Talk:Descent from antiquity

Bulgarian link

Ripsimia is specified as the daughter of Ashot II in the Medieval Lands database, http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/BULGARIA.htm#_Toc137439348. However, no authority is given for this parentage. Is it just a plausible guess? DonStone01 (talk) 03:14, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Ripsimia's parentage is not given by Fine in The Early Medieval Balkans (1983/1991), which Medieval Lands cites for most of its data on the Cometopuli dynasty. It is not given by Mladjov (Fine's student) in the several charts that include Ripsimia in his 2003 article "Reconsidering Agatha, Wife of Eadward the Exile." Ditto for Mladjov's chart "The Descent of H.M. Simeon II from the Medieval Rulers of Bulgaria" at http://www-personal.umich.edu/~imladjov/SIMEONII.doc. Toumanoff in Les dynasties de la Caucasie chrétiennne (1990) doesn't give any children for Ashot II. So far as I know, Settipani has not suggested this Ripsimia-AshotII connection, and Adontz says that Ripsimia is an Armenian, not that she is an Armenian princess. DonStone01 (talk) 00:24, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Whose descent

This article doesn't specify whose descent we are talking about. Obviously most of these antique figures will have some living descendents, but I assume we're here talking specifically about them having living descendents among the European, or more specifically British, aristocratic families. It would be good for the article to state this clearly. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.245.172.250 (talk) 05:50, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't say whose descent we are talking about because it isn't talking about any specific modern person or group of people. Why do you assume that it is? The article makes clear that it has a European bias because that is where most of the work has been done, but it also talks about Muslim, Indian, Chinese and Japanese descents. --69.241.124.150 22:54, 12 September 2007 (UTC) (Chris Bennett from another PC)

Hilde, spurious ancestress of legendary Ivarr Vidfami

copied following:

(Jared Linn Olar wrote) Subject: Re: gateway descents from Kings of Vandals, via Kings of Burgundy, via Volsungs of Allemania, Cambresis, & Denmark Date: 18 Jun 2004 10:05:37 -0700 References:

david hughes wrote: > gateway descents from Kings of Vandals, via Kings of Burgundy, via > Volsungs of Allemania, Cambresis, & Denmark > ------------------------------------------------------------- > 10. Hilderic, Vandal-King 523-530 deposed, d533 > issue: > a. Gormund, Byzantine Governor of North Africa 534-543, father of > Hilde, wife of Valdar "The Dane" > b. Hilde, wife of Frode VII, King of Denmark

"Gormund" is mentioned in Geoffrey of Monmouth's "History of the Kings of Britain" as a king of Germans in Africa who led an invasion of Ireland and Britain during the reign of a Briton king named Careticus (Ceretic) in the latter half of the 500s A.D. Careticus supposedly was successful in beating back with terrible invasion, though historical records don't mention anything of it. I believe Geoffrey got the story of Gormund from someone -- I don't think it was original with Geofrrey, but I don't know where he might have heard it. In any event, I'm aware of no reason to believe Gormund ever existed, let alone that he was a son of Hilderic, King of the Vandals.

As for Hilde, daughter of Hilderic, I've seen that spurious filiation several times. It's based on a medieval Icelandic legendary pedigree of Ivar Vidfadmi, a legendary conquering king of Scania, Denmark, Sweden, Russia, and Northumbria who, again, may not have existed. The pedigree first appears, I believe, in certain manuscripts of the Hervarar Saga ok Heithreks Konungs. Ivar was supposedly descended from a princess named Hild, daughter of Heidrik (Heithrekr) Ulfham, King of Reidgothaland, traditionally identified as Jutland and/or Mecklenburg. However, I've not yet found any early texts that identify Hild's husband as Frode -- Hervarar Saga says she married a Danish king named Valdar, but other Old Icelandic sources show Valdar as an apparent descendant, not husband, of Hild.

