Re: Philippi, John Frederick Maine and NY
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In reply to:
Re: Philippi, John Frederick Maine and NY
Gloria Littlewood 10/02/01
Hello Gloria, I would love to be able to have a three way conversation with you and Mrs. Pollard. Despite a difference in opinion between Lavonne and myself about who your Frederick Philippi was and where exactly he came from I still firmly believe he was son of Johann Adam Philippi and Eva Margaretha Reeb. The Frederic Philippi who I know of was born 27 November1816 in Keskastel, Bas-Rhin, France.
The children of Johann Adam Philippi were Eva Margaretha, who married in 1827 in Keskastel to Johann Jacob Barth and we do find the same Jacob Barth in Erie County, New York certainly as early as 1837 when a son Jacob Barth was born.
Other children of Johann Adam Philippi were Eva Catharina whodied in Keskastel; Johann Adam born 1807; and other childrensome of whom died in Keskastel. the youngest son wa Johann Georg Philippi who was born 19 Jun 1820 in Keskastel. I have found in census records sure enough a George Philippi in Eden, Erie County, NY with wife Louisa and this George does seem to me to match the Johann Georg Philippi, son of Johann Adam Philippi in Keskastel.
I understand that it is believed that your Frederick Philippi was born in Alsace Lorraine. I find that many times these names Alsace and Lorraine seem to confuse many people in the U.S. Part of the problem may be the changes in thehistory of the region where Keskastel is located. IT was part of the old Countdom of Saarwerden owned by German counts of Nassau until 1793 when Napoleon gained control of that region and the area was annexed to the Bas-Rhin department of France. This area is west of the Vosges mountain range and was like an in-land island surrounded totally by Alsace and Lorraine. When people speak of Alsace-Lorraine they are either speaking of the region not the correct boundaries because Alsace was not under the same government as Lorraine until the Prussians took much of both what had been Alsace and what had been Lorrain and then the combined area was officially known as Reichsland Elsass-Lothringen. Elsass is the old German name for what the French call Alsace and Lothringen was the old German name for what the French call Lorraine. The Keskastel area which was officially Grafschaft Saarwerden until 1746 when a death in the noble family caused the villages to be divided between two branches of the family. At that time Keskastel became part of Nassau-Weilburg. Then in 1793 it became part of Bas-Rhin which was years before called Alsace by the French who gained it at the end of the Thirty Years War in 1648. Lorraine did not become part of France until 1766. So Alsace and Lorraine were two separate entities until both became part of France. However they were not technicallyknown with the title of Elsass-Lothringen until the Prussians took that part of France in 1871. Furthermore Alsace Lorraine is not a village or city it was two separate Lands which happened to share the borders just above and just below the old Nassau-Saarwerden Countdom where the Philippi family lived in Keskastel. John V. Reeb