Finding royal roots

[Olivier]

Just a reading

http://vita-brevis.org/2016/03/finding-royal-roots/

[taf]

On Wednesday, March 2, 2016 at 6:54:49 AM UTC-8, Olivier wrote:
> Just a reading
>
> http://vita-brevis.org/2016/03/finding-royal-roots/

Unfortunately the pedigree he mentions from the Visitation of Shropshire that traces to Hamelin of Anjou is bogus. It goes through Warenne of Ightfield but bears little resemblance to the actual descent of that family. They are akin to Warenne of Whitchuch/Blancminster/Albo Monasterio and any connection to the Earls Surrey appears to have predated Domesday.

taf

[Peter Stewart]

The pedigree is bogus beyond the line to Hamelin, as it starts with the misstatement that he was an illegitimate son of Henry II (rather than his half-brother, as the blogger curiously mentioned without reflecting on the worthlessness of the source).

I doubt that any connection of the Warennes of Ightfield to the Norman seigneurs of Varenne could be proven.

By the way, the link between soc.genealogy.medieval and Gen-Med appears to be broken - even after resubsubscribing I have received no messages over the past week.

Peter Stewart

[John Higgins]

On Wednesday, March 2, 2016 at 4:25:35 PM UTC-8, Peter Stewart wrote:

> By the way, the link between soc.genealogy.medieval and Gen-Med appears to be broken - even after resubsubscribing I have received no messages over the past week.
>
> Peter Stewart

There seem to be problems at the Rootsweb end of the SGM/Gen-Med bridge - and with Rootsweb in general, not just the link. see the announcement here, which indicates the problems may not be resolved until "on or around March 15, 2016":
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/

[gen.me...@gmail.com]

On Wednesday, March 2, 2016 at 4:25:35 PM UTC-8, Peter Stewart wrote:

> By the way, the link between soc.genealogy.medieval and Gen-Med appears to
> be broken - even after resubsubscribing I have received no messages over
> the past week.

[Answering in my Listowner persona]

As John indicated, it is not just GEN-MED. All of Rootsweb has been down for over a week, and continues so indefinitely. Unfortunately, this means that not only is the GEN-MED list down, but I can't tell subscribers that the list is down, and they can't contact the Listowner to find out what is wrong, because that too goes through Rootsweb, and if they want any other details or contact, they can't look at the FAQ, because that too, you guessed it, is hosted by Rootsweb.

taf

[Peter Stewart]

Thanks - their explanation is "hardware failure" at Rootsweb.

Fancy that. I dare say Hillary Clinton has a spare server she could lend them.

Peter Stewart

[D. Spencer Hines]

Indeed.

...And a staffer to run it, who has now allegedly been granted immunity by
the DOJ.

DSH

Per ignem per gladium

"Peter Stewart" wrote in message
news:0e56221a-e075-4543...@googlegroups.com...

[Henry Soszynski]

Seems that rootsweb expect to be up and running again on or about 15th
March. That's one hell of some hardware failure.

Ancestry no longer care about Rootsweb and don't want to spend any
more money on it. Time to move on?

[taf]

On Wednesday, March 2, 2016 at 4:25:35 PM UTC-8, Peter Stewart wrote:
>

> The pedigree is bogus beyond the line to Hamelin, as it starts with the
> misstatement that he was an illegitimate son of Henry II

Yeah, I din't worry about that since the it blew up before you ever got close.

> I doubt that any connection of the Warennes of Ightfield to the Norman
> seigneurs of Varenne could be proven.

Depending on what you mean by proven, there are as many as 4 breaks (going from memory - not at home right now):

1. The last (most recent) generations of Warenne of Ightfield are confused - the documentation doesn't match the pedigrees, and they used the same names too much to be perfectly clear who is whom. There can be little doubt that the later Ightfield Warennes descended from the earlier ones, but it is a bit of a muddle in between. One can produce a working reconstruction, but that is not the same as a proven line. (I posted on this problem here many years ago.)

2. If I recall correctly the connection between Ightfield and Whitchurch Warennes is reasonable, but I don't recall if there is specific documentation that raises to the level of proof.

3. The descent of the Whitchurch Warennes from the Domesday holder is again reasonable, but seemed a little bit like 'connect the dots' to me - it wouldn't surprise me if there was a missed generation, inheritance by a nephew, etc.

