Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Royalty and Nobility/Archive 2

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Scope?

Is Aymer de Valence, 2nd Earl of Pembroke incorrectly listed here (i.e. the project is limited to modern biographies), or should things like Edward III of England (FA) be included? Angus McLellan (Talk) 20:39, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Henry VIII of England FAR

Henry VIII of England has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:55, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Monarchs of the British Isles by cause of death

For your perusal: List of monarchs of the British Isles by cause of death.

I've drawn all the information from the individual monarch articles but they are woefully sourced in the most part, and thus so is this list I'm afraid. violet/riga (t) 00:36, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Anne of Great Britain FAR

Anne of Great Britain has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:28, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Jon Shortridge

I added this project to the template because the article lists Category:Knights Commander of the Order of the Bath. If this is in error or otherwise out of scope in this project, please update the template as necessary. Tim Shuba 04:56, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Recategorization

Hello everyone;

I've been recategorizing lately and have come across a ton of pages in Royal families that should be in European royal families (which is itself categorized under Royal families). Can someone help? Charles 10:52, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

James I of England FAR

James I of England has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:52, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Buckingham Palace

Buckingham Palace has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. LuciferMorgan 11:22, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Charles I of England FAR

Charles I of England has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:03, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Missing royalty and nobility topics

Greetings. I have a short list of missing topics related to royalty and nobility. It's possible that some of the links are only in the need of redirect and I do not know enough about the rest to actually write about them. I wonder if anyone of you could have a look at it. Thank you - Skysmith

Habsburg-Lorraine template

In my drive to improve articles on the Habsburgs, I saw all the pages lacked the 'house template box' which runs down the list of monarchs and their children/grandchildren etc. I've started work, first of all, on a template for the Habsburg-Lorraines after Francis I (seems a good place to start as any). Suggestions and edits welcome. Lec CRP1 19:22, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

William the Silent

William the Silent has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here.

House of Saxe-Meiningen

In the succession box for, say, a Duke of Saxe-Meiningen, should the House name be 'House of Wettin' (the parent house of all Ernestine Dukes) or 'House Of Saxe-Meiningen - cadet branch of the House of Wettin'. My preference is for the latter (so many Saxon duchies and this clarifies matters). Someone changed all the instances of the latter to the former (eg Georg II, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen, though, which I don't remember seeing any discussion of. Lec CRP1 16:15, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Saxe-Meiningen is the territory. For a member of the main line of a royal family, their house name isn't their territorial name automatically unless it has otherwise been determined. In the case of a junior member of such a family as the royal of another country, it might make some sense... For instance, SC&G in the UK. We don't have the "House of Prussia" ruling Prussia, at least not in the formal sense, for instance. As well, it doesn't clarify a single thing for the Saxonies. The actual name of the person does that. Also, it doesn't make sense to have the "house name" change whenever the territories are re-shuffled. Is it not the same family? Charles 03:21, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Template:House of Bernadotte and others

Hello,
The layout of most articles about Swedish kings, queens, etcetera, are badly affected by the use of templates such as {{House of Bernadotte}} (see Oscar I of Sweden for an example). Similar problems appears on pages affected by {{House of Pfalz}}, {{Swedish House of Holstein-Gottorp}}, and others. I have therefore suggested replacing these templates with horizontal versions that would go at bottom of pages instead, which I've been told is not consistent with other royalty articles on Wikipedia. So, please share your view at Template talk:House of Bernadotte and have a look at my proposal at User:Mats Halldin/Workshop#House of Bernadotte.
Thanks
/ Mats Halldin (talk) 12:44, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Elagabalus

Elagabalus has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. DrKiernan 07:22, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Ancestor tables

I personally am not a great fan of adding ancestor tables to articles, but some of my wiki-colleagues seem to think that that is a priority. There are currently two different formats being used, e.g. the wikitable seen here (Philippe, duc d'Orléans) and the ahnentafel seen here (Franz, Duke of Bavaria). Is there a standard which should be used? (I know which I think is more attractive). Noel S McFerran 13:13, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm one of the people who adds these ancestor tables to Royalty articles. I think that since these individuals (Royals) owe their status solely to their ancestry, then you should show their immediate lines of descent. Three generations (up to great-grandparents) is plenty, though. I think the best ahnentafel design is the one shown, for example, on Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich of Russia. -Lec CRP1 14:05, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree, both that these ancestries can be pretty useful, and that the Template:ahnentafel-compact4 looks pretty nice. I don't like the simple wikitable at Philippe because it takes up too much space, and also, unless the names are especially androgynous, the qualifiers are rather redundant (and in the case of "paternal great-grandfather" etc., outright pointless, as they fail to uniquely identify an ancestor). -- Jao 20:08, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Royal Family boxes

There seems to be a minor problem with Royal Family boxes, such as in the article Princess Ariane of the Netherlands. The "edit" links are moved down. Can this problem be solved? – Ilse@ 11:29, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

