Please don't mix mythological with real persons!

Started by Eero Gustaf Ignatius on Sunday, December 12, 2010
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Showing 1-30 of 38 posts
12/12/2010 at 1:16 PM

The MYTHOLOGICAL Aslaug Sigurdsdatter is NOT the daughter of the HISTORICAL Sigebert I of Austrasia, a Merovingian king. This connection should be undone as soon as possible. Or get some EVIDENCE!

12/12/2010 at 1:32 PM

Eero, instead of screaming here on discussion, a note directly to me would have been nicer...connection dleeted, thanks for noticing.

12/13/2010 at 10:43 AM

Sorry Susanna (by the way, that's a Hollies hit, isn't it...?), I should have noticed that you were the Curator! I just get so upset whenever an ancestor line of mine crosses mythological terrain on its way to even older but real ancestors, like in this case to the Merovingian kings... Thanks for correcting the mistake. I'll try to whisper the next time!

5/1/2018 at 10:49 AM

This mythological character appears to have been reconnected into the World Tree and is providing a descent from Odin to real people.

5/1/2018 at 10:56 AM

There seem to be other Discussions complaining about this too.
I'm disconnecting her from her 'parents': mythological Brynhild Budladóttir, {Hversum Noreg byggdist} and Sigurðr Sigmundsson, {Volsunga saga} - This in order to defer the decision about the historicity of the parentage of Ragnar "Lodbrok" Sigurdsson 's sons.

5/1/2018 at 12:25 PM

so Snorri Sturlusons Edda, Völsung Saga and the Saga of Ragnar Loðbrók are not a valid souce material regarding Áslaug?

5/1/2018 at 12:40 PM

Not as a real person?

Private User
5/1/2018 at 12:51 PM

Snorri wrote sagas, not histories, and the sagas are often a mixture of history, family tradition, and myth. He was much more interested in the overall pattern of things and big dramatic scenes than he was in complete accuracy.

The Eddas are definitely *not* history, but compilations of myth and folklore (and Snorri was only responsible for the Prose or Younger Edda - we don't know the author(s) of the Elder or Poetic Edda).

As to Ragnar - we're still working on that one.

5/1/2018 at 12:51 PM

I haven't deleted her - I'd presumed you'd put her in the project for the saga? Where would you decide that oral history is insufficient to prove historical connections? I thought 400 years and scholarship that seems to agree that she can't be located in history wasn't ambiguous. Happy for you to go a generation back on her mythological parents - but I though that just might mess with your line on any saga project.
No intention to step on your toes here, Harald.

5/1/2018 at 1:05 PM

well the Sagas are the source of our knowlade of Ragnar Loðbrók... does that mean that he has to be removed as well? and all persons from biblical stories as well...

5/1/2018 at 1:42 PM

The historical status of Ragnar Loðbrók as real person appears to open for debate. I would tend to agree with whatever Harald thought.
All persons from biblical stories that are not within about a 100 - 200 years of documented history - yes, I'd say they need to be moved to projects as well.
I've removed St Anne as the grandmother of Jesus because there are no contemporaneous sources to prove her. So, yes.

5/1/2018 at 2:11 PM

Ragnar Loðbrók -- if he existed at all -- was the father of the leaders of the Great Heathen Army. Everything about him is fake.

5/1/2018 at 2:54 PM

WHO’s Harald in This confesation?

5/1/2018 at 3:19 PM
5/1/2018 at 3:27 PM

I am a bit puzzled by this one, Eero's original post was that Aslaug had been connected to real profiles (Sigebert I of Austrasia, a Merovingian king), Susanna dealt with that.

Today Sharon has cut Aslaug's links to a set of parents that it is very hard to argue are real themselves (Sigurd Sigmundsson, of Denmark and Brynhild Budlasdatter).

I don't see how cutting links between "ficitional" profiles helps.

5/1/2018 at 9:31 PM

Sharon was making sure she was definitely only cutting fictitious people out of the wft
cf: I'm disconnecting her from her 'parents': mythological Brynhild Budlasdatter and Sigurd Sigmundsson, of Denmark - This in order to defer the decision about the historicity of the parentage of Ragnar "Lodbrok" Sigurdsson 's sons.'

The better cut is Ragnar - but it needs a better man than I am - or have time to be - to do that. Enter Alex, stage left, with knife....

5/1/2018 at 9:36 PM

I don't remember a decision about the historicity of the parentage of Ragnar. I just remember lots of debate. What did I miss? And how did we end up here? Let's make the cut at Ragnar.

5/1/2018 at 10:48 PM

I have a thought but no time. How many lines of decent from Ragnar?

Bjorn Ironside sons were kings
Sigurd Snakeeye daughter's married nobles.
Alof"s son is in Landnamabok

Who else?

5/1/2018 at 11:23 PM

Sigurd, Ålof, Bjørn and Erik have descendants to the 3rd generation. Sigurd's tree being the widest (he links into Orkney saga and Landnamabok).

https://historylinktools.herokuapp.com/graph?profile=profile-g56042...

