Ragnar "Lodbrok" Sigurdsson - 31st Great Grandfather

Thank you Sandro Marcido de Aguiar Costa for your beautiful post very well written and so true

Jan-Helge Fagerström
Barton Rainer Fagerström your father
Wera Fagerström his mother
Aurora Mathilda Tschaplin her mother
Anders Magnus Jung her father
Helena Katarina Sahlstedt his mother
Catharina Benedicta Rajalin her mother
Marta Cecilia Uggla her mother
Bengt Uggla her father
Märta Lilliehöök af Gälared och Kolbäck his mother
Bengt Lilliehöök af Gälared och Kolbäck her father
Christoffer Månsson Lilliehöök his father
Måns Tuvesson Lilliehöök his father
Kerstin Oxenstierna af Eka och Lindö his mother
Benedicta Carlsdotter Gera her mother
Carl Holgersson Gera her father
Holger Karlsson (Gera) his father
Katarina Ulfsdtr (Roos af Ervalla) is mother
Ulf Petersson (Roos af Ervalla) her father
Peder Ulvsson Roos, av Ervalla his father
Ulf Jonsson (Roos af Ervalla) his father
Jon Havtoresson Raud, d.y., Baron, av Sudrheim his father
Agnes Håkonsdatter Haakonsdatter, prinsesse av Norge his mother
Håkon V Magnusson her father
Kong Magnus 6 Lagabøter his father
Håkon IV Håkonsson his father
Håkon III Sverresson av Norge his father
Sverre I, Konge av Norge his father

Thank you Bill and Judy! Regarding the quoted text, as I said Judy: it's so true!

About my South American existence and the Vikings, Yet another (long) comment:

When I watched Vikings, I remembered the Brazilian Bandeirantes. Bandeirantes are Brazilian pioneers! Brazil is a continental country (Brazil's area have 8.515.767 km² against 10.180.000 km² of Europe). The Bandeirantes conquered all in the arm! Without carts and often walk.
Brazil is unique in the Americas because, following independence from Portugal, it did not fragment into separate countries as did British and Spanish possessions in the region; rather, it retained its identity through the intervening centuries and a variety of forms of government. Because of that hegemony, the Portuguese language is universal except among Brazil’s native Indians, especially those in the more-remote reaches of the Amazon basin.
Ronald Milton Schneider (http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/78101/Brazil#ref312831 Accessed February 3, 2015).

Once, a French spy living in Brazil (because of the discovery of gold) sent a letter to the French court saying that no European army would able to win the Bandeirantes(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandeirantes). The Bandeirantes faced rain, diseases, insects, jaguars, jungle and indigenous! There are reports of cannibalistic Indians and tribes who used the submerged canoe, as submarines, to surprise the bandeirantes advancing in their canoes in infested rivers piranha, crocodiles and facing treacherous waterfalls. They roamed many miles in unimaginable conditions. They were brutal men and no hope of a better life. Only the gold dream motivated them. Would make a good adventure movie!

The bandeirantes were responsible for the discovery of mineral wealth and, along with the missionaries, for the territorial enlargement of central and southern Brazil. This mineral wealth made the fortune of Portugal during the 18th century.

"In spite of the lack of geography, a science ignored by the Paulistas of old times, without other help than the Sun, they penetrated the interior of the Americas, conquering tribes. Some would go to the hinterland of Goias, until the Amazon river. Others to the coastline from the river of Patos until the river Plate, going to the river Uruguay and Tibagi. And going up through the Paraguay river until the Paraná [...] Some went through the vast hinterland beyond the river Paraguay going through the high mountains of the Kingdom of Peru. The Paulistas had to fight against the enemies and against nature: the latter with the weather and the former with wrath and hate. The lack of supplies could have made them cowards, if they were not used to eating the fruits of the hinterland, the honey of bees, the nuts of the forests, the sweet and bitter palmitos, and the roots of the plants known to be digestable". (Pedro Taques de Almeida Paes Leme)
Hence, they are also loosely called Paulistas, though the two terms are not quite synonymous - not all Paulistas were bandeirantes. in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandeirantes

"However a new breed of men was growing, wild yes and untractable, but one with which the native American blood infusion would soon acquire unrelentless building up activity. While the Spaniards, in Paraguay, stayed where Irala had placed them, treated generally the discoveries which the first Conquistadores had done with indifference, the Brazilians continued, for two centuries, to explore the country. These determined adventurers would spend months and months in the wild hunting slaves and looking for gold and silver, following the information they learnt from the native Americans. And finally, they managed to secure, to themselves and to the House of Braganza, the richest mines, the largest portion of South America, of all inhabited Earth, the most beautiful land". (Robert Southey, 1819)
in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandeirantes

Today, for different reasons, almost all Europeans descended from the Vikings because of their incursions into other countries. Almost all Brazilian descended of the bandeirantes because of their incursions in South America. Many of the bandeirantes descended from Vikings. My descendance by Ragnar is an obvious conclusion. The mixture is optimum! Of course, this did not make me land's conqueror! But I'm a geologist walking many miles with a hammer in the hands! :-)
It's better stop here.

Not directly related to Ragnar but interesting in regard to the oral tradition of the the sagas.
An Australian linguist teamed up with a geographer to do an anthropological study of Australian Aboriginal "Dreamtime" stories and compared them to the environmental record since the last ice age.

In short the stories accurately reflect conditions which no living person could know any other way.

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/drive/research-filter3...

Sandro & Alex, that is all extremely, fascinating!!! (And cool as all out!) :-)
Thank 4 sharing! <3

Ragnar "Lodbrok" Sigurdsson is your 32nd great grandfather.

You → Linda Sue Cox your mother → Gladys Mae Lockwood Tyler (Kelley) her mother → Vivian Lucille Kelley/Payne/alias- Smith (Cromer)
her mother → Floyd Francis Cromer her father → Elizabeth Ann Cromer (Grosvenor) his mother → Hiram Grosvenor her father → Nathan Grosvenor his father → Richard Grosvenor his father → Leicester Grosvenor, Jr., Capt. his father → Leicester Grosvenor, Sr. Capt. his father → Esther Grosvenor (Clarke), (twin) his mother → Hugh Clarke (immigrant) her father → Mary Clark (Hobart) his mother → Thomas Hobart, of Plumstead her father → Miles Hubbard his father → Rt. Hon. