The Hunt for Edouard Keff continues…

If you recall, a French journalist claimed that the real identity of mysterious wife murderer Henri Debosnys was in fact poetic fantasist Edward (Edouard) Keff: and that the journalist had been at the Lycee Charlemagne in Paris with Keff in 1845 (at the age of about 12).

Unfortunately, my previous efforts to trace any such Edouard Keff using (the usually pretty good) filae.com and (the often moderately frustrating) geneanet.org had proven unsuccessful. So I decided to approach the same hunt from a completely different angle…

How To Look For Someone Who Isn’t There

The French archives are pretty good, but they – like pretty much all archives ever – can have holes that seem (inevitably) to (not) contain the things you are trying to find. So: what I tried to do this time round was to look for a Keff family with a connection to Paris, but with a gap in their documented children around 1833.

Through filae.com, I found a Nicolas Keff born in Paris’ 5e Arrondissement on 12 Feb 1848, but who died on 28 Apr 1849. I also found a Pierre Keff who died in Paris’ 5e Arrondissement on 29 Aug 1848. From that, it seemed fairly likely that Pierre Keff had been Nicolas Keff’s father. Might I be able to find any older brothers or sisters born to the same father?

It didn’t take long to find Pierre Keff’s wife and most of their children (though note that most of the family trees I found on Geneanet were woefully incomplete). So here are the details I was able to dig up:

Pierre Keff & Catherine Andre

Pierre Keff

• b. 21 Aug 1801, Hombourg, Moselle, to Jean Keff & Eve Weiss
• d. 29 Aug 1848, Paris 5e Arrondissement

Catherine Andre

• b. 10 Oct 1805 to Pierre Andre and Anne Marie Hamann
• in 1894, living in Rue des Dames, 15e Arrondissement, Asnieres (Seine)

The two married on 20 Oct 1830, Hombourg-Haut, Moselle

Pierre Keff & Catherine Andre’s Children

Jean Keff

• b. 1830, Hombourg Haut, Moselle.
• d. 1830, Hombourg Haut, Moselle.

Jean Michel Keff

• b. 23 Sep 1831, Hombourg Haut, Moselle.
• d. 05 July 1853, Terre-de-Haut, Guadeloupe

Marguerite Keff

• b. 15 May 1837, Bouzonville
• d. 13 Jan 1843, Bouzonville

Therese Keff (an “artiste dramatique”)

• b. 02 Apr 1839, Bouzonville
• m. Joseph Claude Branciard (theatre director) [b. ~1836]
• d. 1894

Jean Keff

• b. 25 July 1841, Bouzonville

Elisabeth Keff

• b. 11 April 1843, Bouzonville

Madelaine Keff

• b. January 1844, Bouzonville
• d. 13 January 1844

Joseph Keff

• b. 30 Apr 1845, Bouzonville
• d. 19 Jan 1846

[+ probably Nicolas Keff, as mentioned above]

Minding The Gap?

Having now looked at lots of French archives from around this time, marriage was often linked with / triggered by a birth in the same year as the wedding; and that this was then followed by the appearance of children every 1-2 years thereafter (but also, sadly, suffering a lot of infant mortality).

In the case of the Keff/Andre family, we see them both getting married and having their first child in 1830; and then having children in 1831, 1837, 1839, 1841, 1843, 1844, 1845, and probably 1848.

Now, I can’t easily prove that they had more children in the period 1832-1836 (but probably not in either Hombourg-Haut or Bouzonville, where the records seem to be pretty good): but I have to say that it does seem likely. But I can pretty much prove that they were in the 5e Arrondissement in 1848 (when Pierre died) and probably in Paris beyond that (because Catherine Andre ended up in the 15e Arrondissement in 1894).

All the same, that’s all that I was able to find by searching filae.com etc.

…But Here’s The Twist I Wasn’t Expecting

Even though I was being completely logical and sensible with all the above searching, I have to point out (somewhat annoyingly) that I was also being a complete idiot. Because the Jean Keff born on 25 July 1841 in Bouzonville was (if had stopped to think about it) also exactly the same Jean Keff who I had previously traced to the Bagne de Toulon and beyond: while his brother Pierre Keff (not listed above) who I had also traced to the Bagne de Toulon and beyond was born in 13 May 1833 in Chateaurouge, Moselle.

So, without even realising that that was what I was doing, I had actually reconstructed the rest of the Keff bagnards’ family tree sideways and upwards (note that I had already found a fair few of their children).

Hence my suspicion that Pierre Keff and Catherine Andre had more children in the 1832-1836 period turned out to be correct: and the place where they were living around then was almost certainly Chateaurouge (6km from Bouzonville, and 35km from Hombourg-Haut), where their son Pierre Keff was born.

Looking at children born in Chateaurouge around that time, there was also a Catherine Keff born there on 03 Apr 1835 (but the listing has no mention of who her parents were). Even so, if she had been born to Pierre Keff and Catherine Andre, she would have been their first-born daughter, so it would be entirely conventional to name her after her mother: hence I’d be utterly unsurprised if she was their daughter.

So we can probably extend the list of children’s birth years to 1830, 1831, 1833, (probably) 1835, 1837, 1839, 1841, 1843, 1844, 1845, and (probably) 1848.

Still Looking For Edouard Keff…

Putting all the above together, it seems entirely rational to me to wonder whether the same parents had an additional child called Edouard in Chateaurouge around 1832-1834, particularly given that we already know so much about that boy’s somewhat infamous brothers. Even so, I can’t help but feel that I’m now really really running out of source documents to trawl my way through, so what other documents might there be out there that can I go looking for now? That question, alas, is as far as I’ve got this time round. 🙁