House of Hesse-Darmstadt

Looking over the succession templates recently - should the House of Hesse-Darmstadt be shown with 'Cadet branch of the House of Hesse'? Technically, it seems to be a cadet line because that line descends from George I, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt, 4th surviving son of Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse.--Lec CRP1 02:25, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Depends when and where. The house of Hesse was consolidated into the 1800s (I believe) and all members officially became "of Hesse". Before that, differencing names and cadet names may be appropriate. Charles 02:41, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Helen of Greece and Denmark

Twice in the last day the ancestry table has been removed from this page. User:Dahn removed it with the comment "removed pointless quasi-template, per WP:NOT". I restored it with the comment "restore ancestry table; standard in many royal articles". Today User:Biruitorul removed it again with the comment "It may be standard, but really, this is a biography, not a genealogy site".

I leave it to others to address this matter. Noel S McFerran 03:49, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, yes, it's absurd. Granted, Wikipedia isn't paper, so I'm willing to accept a certain level of templates, but open up any serious encyclopedic biography and you will not find the subject's great-great grandparents listed. A seven-sentence biography shouldn't stretch on and on with these decorations - we get the point, they had important ancestors, but it doesn't need to be drilled into the reader. The proliferation of this ancestry chart bacillus is an embarrassment, and I aim to counter it using more robust tactics once I've developed a workable strategy. Biruitorul 01:40, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
You shouldn't define something like Wikipedia by the limitations of paper encyclopaedias.
I'm sure you have read many books on various Royal personages. And what do you usually find when you get past the contents page? A family tree, in greater or lesser detail. Clearly the writers see some advantage in having them there. As I said above, the only reason Royals attain any state of importance is because of who their ancestors were. So, for those interested, a basic geneology is useful and is no way detrimental to the article.
I suggest that you should "develop a workable strategy" to add content to articles rather than planning a one-person deletion task force.--Lec CRP1 02:19, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
First, I've added plenty of content to plenty of articles, and moreover, your last remark seems based on a view of Wikipedia as a dumping-ground for all the "information" out there, regardless of encyclopedic quality, so I reject your premise. However, I will say that my focus (albeit not exclusive) is on adding text rather than charts and pictograms, as that is what ultimately makes or breaks a reference work. For instance, take Boris III of Bulgaria: we manage to include two templates, a succession box, an infobox and the ghastly ancestry chart in there, yet say virtually nothing about his first three decades of life. The French get away with just an infobox and a succession box, tell who his parents were (the really relevant biographical information, unlike the great-great grandparents) and say quite a bit about his early life.
Second: you do not generally find genealogical charts in encyclopedias per se. However, given that Wikipedia is not paper and thus not subject to such limitations (a point I readily concede), we are allowed to have a more specialty focus in such articles. Well, I just pulled a book off my shelf called Kings and Queens of England, covering from the Saxons to Elizabeth II. It turns out this book has exactly five charts: "Saxons-Plantagenets", "Plantagenets", "Houses of Lancaster and York", "Tudors and Stuarts" and "Hanover to Windsor". Guess what? Not only am I all in favour of having that, it already exists on Wikipedia! And I honestly don't think we ought to be delving into any greater detail, because interested readers have ready access to those charts.
Finally, when you say "the only reason Royals attain any state of importance", do you mean they only have the chance to become important because of their ancestry, or they are important just for that reason? Because if the latter, I think that's an untenable position: people like Charles I or Henri IV were first-rank political actors in their day and their historical position is secure regardless of their noble position. Conversely, if the former, I still disagree: Elizabeth I had to fight hard to gain and keep her position (though of course it was open to her only due to her royal blood), while Napoleon III could have remained somewhat of a nobody, his dynasty having ended in 1815, but made it to the top, in a republican system no less. Biruitorul 23:02, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Biruitorul--the ancestry charts are superfluous in main article space. We already have family trees of important royal families, as well we should, so why can't we just link to the relevant family trees from the article instead of cluttering up a biography with genealogical charts? That's another advantage of Wikipedia not being paper--we don't always have to dump everything in the same place for fear that people won't find it. K. Lásztocska 12:28, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
I see my name was invoked here, but that nobody let me know that there was a debate involving my actions. I'm afraid that, since this occurred, Biruitorul has madethe exact case I would have made. Adding such colorful templates to every article on a royal is useless, redundant, and ugly. The info could easily be turned into a full genealogical tree article (unless it already was). In fact, if I am left to deduce from this rationale for reversion, people who sprinkle this sort of info around are unfamiliar with anything other than genealogy, and assume that not just much of, but virtually all the readers need in order to have an understanding of an article is genealogy! This is outrageous, considering that the article in question deals with the queen of a sovereign state, whose involvement in political life during WWII earned her the title of a "Righteous Among the Nations". Dahn 14:40, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
A table like Ancestry of Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom#Ancestors seems sufficient to me. The 4-generation color template is garish and busy.--Father Goose 04:21, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
I agree. To take every html capability to use colored diagrams does not necessarily clarify matters--the style being used ignores the limited width of a practical page and is possibly the least efficient way of presenting the information. The tables like FG ntions give room to show more information and are clearer as well. DGG (talk) 04:25, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
Well, I'd say the problem at Helen is that there are 4 generations, and not the layout itself. As I've said recently on this talk page, I like Template:ahnentafel-compact4, which is pretty much the same but with only 3 generations. It's much more compact than either Helen's or Elizabeth's tables. (I wouldn't mind if the colors were taken out, though, if they are disturbing anyone.) The table at the Elizabeth page has two problems: it's awfully high (about twice as high as ahnentafel-compact4, see e.g. Olav V of Norway#Ancestors), and it's attempting to define the relations, yet uses "Paternal great-grandfather" which does not uniquely define an ancestor at all. Granted, it's nice to have years, but just because WP:NOT#PAPER, this information is just a click away anyway. I'd say compactness is more important. -- Jao 08:30, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

