There were frequent changes in the usage of the rooms in the Bach family apartment, with rooms becoming free and then reallocated. To give a few examples: Friedelena Margaretha Bach, Johann Sebastian Bach’s sister-in-law, died on the 28th of July 1727. She received the Eucharist several days before in the Bach family apartment (see 19. Johann Sebastian and Anna Magdalena Bach–a Working Couple. Supplement: Friedelena Margaretha Bach), so it can be assumed that she lived alone in a room, at...

“The Bach family household was managed by Friedelena Margaretha Bach (1675–1729)”. This idea, formulated in those or similar words, is widespread and can be quite influential when considering the working couple Johann Sebastian and Anna Magdalena Bach. So let us examine it further here. This will also show how difficult and error-prone it is to create an image of a person from sparse facts and few clues. The baptismal register of the Gehren parish in Thuringia has an entry for 20 November...

On the 4 th June 1723 the newspaper “State and Academic Newspaper of the Hollstein Independent Correspondent” reported: “ At midday last Saturday four wagons arrived here from Köthen with the household goods belonging to the ex ducal Capellmeister , now appointed as Cantor of Leipzig; at two o’clock he arrived with his family in two carriages and moved in to the newly renovated apartment in the St. Thomas School. ” (Dok II, page 104). This report had been annotated with: “ Leipzig, the 29 th...