Otho de Windsor ancestor of FitzGeralds....connection to Gherardinis of Tuscany

[Michael Rochester]

Hi: I am a direct descendant of Otho de Windsor and a very imformative web series (genealogical) on YouTube called Useful Charts claims that Otho de Windsor, who had a son Walter FitzOther, was a member of the Gheradini family of Mona Lisa fame. Now, is there anything concrete connecting Otho to that family? Any pedigrees, etc that can shed light on this Italian ancestry?

[Mark Jennings]

On Saturday, January 23, 2021 at 4:28:12 AM UTC, kingofr...@gmail.com wrote:
> Hi: I am a direct descendant of Otho de Windsor and a very imformative web series (genealogical) on YouTube called Useful Charts claims that Otho de Windsor, who had a son Walter FitzOther, was a member of the Gheradini family of Mona Lisa fame. Now, is there anything concrete connecting Otho to that family? Any pedigrees, etc that can shed light on this Italian ancestry?

Like the various worthless Wikipedia articles on these families, and other breathless online genealogies (some of which trace the family line all the way back to ancient Troy), this claim is without any foundation.

Horace Round slew this fantastic chimera as long ago as 1902:

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Ancestor/Number_1/The_Origin_of_the_FitzGeralds

Keats-Rohan (DD, 455) suggests that Walter Fitz Other "came from western Normandy". The "Gerald" part of the family's subsequently established surname came from their ancestor Gerald of Windsor, and not from any supposes connection with the Italian Gherardinis.

[Michael Rochester]

Thank you for your quick response. I went to YouTube to dispute the ancestry and link to JFK and Mona Lisa and got crucified by commenters. I guess they want it to be real, so it is "real" to them.

Mike

[Peter Stewart]

I'm not sure what you mean by putting "real" in inverted commas, but if
this indicates that you think these people actually believe themselves
to be truthful then I have some shares in the Brooklyn Bridge that I
could sell you at a special price.

The impulses for people to continue sticking by falsehoods they have
invested in AFTER they realise they were duped are basically the same as
the impulse to believe these people are truthful dupes: gullibility
(wanting to credit others at face value) and rationalisation (making
excuses for yourself and for them when this goes wrong).

Some people lie to themselves and hope to convince others by doing it
all the more vehemently when challenged. Witness QAnon ...

Peter Stewart

[Michael Rochester]

So true...and the best stuff is truth, stranger than fiction. Learning about the sordid history of my Despencer ancestors, including the one drawn and quartered, is far more interesting than embellished fantasy

[Hans Vogels]

Op zaterdag 23 januari 2021 om 05:28:12 UTC+1 schreef kingofr...@gmail.com:

> Hi: I am a direct descendant of Otho de Windsor and a very imformative web series (genealogical) on YouTube called Useful Charts claims that Otho de Windsor, who had a son Walter FitzOther, was a member of the Gheradini family of Mona Lisa fame. Now, is there anything concrete connecting Otho to that family? Any pedigrees, etc that can shed light on this Italian ancestry?

Just for fun, where in "Useful Charts" (in which video) is this mentioned?
I had never heard of it before.

Hans Vogels

[Peter Stewart]

On 27-Jan-21 4:29 PM, Michael Rochester wrote:
> So true...and the best stuff is truth, stranger than fiction. Learning about the sordid history of my Despencer ancestors, including the one drawn and quartered, is far more interesting than embellished fantasy

The kind of willing self-deceit, deliberately flying in the face of
plain fact, that you encountered from the YouTube people is no doubt as
old as humankind, but it does seem to be flourishing at present in a
sort of mass hysteria across whole populations. When 46.8% of votes can
be cast for a howling and corrupt jackass as president of the USA,
something is drastically awry in national sanity.

Psychology should come up with a classification for this sort of
anti-truth delirium - maybe Obsessive-Compulsive Contrarian Disorder (OCCD).

All (or I should say any...) of the 74+ million Trumpists who are
capable of thought will surely before long scatch their collective heads
and wonder "What were we thinking?"

Meanwhile may SGM remain an island of common-sense in an ocean of crazy.

Peter Stewart

[taf]

On Tuesday, January 26, 2021 at 1:34:08 PM UTC-8, pss...@optusnet.com.au wrote:

> Some people lie to themselves and hope to convince others by doing it
> all the more vehemently when challenged. Witness QAnon ...