The Youden Family

The article The Youden Family may be a hoax. Does anyone have any information about this family? Fg2 10:52, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Irish kings split

I'm proposing a split of lists and categories concerning Irish kings between historical (in the sense "listed by historians") and mythical/legendary/whatever. See Talk:List of High Kings of Ireland. Cheers, Angus McLellan (Talk) 22:30, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Template:Infobox Monarch issues, new template

On the talk page for the template, I noted my concern for the entries regarding queens, consorts and spouses. I think the template is overly complex in some respects. Notably, queen, consort and spouses can be reduced to "consorts" and "spouses" (for consorts before a reign or after abdication) which allow multiple entries. The template should not be overly complex or have features hinging solely on gender. Also, one template for all or most royals might be best. What about one called Template:Infobox Royalty where everything can be centralized and fields that don't need to be used for non-sovereigns don't have to be filled in (such as reign or consort). Two usage docs could appear on the template page, one with all of the fields shown (monarchs) and another for all others with the sovereign/consort fields omitted to allow for copying and pasting into articles. Charles 22:20, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I've considered how T:IBR could be adapted for much wider use, and implement some starting changes here. I'd love to hear some feedback! DBD 22:42, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
It looks similar to Infobox Monarch to me at the moment (although my eye may be a little untrained. I don't like the use of the switches at the top though (Highness, Royal, Majesty) etc. I think combining the elements from a number of templates is in order. Off the top of my head, it should contain: Name, Title, Style, Other titles, House, Given Names, Reign, Coronation/Investiture, Predecessor, Successor, Regent, Consort(s), Spouse(s), Issue, Father, Mother, Birth, Death, etc. A portion of the template should also be collapsible, if that is possible. The Infobox should deprecate a number of other infoboxes and be centralized. Charles 22:56, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
Let's not let this discussion die down or die off. Charles 21:55, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
If you want my opinion there's far too much in there. Stick to the basics: name, dates, title, parents, spouses, progeny. Predecessor and successor will be in those horrid succession boxes as well as in the text. Next thing we know there'll be pop-up Ahnentafels in among the rest. Less templated chrome and more content is the way to go. Angus McLellan (Talk) 23:48, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
That is true, ancestry, succession, etc, can be handled at the bottom (I don't think the boxes at the bottom are so horrid). If though, a portion of the template could be automatically collapsed there would not be such an issue of cluttering an article. Charles 23:54, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
I can remember being rather baffled by infoboxes when I started, and there are quite often questions at the help desk and the village pump which boil down to the infobox templates being a lot less obvious to new editors than they seem to old lags like us. The bigger we make them, the more intimidating things look when someone clicks "edit this page". So, yes, a collapsible infobox may help keep the screen tidy for readers, but like as not it will cause even more puzzlement for starting editors. Cheers, Angus McLellan (Talk) 00:01, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Andrei Vladimirovich of Russia

This page should be at Grand Duke Andrei Vladimirovich of Russia to fit better with WP:NC(NT). It was moved to Andrei Vladimirovich of Russia back in January for some reason. This needs an admin's attention. Thanks. --Lec CRP1 17:01, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Post it in Uncontroversial Proposals at WP:RM and cite the relevant passage of WP:NC(NT). Charles 20:08, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Duchess Marie of Mecklenburg

There is currently a discussion about deleting the article about this quite fascinating nineteenth-century princess (pregnant out of wedlock; married morganatically; husband kills her brother; divorced, etc.) I encourage people to contribute to the discussion. Noel S McFerran 01:44, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Title format of Commonwealth realm monarchies

A discussion dealing with deciding on the title format for all articles relating to the monarchies of the Commonwealth realms is being conducted at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject British Royalty if you are interested. — AjaxSmack 00:52, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Ahnentafels revisited