5/2/2018 at 4:21 AM

Re - "the historicity of the parentage of Ragnar" - this is the mother of one of his sons - so I didn't want to cut her connection to him and then. Rather let you guys have that discussion.

5/2/2018 at 5:04 AM

Åslaug Sigurdsdatter, {Ragnars Saga} Is mother of several of Ragnar's sons and arguably she is actually the main character of both Ragnar's Saga and the saga of Ragnars Sons.
Like i said earlier she is mythical/ legendary as are her parents so i dont see how cutting that link helps butt nevermind we can always reconnect later

5/2/2018 at 5:50 AM

The issue - if I recall - is that Ragnar's sons are NOT legendary - so before you cut their parents, you have to make sure you've got them linked if you think they're full brothers. This is a conversation that needs to happen. I the meantime, Kraka is connecting the WT to Odin - so cutting her off from that while we wait the BIG discussion about Ragnar.

3/29/2023 at 5:43 AM

Sigurd "Ring" Randversson, Danish king {mythological} is a compilation of mytholigised characters. He needs to be isolated from the tree before he's merged into documented Sigurds. This means cutting him off from the profile mythologised to be his son, Ragnar "Lodbrok" Sigurdsson As Ragnar is also a compilation of mythologised people it seems logical to remove him with his father. Has the decision been to keep him in the world tree of documented people?

Private User
3/29/2023 at 10:38 AM

Eero Gustaf Ignatius

I dont understand why it should be so upsetting as long as they are clearly indicated as such.
I find it interesting. If you do come across such profiles there is a project created to identifying fictional genealogy. It includes links to more specific fictional genealogies as well.We project creators and managers appreciate the help.

https://www.geni.com/projects/Fictional-Genealogy/8908

Private User
3/29/2023 at 10:41 AM

Oops I just noticed the discussion originator has passed on. RIP Eero

3/29/2023 at 12:46 PM

Thsat's sad. Thankyou for noticing. Too young, Eero Gustaf Ignatius

3/29/2023 at 8:38 PM

Private User part of the issue is that putting "Ficitional" in a profile or adding them to a project only alerts users who are specifically looking that profile and paying attention to that level of detail. In the meantime other users will be seeing long relationship paths between themselves and other users, not realising some of the links are BS, or they'll be seeing paths to historical profiles not realising that those paths traverse BS to make the link.

Sharon Doubell no decision that I am aware of on how to treat Ragnar, many years since the last real effort to improve that section of the tree and by any metric that effort failed.

Going back to your last 2018 comment Ragnar's sons may arguably be historical but it does not follow that their connections to each other or Ragnar are factual. For example the AS names 3 brothers as sons of Ragnar, logic dictates that these 3 would then be brothers (or half brothers) of Ragnar's other sons.

Further, the AS does nothing more than name the 3 men and their father so cannot be used to prove anything beyond the fact that the chronicler of that passage of the AS wanted to record that 3 leaders of the Heathern Army were brothers and sons of Ragnar (i would have to check but i am not even certain that he is named as Ragnar Lothbrok in that entry, just "Ivarr Ragnarsson"). Were the 3 men brothers? Who told the chronicler this, how did they know?

Bjorn Ironside (which is possibly a misinterpretation of an older name having nothing to do with metal armor) is named as the son of Ragnar Lothbrok in 2 sagas but different mothers in those same sagas. So at best the pool of information is 50% incorrect, and very plausibly 100% wrong on mother so very dubious on any data at all.

A previous attempt was made (against typical Geni norms) to develop separate family trees for the different versions of Ragnar's immediate family. There are still remnants of this effort floating in Geni but the different versions of Ragnar were mashed back into one incoherent singular profile.

Deleting him from the tree, because Geni is not an encylopedia, would be the most accurate solution.
Alternatively cutting all relationships to him and putting explanations and links to various potential relatives in his About would be the most responsible.
But doing either would result in howls of complaint from users and likely almost instant creation of duplicates. I do not check for duplicate Ragnar profiles anymore but at one time found an entire duplicate tree that had copied Ragnar's profile and family member profiles word for word including images from the Geni MP profiles....why anyone would bother to do that is beyond me.

Ragnar is in a way too popular, he is equivalent to the Batman of our time in that if you tried to make a Geni tree for Batman there is no consistency between the 30(?) batman movies/shows/comics that have been created in the past 50 years so trying to jam them all into one tree is a fools errand, but presenting one without the others will always leave you exposed to (valid) criticism.

/rant

3/29/2023 at 9:02 PM

You know, I always wanted to be a descendant of Odin. :-) Sometimes these discussions just make me so happy to be able to absorb the history - descendant of Odin or not - of course, most likely not....

3/30/2023 at 1:06 AM

:-) Susanne.

Great points, Alex. It may be Time :-)

Private User
3/30/2023 at 1:41 PM

I am going to give my humble opinion, this debate began 5 years ago back in 2018 and they have lasted in Geni until today. My question is why am I going back to the same thing now?

Showing 1-30 of 38 posts

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