Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 43

[cahn]

Still going! Still clearing Fritz's valet/chamberlain Fredersdorf's name from the calumny enshrined in wikipedia that he was dismissed for financial irregularities!

Comments

Keith genealogy...or not

[mildred_of_midgard]

1. A bunch of Peter Keith genealogy stuff. Glancing through, I may have what I need to figure out how he's related to the rest of the Keiths!

Well...I do and I don't. It definitely shows a connection to the Earl Marischal Keiths, but the names don't match what I'm finding anywhere else, like Wikipedia, genealogy sites, or The Keith Book.

According to the Prussian Keiths, the ancestry goes like this:

Peter -> Johann Christoph -> William -> George (brother of Andrew) -> William -> Robert -> George -> William (1st earl)

The most famous of these who is not an Earl Marischal is Andrew. The Keith Book says he was the son of Robert, who was the son of Robert, who was the son of William (3rd earl), who was the son of William (2nd earl), who was the son of William (1st earl). They also say that William (4th earl) was the brother of the Robert who was the father of Andrew.

Wikipedia says Andrew was the grandson, not the great-grandson, of William (3rd earl).

The Peerage says that Robert, grandfather of Andrew, was the son of William (2nd earl), not William (3rd earl).

Nobody mentions a George who was a son of William (1st earl)--I can find no evidence of any such personage.

The Prussian genealogy doesn't mention any Earls Marischal after the 2nd that I can see.

The Prussian genealogy wants Peter's post-Marschall line to be descended from lords of Edmistone, which, even if I assume that's Elphinstone or Edmunstone, I cannot find among these Keiths. (There's a George_Elphinstone, 1st Viscount Keith, but he was born 1746.)

I am not any more enlightened, and am in fact a good deal more confused, than when I started.

A few notes on the Prussian genealogy source:

1. The genealogical record in question is entitled "Konigl. Herolds-Amt, Acta betreffend v. Keith".
2. Peter Keith's entry mentions Formey's eulogy.
3. Kloosterhuis cites this as a source for various details about Peter's immediate family, but doesn't get into anything more remote than his parents.
4. James and George are mentioned on page 2, but without any obvious genealogical connection; I haven't deciphered every single thing, but this page appears just to be a list of notable Keiths in Prussia (whereas page 1 shows ancestry from William (1st earl) to Peter's father).

I'm inclined to think what I was already inclined to think when I looked into the genealogy based on Formey and couldn't find anything: the Prussian Keiths are operating based on oral history, and have either consciously upgraded their lineage or had honest mistakes creep in, or both. The 18th century stuff is probably the most accurate. (Though even there it's not always right or sure: there's a 1755/56 death date for Peter, then a cross leading to a parenthetical decision that it was 1756. And Friedrich Ludwig's death year is given as 1763, when I have a death record showing it was November 1764, and the Berlin address calendar shows him still alive in 1764.)

For the earlier lineage, at best I can cite this record as an illustration of how the Prussian Keiths believed/claimed they were related to the Marischal Keiths. But no, felis, the Marischal connection isn't close even if you trust these records--the last earl they're claiming descent from was the 1st, in the 1400s. (Jacobite-exile-in-Prussia George was the 10th.)

I am taking a few details from this and another similar genealogical record: Peter's birthdate, his older son's birthdate, the date of his marriage to his Ariane.

Oh, sibling-wise, he appears to have had one older sister, two older brothers, one younger sister, and two younger brothers. I don't have birth dates, but it goes:

1. Agnes Oriana
2. Franz Heinrich
3. Martin Rudiger
4. Peter Carl Christoph
5. Eleonore
6. Wilhelm George
7. Hans Friedrich

6 and 7 are the two candidates for the page who confessed to FW in 1730.