I see that the {{ahnentafel-compact4 }} and its cousins are spreading across biographical articles on royalty, real and pretend. Adolf Frederick of Sweden‎ has (or had) a *six-generation* effort. I don't really see this as being anything like a good thing. Does any other encyclopedia include all this genealogical trivia? Not in my experience, and the family trees that you may find in biographical books and papers are not (never?) in ahnentafel style. Being a bold chap, I removed some. I was reverted, so the next step is discussion. There's a thread on Talk:Louis V of France if anyone cares to comment. Angus McLellan (Talk) 15:47, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, Wikipedia isn't a book, nor is it paper. I will comment on the other page. Charles 16:26, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
Yes, we've all heard that argument before. However: neither is wikipedia a genealogical instrument, and the simple fact that it is a wiki makes cramming up all those people (most of whom never met each other) on one page an absurdity. If this "not paper" thing is indeed a rational argument, and if need be, there is nothing preventing one from creating articles on the genealogy itself, and making a simple link to it from the article. Furthermore, using the same argument, one could add not six, but twenty-six generations: "gee, you know, it's not paper".
If you create something that you cannot account for with any arguments than "it's not forbidden", and if you cannot prevent it from degenerating into chaos (the post above proves that you can't), then it shouldn't really be there at all. The format issue is really important, since all Ahnentafels look like a colorful table of elements dragging the page to the right in most settings. Also, in general, it appears that they are an astonishingly unpractical way of condensing info: their height is determined by that of the right-hand column, which means that the whole thing is much less informative than any equivalent part of the body of text, and, in many cases, bigger than the actual article is or can hope to be (it is a complete waste of space).
The one thesis that these are "needed" was concocted by a handful of editors taking part in the genealogy project, and no argument was ever taken out in the open to see if it stands water. And it having spread like a virus is no argument in its favor!
So, people, use your common sense. Please. Dahn (talk) 17:31, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
Might I suggest we attach the genealogy to only the earliest article, i.e. before which articles do not exist? DBD 18:30, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
The earliest article would, in the phrasing used by the Oxford DNB, be about a dynast. What's important about a dynast is the dynasty that they founded. In such cases an ahnentafel would be the wrong end of the stick. Angus McLellan (Talk) 19:29, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Titles of the children of dukes, counts palatine, margraves and landgraves before 1806

Is it not true that all the children and male-line descendants, of dynastic descent, of a landgrave were titled landgrave or landgravine, even if styled informally otherwise. Also for dukes, counts palatine, margraves, etc. Their children were dukes and duchesses, counts palatine and countesses palatine, and margraves and margravines respectively, correct? The children of the Landgraves of Hesse-Darmstadt, etc, were all landgraves and landgravines of Hesse-Darmstadt and so on, the children of the Margraves of Brandenburg were all margraves and margravines of Brandenburg and so on. The only exceptions were the children of kings, emperors, grand dukes and electors and the title of prince or princess for the others before this is only an informal usage referring to their dynastic and sovereign descent. Charles 04:00, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Royalty, nobility, peerage intersect

Numerous peers are tagged as royal when they are in fact merely noble. See [1] and [2]. A few are both. Most are not. Who should be classified as royal? Secondly, should this project not cover royalty rather than royalty and nobility - nothwithstanding some people will be both. - Kittybrewster ☎ 18:07, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

So far as I understand these things, "royals" are those descended from monarchs or married to monarchs or their descendants. The article Royal family suggests that the inclusion generally goes as far as grandchildren, but that great-grandchildren are not usually considered as part of a "royal family". In the case of the British Royal Family, there appears to be a further refinement in limiting it to "male-line grandchildren of the monarch", which would rule out Peter Phillips and Zara Phillips, both of whom are in any case clearly non-noble.
If this rule is applied, then very few living people on the intersection list qualify, but the list does include many people from previous centuries. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:09, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Eardwulf of Northumbria

I wonder if there's anyone would have time to take a look at Eardwulf of Northumbria, which is currently a featured article candidate. It is in need of some proof-reading. I've read it often enough that I'm unlikely to spot errors or infelicities any more, so some fresh eyes would be a big help. Thanks in advance, Angus McLellan (Talk) 14:34, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Louis XIX, Henry V and Philip VII of France??

Would someone check up the articles List of French monarchs, Louis-Antoine, Duke of Angouleme and Henri, comte de Chambord. GoodDay (talk) 01:56, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Holy Roman Emeperor-elect??

I've never heard of this term before, but it's been added & discussed at Holy Roman Emperors, the post-1508 emperors have the 'elect' tag. GoodDay (talk) 21:15, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Sampling of ancestry charts in history texts

One issue often raised over inclusion of genealogical charts in Wiki bios is the extent to which such charts were included in paper texts. Below is a non-scientific sampling on that point excerpted from Talk:Louis V of France#Ahnentafel:

I checked my shelves. I either have at the moment or will be recieving soon most of the recent works on the Anglo-Norman kings of England. I also have a good number of ones on the later Anglo-Saxons and the Angevins, so it's a decent shelf of scholarly royal biographies. This is the results: Paul Hill's The Age of Athelstan has no ahnentafel, but does have a genalogical chart of the kings and a descendants chart; Ann Williams' Æthelred the Unready has no ahnentafel but does have descent charts of the king and two ealdormen; Frank Barlow's has no ahnentafel but does have two very complicated descent charts in the back; Ian Walker's Harold has no ahnentafel but has three line descent charts; David Douglas' William the Conqueror has no ahnentafel, but does have nine line descent charts; Frank Barlow's William Rufus has no ahnentafel, but does have 13 line descent charts; Warren Hollister's Henry I has no ahnentafel, but does have a line descent chart; John Appleby's The Troubled Reign of King Stephen has no ahnentafel, but does have seven line descent charts; Donald Matthew's King Stephen has no genealogical charts of any kind; R. H. C. Davis' King Stephen (3rd ed.) has no ahnentafel, but has one line descent chart; W. L. Warren's Henry II has no ahnentafel; but has eleven line charts; John Gillingham's Richard I has no genealogical charts at all; W. L. Warren's King John has no genealogical charts at all; Michael Prestwich's Edward I has no ahnentafel, but has four line descent charts; Richard Barber's Edward Prince of Wales and Aquitaine has no ahnentafel, but has one line descent chart; Nigel Saul's Richard II has no ahnentafel but has one line descent chart; Christopher Allmand's Henry V has no ahnentafel, but has one line descent chart; Charles Ross' Edward IV has no ahnentafel, but has four line descent charts; Charles Ross' Richard III has no ahnentafel, but has four line descent charts; S. B. Chrimes Henry VII has no ahnentafel, but has four line descent charts; Jennifer Loach's Edward VI has no genealogical charts at all. Almost all of these books are in the English Monarch's series pubished by either the University of California Press or Yale University Press. Of the 22 books listed, not one has an ahnentafel, but 18 have some sort of line descent chart. Only 4 have no genealogical charts at all. For more general scholarly works that survey more than one reign, Barlow's The Feudal Kingdom of England has no ahnentafel, but does have two line descent charts; A. L. Poole's Domesday Book to Magna Carta (2nd ed) has no genealogical charts at all; Ralph Griffiths' The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries has no ahnentafel, but has three line descent charts; Geoffrey Hindley's A Brief History of the Anglo-Saxons has no ahnentafel but has a very brief line descent chart; John Gillingham's The Wars of the Roses has no ahnentafel, but has a line descent chart; Frank Stenton's Anglo-Saxon England (3rd ed) has no genealogical charts of any kind; Robert Bartlett's England Under the Norman and Angevin Kings has no ahnentafel, but has four line descent charts; Paul Hill's The Road to Hastings has no ahnentafel, but has a number of line charts; David Crouch's The Normans has no ahnentafel, but has several line descent charts; Richard Huscroft's Ruling England has no ahnentafel, but has a descent chart; Marjorie Chibnall's Anglo-Norman England has a sort of ahnentafel .. it lists all eight great-grandparents of Henry II in a simplified chart that runs vertically plus a line descent chart; Michael Prestwich's Plantagenet England has no ahnentafel, but has several line descent charts. That makes 1 sorta ahnentafel, 9 genealogical charts but no ahnentafel, and 2 no genealogical charts at all from 12 general survey's. Not that most of these are designed as undergraduate and graduate level college textbooks for survey classes or are part of the Oxford University's History of England series. Of other scholarly biographies Emma Mason's The House of Godwine has no genealogical charts at all; Kenneth Fowler's The King's Lieutenant: Henry of Grosmont has no genealogical charts; Frank Barlow's Thomas Becket has no ahnentafel, but a line chart; Sally Vaughn's Anselm of Bec and Robert of Meulan has no ahnentafel, but does have two line charts; Michael Brown's The Black Douglases has no ahnentafel, but does have line charts; Eleanor Duckett's Alfred the Great has no genealogical charts at all; Ronald Scott's Robert the Bruce has no ahnentafel, but does have line descent charts; Marion Meade's Eleanor of Aquitaine has no ahnentafel, but does have a line descent chart; Harriet O'Brien's Queen Emma and the Vikings has no ahnentafel but does have two line descent charts. That gives 0 with ahnentafel, 6 with genealogical charts, and 3 with no genealogical charts at all. Lastly, there are the "popular" histories. This is works by good historians, but aimed at not a scholarly audience, but the wider reading public. Alison Weir and Desmond Seward are popular "popular" writers. Weir's Queen Isabella has no ahnentafel, but two VERY complicated line charts; Seward's Eleanor of Aquitaine has no genealogical charts; Seward's The Wars of the Roses has no ahnentafel, but has several genealogical charts; Weir's The Princes in the Tower has no ahnentafel, but does have a genealogical descent chart; Seward's The Hundred Year's War has no ahnentafel, but does have line descent charts; Seward's Richard III has no ahnentafel, but does have two line descent charts; Bertram Fields' Royal Blood has no genealogical charts at all; and Weir's The Wars of the Roses has no ahnentafel, but does have descent charts. Of those 9 books, 0 have ahnentafel, 7 have genealogical charts of some sort, and 2 have no genalogical charts at all. All the publishing information on these books can be found at User:Ealdgyth/History References
To recap this LONG list, of the 22 scholarly royal biographies, 0 have ahnentafels, 18 have other types of genealogical charts, and 4 have no charts at all. Of the 12 survey's, 1 has something close to an ahnentafel, 9 have other types of genealogical charts, and 2 have no charts at all. Of the 9 non-royal scholarly biographies, 0 have ahnentafels, 6 have genealogical charts of some sort, and 3 have no genealogical charts at all. Of the 9 popular histories, 0 have ahnentafels, 7 have some sort of genealogical chart, and 2 have no genealogical charts at all. I'd say that from my survey, line charts are actually common in scholarly works, but true ahnentafels in a chart are very rare. Ealdgyth | Talk 16:01, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
Bravo Ealdgyth for doing the homework! Unless someone plans to a do a more extensive analysis, the question of whether genealogical charts are usual in historical biographies on royalty (and history involving dynasties) is answered in the affirmative. So the question is what kind is appropriate, since the ahnentafel is simply a form of genealogical chart, althouth it has not been the norm in history books heretofore. That could be because the format was little known, graphically difficult, or considered space-consuming -- not grounds for excluding it from Wiki. Yet not only do the overwhelming majority of the cited history books have genealogy charts, but a majority also have more than one. Genealogical charts are usually patrilineal or focus on descent from a common ancestor. Ahnentafels combine lineages from several ancestors to culminate in the subject of the Wiki bio. Arguably, rather than over-consuming article space, they efficiently compress and focus detail.