Since the area of Heidrik's kingdom was associated with both the German Vandals and the Slavic Wends, and since some later writers came up with a false theory that the Vandals and the Wends were the same people, someone came up with the idea that Heidrik Ulfham was a legendary memory of the historical Vandal king Hilderic, and thus invented a descent from the Vandal kings through the legendary kings of Denmark and Sweden. However, there is simply no proof that Heidrik Ulfham was Hilderic -- the names might seem similar, but just as the Frankish royal name Hilderic is found in Old Icelandic texts as Hjalprekr, so we should expect a Vandal king named Hilderic to be mentioned in Old Icelandic texts as Hjaldrekr, or something like that, not Heithrekr. Again, the legends of Heidrik Ulfham never associate him with Africa, only with Northern Europe -- yet it was well known throughout Europe, even Scandinavia, that the Vandals had migrated to North Africa. One would expect some trace of that in the legends of Heidrek Ulfham if it were true that he was based on the historical Hilderic the Vandal.

At your service,

Jared L. Olar

Jared has given an extremely clear accont of why this socalled "Danish route" is not eligible for mention here, unless you wish to start a section on "widely repeated but delusional descents". Didn't the words "spurious filiation" ring any kind of a bell?? --Chris Bennett 02:48, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Bibliography

"Much of the published work on this topic is as fantastical as any medieval genealogy and is to be avoided, or used with great caution."

This is unencyclopedic and blatantly POV (in self-contradiction regarding my recent edit summary). An encyclopedia article should simply report that relevant, yet dubious, works are unreliable for serious scholarship, rather than admonish readers from referring to them and dismiss them as "fantastical". My version, "Much of the published work on this topic is widely regarded as no more reliable than medieval genealogical records," unlike the above one, is something one might actually read in an encyclopedia. --Jugbo 20:31, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I've reverted to the original version pending resolution of this issue. Please leave it alone until we conclude this discussion.

The main problem with your edit is not the wording, it's your proposal to reposition it. In essence, the original notice is a consumer alert. It was made specifically with respect to Stuart's work, and was deliberately intended to distinguish it from the other works in the bibliography as a book to be avoided. By moving the statement to the beginning you have lumped the entire bibliography under the notice. This is flatly wrong, the cited works are not at all equivalent in their scholarship.

Let me explain why the notice is where it is. This field is very popular with amateur researchers seeking to push their ancestry back as far as it will go. Many of them take anything they read at face value if it appears to allow them to add another generation or 50 to their database. In the amateur genealogical community, Stuart's book is by far the most widely known and used source claiming to provide DFA-type descents. That makes it not only relevant to the article but also very difficult to leave out of the bibliography. But it is also an exceptionally bad piece of pseudo-scholarship. If you took a moment to compare it to, say, Settipani's Nos ancetres de l'antiquite, or Wagner's essay, which are the two items cited that are closest in comparable scope, you would see immediately that that statement is not POV, it's an objective assessment of academic quality.

Normally, bibliographic references are implicit recommendations that the cited sources have material allowing you to learn more about the article in question. In the case of Stuart's book, the only ethical recommendation is to avoid this work like the plague. There is no way to do that except by making an explicit statement to that effect.

As to editorial philosophy, there is a difference between an informed assessment and POV. The first is giving guidance, the second is promoting a particular view point. Because many genealogical researchers come to this topic through an interest in their own family trees rather than historical standards of research, and because the field is full of bad literature, it's entirely appropriate that the bibliography in this article should be explicit in giving guidance.

As to wording, I wouldn't have any problem with something like: "Much of the published work on this topic is no more reliable than medieval genealogies, and should be used cautiously. A well-known example is:" (Not "medieval genealogical records" as you suggest. Those are wills, charters etc -- source documents which, if they are contemporary, are about as reliable as you can get.) While, in the spirit of guidance, I would prefer "Useful material" in introducing the discussion lists, I also don't have a problem with "Additional material" if it really matters to you.

Hope that clarifies the objectives. --Chris Bennett 22:17, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I didn't understand that the notice regarded only Stuart's book. It struck me as biased and unencyclopedic, so judging by it's quality I assumed it was carelessly injected by a petulant hardass, and attempted to improve the section by re-wording it and moving it to the top. My primary problem was the stuffy tone of the warning, and so I tried to make it more encyclopedic.

