter Keith in the archives!
Date: 2023-01-22 04:40 pm (UTC)Confirm, not continue.
And may I say: given how thoroughly bombed Berlin was, and that church records not involving a Hohenzollern probably were low on the evacuation and safe keeping priority list, it's nothing short of amazing that all these records still exist and survived long enough to be digitalized.
I know! I was lamenting to Royal Patron in 2021 that I didn't know where Peter was buried, and he said, "Well, that information is out there waiting to be found!" and I said, "You're forgetting about the bombing in WWII. It might very well not be."
But he was right, it was! (I am still surprised.)
Maybe someone transcribed badly? If you write 2 and 3 sloppily, I could see a mistake being made, but then I haven't seen the original.
I thought of that and looked before posting, and I'm *pretty* sure they're a 2 and a 3, but as always, Prinzsorgenfrei can weigh in.
his lengthy and heartfelt entry on Peter
<3
the next printed date is January 11 1757.
Yeah, I searched through the index and the search function for any Keith mentions and collated them back in the day, and didn't get anything on the burial. (But always feel free to check yourself, search functions and indexing are error prone.)
I also turned up a marriage and burial record that I *think* may be one of Peter's brothers, whom Kloosterhuis mentions as a possible candidate for not!Robert. His name is Johann Friedrich, Kloosterhuis says he lived 1714-1793 and lived in East Prussia. I have a marriage record for a Johann Friederich in East Prussia in 1744 (definitely the right age for a first marriage) and a death record for a Joh. Fried. Keitt in 1793 in West Prussia.
On the other hand, there's a Michael Fredersdorf getting married in Berlin in October 1754 who is not our Michael Fredersdorf, so could be a different Keith!
[ETA: The marriage one has a von and is spelled correctly and is in at least the right region; I just realized that in *addition* ot having the wrong spelling and being in the wrong place, the 1793 death has no "von". So I'm inclined to think the burial record is unrelated, but the marriage still might be.]
In other news, I knew Suhm had lost two children at young ages (2 and 10), but it was still sad seeing their burial records.
Also, the handwriting of all the records I found in Dresden is weird! Very loopy, almost looks like Georgian.
Post-bombing
Date: 2023-01-23 03:22 am (UTC)https://www.bz-berlin.de/archiv-artikel/das-comeback-der-engel if you want to read the article and see other pictures.
Re: Peter Keith in the archives!
Date: 2023-01-04 06:06 am (UTC)Re: Peter Keith in the archives!
Date: 2023-01-16 05:34 pm (UTC)Having reread this letter to incorporate it into my essay, it wasn't his expenses to Lisbon (which I thought was weird, he was on the British fleet, supposedly as part of the navy), but his expenses in 1740 back to Prussia, which makes way more sense. It explains not only why he didn't have the money, but why he was asking Fritz, why Fritz was willing to pay this expense, and why the Brits were like "lol no." It also tells us that in 1740 Peter still felt pretty good about getting his 3 years of back pay despite Caroline's death; it wasn't that he borrowed the money and then she died.
Also, good news: my essay is getting close to where I'm ready to show it to people! If not quite to publishable state yet. I have a three-day weekend and have made good progress on the editing. I might ask you to do at least a content beta read after all,
Re: Peter Keith in the archives!
Date: 2023-01-27 10:05 pm (UTC)M. Peter Carl Christoph von Keith, Königl. Obristlieute
nant von der Armee, Stallmeister, wie auch
Curator der hiesigen Academie der Wissenschaften 45 Jah
re alt, starb den 27. Dec: 1756 Zu Mittage.
St. Nicolai in dem Erbbegräbnis beygesezet word.
Peter Carl Christoph von Keith, Royal Lt. Col.
in the army, equerry, and also
curator of the local Academy of Sciences, 45
years old, died Dec 27, 1756 at noon.
He was laid to rest in a hereditary burial at St. Nicolai.
Three things we didn't know:
1. The '2' in the "Jan 2" of the burial date is definitely a 2, only after Prinzsorgenfrei did the transcription, I looked more closely and realized that that one most likely goes with the previous entry, and Peter's is "Jan 3". (That's how I knew it was a 2, there was a 3 right below it.) The dates are placed right at the boundary between entries, so it's hard to eyeball whether a date goes with the previous or next entry. But I now think we have consistency between the two burial records for Jan 3 being the date, and I've updated the Frederician chronology accordingly.
While updating it, I realized that Fritz arrived (with his brothers) in Berlin on January 4. :/
2. Died at noon: we didn't know the time of day before this.
3. "Hereditary burial"! That's interesting. It does make even more sense of his son being buried there. But since Peter was from Poberow, Pomerania (today Poland), I wonder if any previous Keiths were buried there, or if he was the first to purchase this site.
I also had a search for "Erbbegräbnis" in connection with the Nikolai Church, because after we learned that Peter was buried here, I wondering sure how many burials were there and where they were buried. Are we talking a mass grave here, or a dedicated monument? Wikipedia tells me:
After the Berlin Reformation of 1539, around 150 burials (Erbbegräbnisse) for Berlin statesmen, scholars and wealthy citizens were buried in the chancel and aisle niches.
That's more promising than the mass grave I had feared! Especially since the exterior walls *did* survive the bombing, and looking at the post-bombing picture, it kind of looks like some of the aisle niches did. With only 150, and with what sounds like a dedicated family burial site, there's a chance that his burial was restored enough that we know where it was today (even if his ruins are now smithereens).
I'm holding off to see if the next two burial records I've asked
Re: Peter Keith in the archives!
Date: 2023-01-28 06:11 am (UTC)I suspect the later. For a contemporary parallel, see Caroline Fredersdorf starting an "Erbbegräbnis" in the chapel at Zernikow by burying Fredersdorf there, with herself following suit decades later. Now as I told you back when, her initials intertwined with Fredersdorf's indicate she always meant it for the two of them, and since they had no children, it's an unusual use for an Erbbegräbnis. Though I think her daughter from husband No.3, the one who was Achim von Arnim's mother, is also there. Anyway, what I'm getting at is that if you were a well off Frederician citizen, you clearly could purchase an Erbbegräbnis.
While updating it, I realized that Fritz arrived (with his brothers) in Berlin on January 4. :/
Hate to say it, but that might have been a good thing. If he had been in Berlin already, and NOT gone to the funeral, it would have felt like a final put down to Peter's family. Otoh, I bet Lehndorff was present, and some of Peter's colleagues of the Academy.
Re: Peter Keith in the archives!
Date: 2023-01-28 03:44 pm (UTC)Yeah. I was wondering how well off he was, because he's always being frugal in the sources we have on him, but maybe, between Fritz starting to gift him money, and him getting to take over Knobbelsdorf's jobs, finances got better in the 1750s. Or Ariane was like, "To heck with it!" and sold some of the art.
Anyway, it's pretty unlikely any other Keiths were already there, so it was probably started for him, and then Friedrich Ludwig was buried with him a few years later.
If he had been in Berlin already, and NOT gone to the funeral, it would have felt like a final put down to Peter's family.
Yeah. The face I was making was not "Too bad he just missed it," but more "Too bad he presumably had no interest in attending."
Otoh, I bet Lehndorff was present, and some of Peter's colleagues of the Academy.
<3
Had Maupertuis left yet? Ah, yeah, he left in June of 1756. So I guess he wasn't there either, although I imagine he would have been if he'd still been in Berlin.