But an alternative interpretation is that ahnentafels haven't been used because their standard format doesn't include the information most relevant to the historical text. Ahnentafels focus on ascent rather than descent. For instance, the ahnentafel at Juan Carlos I of Spain does help clarify why, when Francisco Franco was choosing who "of royal blood" would fill the vacant throne, Don Juan de Borbón was a strong genealogical contender. But it omits Don Juan's elder brother, Jaime, Duke of Segovia, his nephew Alfonso, Duke of Cádiz (who had wed Franco's granddaughter), and Carlos Hugo, Duke of Parma, the Carlist pretender. To show all of these princes' kinship to Juan Carlos, to the previous king, Alfonso XIII, and to Franco would be relevant to Spain's history and present politics, would simplify what text alone complicates, yet it would require a different kind of graphic. Royal genealogy charts qualify for inclusion, but ahnentafels? Lethiere (talk) 05:22, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
I have no problem with genealogical charts (family trees). The major problem is with format. I think that using an image like Image:BrittanyDukes.png as a thumbnail is the best, but that requires editors to create such nice trees. I think ahnentafels, however, are not a great aid to the reader. Srnec (talk) 06:09, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
Furthermore, these images could be kept in their own articles, like Kings and dukes of Brittany family tree, with a link in a "See also" section at bottom (though I am not a fan of "see also"). Srnec (talk) 06:11, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
My "large sample" is the inverse of Ealdgyth's: a lot of tables from a small number of books. I just had a skim through Régine Le Jan, Famille et Pouvoir dans le Monde Franc. That includes 73 (seventy three) family tree-ish tables The small tables most commonly show patrilineal descent, the larger ones the interrelations between families (the table showing the [Faronids]] and their kin is the most convoluted). Riché's Le Carolingiens has 34 tables, all patrilineal descent type, for groups from the Carolingians to the Unruochings. Other books with a significant number of tables include Byrne's Irish Kings and High Kings with 21, Thomas Charles-Edwards's Early Christian Ireland with 20, Yorke's Kings and kingship in early Anglo-Saxon England with 16, and Kirby's Earliest English Kings with 10. I think that's 174 tables from six books, a handful showing ascent and none resembling an ahnentafel. This is not to say that we should never show ascent. Juan Carlos is very modern, but Congalach Cnogba would be better with an ahnentafel style chart showing his grandparents than a patrilineal chart, not that this means we need to add either sort. A patrilineal chart for Conrad II would be unhelpful, but someone has done Image:Ottonian Salian dynasty.JPG so that we can see how Conrad is related to previous emperors. An ahnentafel template, partly filled in like User:Angusmclellan/Conrad, would have done as well, but we can be sure that it would not have remained partly filled in and ancestors real and imagined would soon fill it up. Angus McLellan (Talk) 11:20, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
I suspect that the reason our results differed in numbers is I was mainly looking at biographies or histories of short periods of time. If I'd been looking at the Oxford or Cambridge large scale histories, or histories of kingship, I'd probably have found more charts. Ealdgyth | Talk 15:58, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
It is only an ahnentafel, really, when considering the numbers. Otherwise it is an ancestral tree. An ahnentafel is just a numbered list. Charles 07:03, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
I am rather taken aback by the claim made above that ahnentafels are "very rare". Just in the last few days I have used several books which include them:
They are clearly not "very rare". Noel S McFerran (talk) 15:44, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
Look at the time frame of your examples, Noel, as against mine. The latest biography I listed was on Henry VII of England, who died in 1509. Most of them are from the Conquest until the Wars of the Roses, so they are pretty classically medieval history. Pedigree charts are non-existant in medieval books, at least in their true ahnentafel form. We may have to consider some sort of modern vs medieval/ancient cutoff. Even the classic pedigree chart is rare in medieval biographies, I only found one that showed all the great-grandparents. However, line charts showing lines of descent, or lines of ascent are not rare in medieval scholarship. For that matter, the classic pedigree chart is not even used all the time in genealogical works either. Richardson's Plantagenet Ancestry uses them, but BOY is his work huge. Weis uses a register format, which makes things a lot easier. I have to agree with Angus on the fact that "empty" spaces in pedigree charts invite people to fill them in. And they are not very conducive to footnoting either, which makes verifying them difficult. Ealdgyth | Talk 15:58, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
The research done here on frequency of genealogical charts in historical works should be noted & preserved for future reference -- is Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography/Royalty an appropriate site? Are there others? It sounds as if genealogical info is useful if tailored to the subject of the article, or to the content's text. Three kinds of charts sound useful:
  1. Succession sequence -- included in bios where the order of succession may have been uncontested but kinship to predecessors may not be obvious, e.g. Edward the Confessor, Louis XV, Charles Albert of Sardinia, Charles Edward, Duke of Saxe-Coburg, and Adolphe, Grand Duke of Luxembourg
  2. Succession rivalry -- included to show genealogical sources of claims & kinships among rivals for a throne (e.g. William the Conqueror, Mary, Queen of Scots, Henry IV of France, Maria Theresa of Austria, Louis-Philippe of France, Christian IX of Denmark, King Norodom Sihamoni of Cambodia, and Prince Luís of Orléans-Braganza (one of three pretenders who campaigned for the monarchy when Brazil held a 1993 referendum on restoration)
  3. Dynastic influence -- used to illustrate how kinships influenced national, international or dynastic politics, culture, or the bio's subject, e.g. Hugh Capet, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, Philippe Egalité, Queen Victoria, Alexander, Prince of Bulgaria, Tsarevich Alexei of Russia, Mafalda of Hesse, Crown Prince Dipendra of Nepal.
Why not use these (or other) categories as criteria to determine inclusion and kind of genealogical information to be charted? Lethiere (talk) 04:56, 25 November 2007 (UTC) Lethiere (talk) 00:53, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Template standardization