This doubling-down effect is seen broadly. To have reached a conclusion and then be shown evidence that the conclusion was wrong, you now not only have to be willing to go through your reasoning and see where you went wrong, you have to have the self-awareness to be able to admit the possibility you could be wrong. The result is counter-intuitive - when a person who has become invested in their viewpoint is shown incontrovertible evidence that they have reached the wrong conclusion, they only become all the more convinced of their position, and that the evidence must be wrong, spinning the most elaborate ad hoc scenarios to enable them to either dismiss it or to twist the evidence to fit their narrative (and usually demonize the person showing them the evidence, to boot, as having some sort of ulterior motive for covering up 'the truth'). It is seen in genealogy all the time. I can't count the number of times I have seen the 'the absence of any evidence for an Iberian Muslim connection only proves it is true, because they wouldn't have tried so hard to destroy all the evidence if it wasn't true. And not just among the novices - a years-long discussion here regarding the family of Piers de Gaveston comes to mind, where a frequent contributor here could not bring himself to accept that he was wrong (and equally important, it seemed, that others were more right than him) and produced progressively more elaborate ad hoc scenarios to account for evidence that clearly contradicted his reconstruction. It is always a risk among scholars in any field, who can become too enamored of their own pet hypotheses and follow it through increasingly more elaborate Rube Goldberg workarounds to avoid having to admit they are wrong, all the while making it harder the more of their careers they have invested, and even every once in a while a whole field will follow them down the rabbit hole for decades before someone comes along and shatters the illusion, after which it all seems so obviously wrong that everyone wonders it could ever have gained traction (and individually the followers suddenly had 'always had doubts' they never expressed).

taf

[Peter Stewart]

The illusion is not always shattered, of course - in some cases it just
gradually fades from view.

This is now slowly happening with the most tenacious and widespread
nonsenses in human history, that are also in cultural and ethical
respects some of the highest achievements of our species: religions.

Modern societies still insist on training generations from infancy in
dumb credulity, and failing to educate them adequately in critical
thinking and simple logic. The deliberate secular illusions - Santa, the
tooth fairy, and so on, prepare the US populace from the cradle for
QAnon and Trumpulation generally among the deplorables who have now
gotten out of their basket.

Peter Stewart

[paulorica...@gmail.com]

Not to detail the thread further but I don't think letting children believe in Santa, the tooth fairy and such is bad. Children are innocent and should have the right to enjoy their fantasies.

[Peter Stewart]

You missed the context: I didn't say it was bad in itself, but coupled
with the failure to educate them adequately later to think for themselves.

There are many millions of Americans today who won't admit that their
only "evidence" for a stolen election is what they were told and spun by
manipulators with ulterior motives for deceiving them.

Ditto medieval Europeans who went on crusade imagining they believed in
"evidence" for incomprehensible doctrines they could never have found
revealed in nature or human intelligence.

Peter Stewart

[paulorica...@gmail.com]

The JFK link isn't necessarily wrong. His mother was a FitzGerald and they may well have been descended from those FitzGeralds.

[Michael Rochester]

It is on YouTube....lots of interesting videos on Royal Houses around the world.

[Michael Rochester]

I am descended from FitzGeralds, some of who came to Ireland, via families like de Burgh, whom I have several lines. President Kennedy's ancestry on any line cannot be ascertained beyond middle to late 1700s on most lines, typical for impoverished families in southern Ireland.

[paulorica...@gmail.com]

A quinta-feira, 11 de fevereiro de 2021 à(s) 07:30:05 UTC, kingofr...@gmail.com escreveu:
> I am descended from FitzGeralds, some of who came to Ireland, via families like de Burgh, whom I have several lines. President Kennedy's ancestry on any line cannot be ascertained beyond middle to late 1700s on most lines, typical for impoverished families in southern Ireland.

I said "may". There's certainly no documentation to prove such a descent but it's perfectly possible.

[John Higgins]

"Perfectly" possible? That's pretty strong... Instead, theoretically possible (based on nothing but "the name's the same" ), but highly unlikely....

[paulorica...@gmail.com]

The FitzGeralds were a Anglo-Norman settler family. They were so throughly absorbed by the Irish that the saying "more Irish than the Irish" was created for them. Thus, it's completely possible that John F. Kennedy's maternal family was a branch of those FitzGeralds.

[Mark Jennings]

Barbara Windsor was an English Dame. Dames are so integral a part of the royal honours system in England that the saying "There's nothing like a Dame" was created for them. Thus, it's completely possible that Barbara Windsor's family was descended from King George V.

[taf]

Given the pressured anglicization of the 16th-18th centuries that resulted in a lot of Irish families adopting Anglo-Norman surnames, one cannot assume descent based on surname alone.

taf

[John Higgins]

Your first two sentences above do nothing to explain WHY it's "completely possible" that the Boston Fitzgeralds are a branch of the noble Irish FitzGeralds. As I said before, it's just the usual argument of "the name's the same".

The FitzGerald name was originally a patronymic - "son of Gerald". The various noble FitzGerald families were extremely haphazard in finally determining to use the FitzGerald name. But of course another son of a different Gerald could have been the progenitor of a different Fitzgerald family. Your argument presumes that ALL Fitzgeralds of Irish descent are possibly descended from the same paternal ancestor. Why apply this argument just to the FitzGeralds? Why not to other Irish families like the Kennedys for example, or the O'Connells? My mother was an O'Neill, but I would never assert , or even suggest, that she might be descended from Niall of the Nine Hostages - as some of the noble O'Neill families do.

[pj.ev...@gmail.com]

I hope you're not serious....

[Mark Jennings]

I think you can relax on that score...

[paulorica...@gmail.com]

This is reductio ad absurdum. Barbara adopted Windsor as a stage name.