"As to wording, I wouldn't have any problem with something like: "Much of the published work on this topic is no more reliable than medieval genealogies, and should be used cautiously. A well-known example is:"

Good, then. That's much better. --Jugbo 20:45, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Citations

Some anonymous user has repeatedly added an "unreferenced" tag to this article despite the fact that it contains nearly 20 sources in the References section. When he first did this I reverted and pointed out that the article was in fact referenced. When he did it again, I assumed that it was because he was unaware that citations do not have to be inline, so I reverted this, pointing out that WP:CIT does not require citations to be inline:

Any style or system is acceptable on Wikipedia so long as articles are internally consistent. You should follow the style already established in an article, if it has one

and

Articles can be supported with references in two ways: the provision of general references ("References") – books or other sources that support a significant amount of the material in the article – and inline citations ("Notes").

Clearly, this article has an established style of providing general references, and there are plenty of them, and they support a significant amount of the material in the article.

On his next pass our driveby shooter noted that WP:CIT requires inline citations for featured articles, and proceeded to pepper the article with "fact" tags on every sentence, even including the definitional sentences at the start of the article.

Now, when I pointed out WP:CIT, I also told this person that if he wanted inline citations he should stop whining and start adding them. I meant it. If someone wants to beef this article up to be a featured article, more power to them. I also have no objection if they want to change the established style of the article, though I don't think it's necessary myself. But I do expect them to do the work. It's damn rude to demand a change to the format of an article which conforms to WP guidelines just because you don't like the current format, when you clearly have no intention of contributing anything yourself.

So, to the driveby tagger, if you want to improve this article stop whining and get to work. The referencing is certainly not perfect, you could tag sections which do need references added, or, better, start adding them. If you really want to change the style to inline citations, start adding inline citations. I suggest you proceed by reviewing the material that is available online and linking it to the statements that you think need to be cited inline. Who knows, you might even get interested in the topic.

But if you're just going to vandalise the article, you're wasting everybody's time, including your own.

--Chris Bennett (talk) 15:37, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Citations

Per Wikipedia Policies:

INLINE CITATIONS ("Notes"), are MANDATED by the featured article criteria and (to a lesser extent) the good article criteria. Opinions, data and statistics, and statements based on someone's scientific work should be cited and attributed to their authors IN THE TEXT. INLINE CITATIONS are references WITHIN THE TEXT that provide source information for specific statements. They are appropriate for supporting statements of fact and are needed for statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged. All citation techniques REQUIRE detailed full citations to be provided for each source used. Footnotes are usually placed at the end of a sentence or paragraph. If a particular claim in an article lacks citation and is doubtful, consider placing after the sentence or removing it.

Passages open to interpretation should be precisely cited or avoided. Articles should rely on reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. This means that we only publish the opinions of reliable authors, and not the opinions of Wikipedians who have read and interpreted primary source material for themselves. Material that has been vetted by the scholarly community is regarded as reliable; this means published in peer-reviewed sources, and reviewed and judged acceptable scholarship by the academic journals. Citing sources and avoiding original research are inextricably linked: to demonstrate that you are not presenting original research, you must cite reliable sources that provide information directly related to the topic of the article, and that directly support the information as it is presented. No original research (NOR) is one of three content policies. The others are neutral point of view (NPOV) and verifiability (V). Jointly, these policies determine the type and quality of material that is acceptable in articles. Information in an article must be verifiable in the references cited.

The purpose of citing your sources is:

   * To ensure that the content of articles can be checked by any reader or editor.
   * To show that your edit is not original research and to reduce editorial disputes.
   * To avoid claims of plagiarism and copying.
   * To help users find additional information on the topic.
   * To ensure that material about living persons complies with biography policy.
   * To improve the credibility of Wikipedia.

As to Chris Bennett who remarked "driveby shooter", "driveby tagger", "whining", "vandalise the article"; more Wikipedia Policy - Any good-faith effort to improve the encyclopedia, even if misguided or ill-considered, is not vandalism. Chris Bennett is "damn rude". Also, he is trying to keep a bad article while I am trying to improve this article according to standards! Don't attack others because you were to lazy to properly reference this article.