4. The Domesday holder, may well have been akin to the Varenne seigneurs. The naming pattern is consistent, but also makes proof near impossible, because there were too many of the same names (William, Ranulph, etc) to allow a person in a continental document to be definitively identified with the Domesday tenant (and a vassal family from Varenne would have drawn form the same name pool, so nothing short of an explicit statement of relationship would do).

[Peter Stewart]

On Friday, March 4, 2016 at 1:24:55 PM UTC+11, taf wrote:
> On Wednesday, March 2, 2016 at 4:25:35 PM UTC-8, Peter Stewart wrote:
> >
> > I doubt that any connection of the Warennes of Ightfield to the Norman
> > seigneurs of Varenne could be proven.
>
> Depending on what you mean by proven, there are as many as 4 breaks
> (going from memory - not at home right now):

<snip>

> 3. The descent of the Whitchurch Warennes from the Domesday holder is
> again reasonable, but seemed a little bit like 'connect the dots' to
> me - it wouldn't surprise me if there was a missed generation,
> inheritance by a nephew, etc.
>
> 4. The Domesday holder, may well have been akin to the Varenne
> seigneurs. The naming pattern is consistent, but also makes proof
> near impossible, because there were too many of the same names
> (William, Ranulph, etc) to allow a person in a continental document
> to be definitively identified with the Domesday tenant (and a vassal
> family from Varenne would have drawn form the same name pool, so
> nothing short of an explicit statement of relationship would do).

That's certainly my view - there is little chance of making a solid case for any collateral branch of the Varenne family when we don't know much about the main line in the generation before the conquest.

There isn't even agreement about whether the first earl's father married twice, to Beatrix and to Emma, or if these were the wives respectively of his like-named grandfather and father.

As for onomastics, William, Radulf, Roger and Rainald are evidenced as names used for males in the family, whereas Geoffrey (the usual linchpin of putative connections) is not.

Peter Stewart

[D. Spencer Hines]

Ancestry does not cotton to folks giving away good, solid, genealogy for
free.

So, their strategy is either to absorb it behind the pay-for-view wall,
exterminate it or let it die on the vine.

DSH

Per ignem per gladium

"Henry Soszynski" wrote in message
news:oldhdb1n6atf8o0ar...@4ax.com...

[Peter Stewart]

This may seem retrograde to those who thought Katherine Keats-Rohan had effectively sorted out the charter evidence in her article 'Aspects of Robert of Torigny's genealogies revisited', *Nottingham Medieval Studies* 37 (1993).

Keats-Rohan clarified that Beatrix was the wife of Raoul I of Varenne, and Emma the wife of their son Raoul II (the parents of Raoul III and William the first earl).

However, Veronique Gazeau in *Normannia monastica*, 2 vols (Caen, 2007) cited Keats-Rohan while reverting to Loyd's scheme making Beatrix and Emma successive wives of Raoul I.

It should be noted that Gazeau on the same page (vol 1 p 168) weirdly stated both that Beatrix was Raoul's first wife and that she was his widow, as well as that she died in 1055/59 yet made a donation in 1072/77. (Such are the perils of compiling a massive work of research piece by higgledy-piggledy piece.)

The confusion is partly derived from a mistake of Dominique Rouet in his edition of the cartulary of Saint-Pierre-de-Preaux (2005), where the donation of Beatrix as widow of Raoul was erroneously dated to 1072/77. (Keats-Rohan more plausibly ascribed it to ca 1054/60.)

The donation was approved by Roger II of Montgomery and his wife Mabilia of Belleme - Rouet mistook the dates given for Roger as seigneur of Belleme in his wife's right (ca 1072-ca 1077) as the entire date range of their marriage. However, the couple had 9 children so this was obviously not correct - they were actually married ca 1050. The donation by Beatrix was from land of her deceased husband for which Roger was his overlord ("concedente etiam Rogero Montis Gommeriensis et Mabilia uxore ejus, de quibus beneficium erat"). The property in question was at Grangues near Caen, in the Montgomery lordship, not within Mabilia's later inheritance of Belleme.

The genealogy as clarified by Keats-Rohan is definitely preferable to the version reflected by Gazeau, set out by Lewis Loyd in 'The origin of the family of Warenne', *Yorkshire Archaeological Journal* 31 (1933).

Peter Stewart