I'm noticing a lot of templates listing members of royal families with abbreviated, inconsistent or inappropriate (such as giving the main-line title to a junior branch of the family) titles. For the sake of ease of navigation, should be have a guideline or style guide as to how to name these templates and should be categorize them together?

For instance, former ruling families could have templates with "mandated" names like Titular ...-ian/-ish/etc Royal Family, former dynasties could have titles like House of Bourbon (France), House of Bourbon (Spain), House of Hanover (UK), House of Saxe-Coburg & Gotha (Belgium) or House of Saxe-Coburg & Gotha (UK)... Rather than "unfairly" just giving Template:House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha as the British line and bizarrely naming the Belgians as Template:S-C-G-B or even completely ignoring the extant House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha who are no longer British royalty. Charles 02:06, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree that we need a standard for naming and categorizing royal navigation templates. Concerning template categorization, there should be two separate categories: a category for royal families (example: Template:Romanian Royal Family) and a category for royal houses and dynasties (example: Template:House of Bernadotte). Currently, they are all lumped together under Category:Royal families of Europe navigation templates. One could argue that a category for royal families could be subdivided between current and titular categories (the semantics of which could be hammered out later). I also concur with the proposed naming conventions above (although I am rarely a fan of the usage of ampersands in titles). --Caponer (talk) 05:17, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
Let's discuss naming and then categories, so we can go through and fix them all at once. Charles 21:37, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
In agreement with Charles, let's standardize. GoodDay (talk) 17:14, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
See my proposal below :-) Charles 21:37, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Proposal

  • Current and extant royal families: ...-ian/-ish/etc Royal/Ducal/etc Family, e.g. Monegasque Princely Family, British Royal Family
  • Extant, former royal families: Titular ...-ian/-ish/etc Royal/Ducal/etc Family e.g. Titular Austrian Imperial Family
  • Junior, differentiated or past branches of royal houses/families: House of ... (Territory), e.g. House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (Belgium), House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (UK), House of Hanover (UK), House of Bourbon (France), House of Bourbon (Spain). Templates split between monarchs, periods of time, etc, can be differentiated from the accession of the first monarch in the template to the death of the last. For different lines of one family or where a junior line of one house came to rule in another territory.
  • General house templates: House of ..., e.g. House of Oldenburg, House of Wettin, House of Bourbon. Good for House articles (like House of Bourbon) to navigate to other branches of the family.