[Mark Jennings]

It was certainly tongue-in-cheek. But there was a serious intent behind it: as others have pointed out, there is no particular evidence to posit that Rose Fitzgerald's family were related to the Geraldines, other than "the name's the same" and they lived in Ireland. It is, of course, perfectly possible that there was a descent, but it's also possible that there was a descent from Brian Boru, or from Niall of the Nine Hostages, or from Mary the milkmaid who lived in Kilkenny. Laying it out here without careful qualifications is what can lead to others producing exactly the type of Wikipedia and Youtube nonsense that started this thread in the first place.

PS it doesn't mean that Babs wasn't the secret love-child of Edward VIII... ;-)

[paulorica...@gmail.com]

FitzGerald is of Norman origin. Thus, I think the FitzGeralds of Boston must have been either descended from the famous FitzGeralds or from tenants who took their landlords' name.

[John Higgins]

So, again, EVERY Fitzgerald of Irish descent MUST be connected to the "famous" FitzGeralds - just because "the name's the same"? No matter how many times you repeat it, that continues to be a wild theory.

[paulorica...@gmail.com]

I also said it was possible that they were descended from tenants who took their landlord' name.

[John Higgins]

And I also said that you were suggesting that every Irish Fitzgerald must be CONNECTED - not necessarily descended - from the famous family. However you try to qualify it, it's still a wild theory.

I wonder if there's a genealogy section at Qanon - that might be the place for this "theory". :-)

[Peter Stewart]

But if these Fitzgerald connections are lizard people all bets are off -
they may multiply at rates that make documentation impossible.

Peter Stewart

[paulorica...@gmail.com]

Thing is, Gerald is a Latin name. Don't you, at least, concede that it did not exist in Ireland before the Norman conquest?

[John Higgins]

No, I don't concede that - and you can't prove that it did not exist in Ireland before the Conquest. Irish contact with the continent, and the Latin world, certainly did not just start with the Norman conquest.

[Mark Jennings]

Now you're just trolling.

[Mark Jennings]

On Monday, February 15, 2021 at 2:10:34 AM UTC, paulorica...@gmail.com wrote:

> Thing is, Gerald is a Latin name. Don't you, at least, concede that it did not exist in Ireland before the Norman conquest?

Just to give you a small insight into the nonsense you are determined to peddle:

http://www.catholicireland.net/saintoftheday/st-gerald-of-mayo-d-732/

So, here is a Gerald living in Ireland in the 660s (sic), and an influential one at that. See how easy it is for there to have been other Geralds there long before the Norman conquest (and, more relevantly, the Norman influx into Ireland a century later)?

And what makes you think that Gerald is a Latin name? It isn't - it's Germanic.

[paulorica...@gmail.com]

Apologies. Indeed, Gerald is a Germanic name. Regardless, Saint Gerald of Mayo was born in England.

[Mark Jennings]

He was (England then being largely a Germanic nation FWIW) - but so what? That's totally irrelevant here. Gerald spent his career and made his mark in Ireland, in the 7th century, no less. Remember the claim you were making - clue, it's in the thread quoted within this very message. Don't you, at least, concede that the name Gerald did in fact exist in Ireland before the Norman conquest?

(And perhaps you might reflect on the wisdom of repeatedly making ex cathedra assertions without any evidence, since they risk showing that you don't know what you are talking about?)

[paulorica...@gmail.com]

Sorry for the late reply, but using the name of people who moved countries is kind of cheating. I would be surprised if there were any native Irishmen named Gerald before the Norman conquest.

[Mark Jennings]

Paulo, there really is little point engaging with you. For starters, you constantly keep changing the goal-posts. Read your original statement (above): "don't you at least concede that the name Gerald did not exist in Ireland before the Norman conquest". You've been shown that clearly it did, at least as early as the 660s. That took two minutes of school-boy research. Now you've changed it to denying the use of the name by any "native Irishmen before the conquest". As if St Gerald lived for years in Ireland, made his mark on history there, but could not possibly have passed his name on. And then, as usual, you persist in making sweeping assertions, which you expect others to work on disproving, even though time and time again you demonstrate that you're just making things up as you go. I'm sorry, but I have better things to do with my time than play your games.

[paulorica...@gmail.com]

In a thread back in late 2018, https://groups.google.com/g/soc.genealogy.medieval/c/DrYU5yw_rIc/m/tM2U9r4PAwAJ, the notion that the Latin names Paganus and Richard could have been used by non-clergy in Cornwall before the Norman conquest was dismissed. Why should a similar assumption not be made with regards to the Germanic name Gerald in Ireland?
Regardless, the original discussion wasn't about Gerald as a first name but about FitzGerald as a surname. Remember that, once, most people didn't even have surnames. The idea that all Irish FitzGeralds got their surname from the Hiberno-Norman FitzGeralds isn't that much of a stretch. It was common for tenants to take their landlords' surnames.

[paulorica...@gmail.com]

Correction: I meant the "Latin name Paganus and the Germanic name Richard".
If it can be assumed that the Germanic name Richard did not exist among native Cornishmen before the conquest, I would say the same about Gerald among native Irishmen, especially when you consider the Cornish bordered the Anglo-Saxons whole the Irish were separated from them by the sea.

[Mark Jennings]

<plonk>