Discussion

Any comments on the different groupings or on the proposed naming formats? Charles 21:37, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Anyone? :-) Charles 16:36, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps there's been no reply because others, like me, find the proposal entirely uncontroversial? DBD 17:42, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
Well, sound good to me then! Although I have been accused before of being too bold for the same situation in other places! ;) Charles 18:02, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
I did say "perhaps"... :D DBD 19:30, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
You can see the progress I've made so far in the following two new categories: Category:European royal family navigation templates and Category:European royal house navigation templates. You can see the pattern I've been follow so far. I've been emptying them from Category:Royal families of Europe navigation templates but I am sure there are more around (and also there are some problem ones like the Bourbon and Habsburg, with weird disambiguations). Charles 22:21, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
I need help and suggestions with what to do with the remaining categories in Category:Royal families of Europe navigation templates, namely the Bourbon and Habsburg categories. Charles 12:46, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject redirects and name

I think this WikiProject should be named Wikipedia:WikiProject Royalty in the same fashion as the British royalty Wikiproject, for simplicity's sake. Also, I think our scope encompasses a little more than the biographical aspects of the articles. As well, I think we need some simple redirects. What about WP:ROY, WP:ROYAL and WP:ROYALTY? Charles 04:31, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Well WP:ROYAL's being used already, but I like the idea of WP:ROYALTY. Morhange (talk) 05:43, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps all the links to WP:ROYAL (which are very few, I believe) could be changed and then the redirect used for here. We could use all three redirect, really. What do you think of the WikiProject's name? Charles 06:19, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
I support Charles' proposal — it certainly fosters closer links with WP:BRoy DBD 12:07, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
I support Charles' proposal, too. Simplification is always a good option. GoodDay (talk) 17:17, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
I have moved the WikiProject and have created the redirects for both the mainpage and for the talk page, which you can see in the top right hand corner. Charles 21:20, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Jazmin Grace Grimaldi

There's been BLP issues with this, and OTRS complaint, and a lot of rather shoddy editorialising. It would be good to get some eyes from this project on it (watchlist and re-writing). She's certainly notable and there's material we can use. But do remember she's a minor, so her "legitimacy" needs carefully handled and any personal information needs to have clear relevance. Thanks.--Docg 13:29, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

On the note of this article, do we need one on Tamara Rotolo? Why not combine the two? Jazmin is far more notable than her mother. Charles 16:50, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
Sounds sensible, but I'll leave it to you guys.--Docg 16:57, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Earned German noble titles

Hi all. It seems im the only participant in German Royalty subgroup. I have a question concerning earned noble titles. Im working on a list of WWI flying aces. When i want to create an article should i start it as Eduard Schleich or Eduard Ritter von Schleich? He was given this title after the King of Bavaria gave it to him for his deeds in the air force. Merry Christmas --Panth (talk) 20:38, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Where is this German royal subgroup? The name should reflect the highest or most recent legal name of the individual, in my opinion. Charles 20:43, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
Ok i will start his article after christmas, dont have my reference books handy at the moment. The subgroup is here. Wikipedia:WikiProject_Biography/Royalty#Germany, maybe i should simply put my name in the main group of royalty. --Panth (talk) 14:30, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Help, Please!

The article on Devyani Rana of Nepal contains the following line: “Devyani is a member of the C class Rana family...” Would someone explain what "C class" refers to??? I'd also be happy to revise the article incorporating the reference. Thank you, Shir-El too 14:17, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

A quick Google search of C class Rana gives the following Wikipedia article: Rana autocracy. It only has one source though. A link on the first page of Google results also shows this:

'A' class Ranas - were the direct and legitimate offspring of Ranas, and could only dine with any high-caste Chhetri family.

'B' class Ranas - usually born of second wives, could take part in all forms of social interaction with high-caste Chhetris, except the sharing of boiled rice.

'C' class Ranas - were the offspring of wives and concubines of lower status with whom inter-dining was forbidden.

Hope this helps, we get very few questions on Asian royalty here so I don't imagine too many of us are familiar with it. Charles 22:03, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Pretender infobox

The title parameter... Is it title used or titular position (e.g. Prince of Prussia vs. German Emperor and King of Prussia). If either, it should be clarified or there should be one of each. Charles 16:34, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Style guide

Should be compose a style guide for use in royalty articles, such as the proper format for title sections, filling in infoboxes, etc? Charles 16:35, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

According to the categories on the front page, this project covers every continent and five thousand years of history. Category:FA-Class biography (royalty) articles and Category:GA-Class biography (royalty) articles run from Sargon of Akkad to Bhumibol Adulyadej. Not much in common there.
Looking at the categories leads me to ask if there is an automatic update of the front page here. It seems not. The count and lists of FA/GA articles are out of date, etc. Angus McLellan (Talk) 12:32, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps just a guide of general advise like WP:PEER, as opposed to the exemplar-type style guide at WP:BROY (whose remit is narrower by far...) DBD 12:44, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
Well, I think I just revealed my narrow European mindset! I feel rather dumb :-P Thank you anyway, gentlemen. Charles 13:09, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
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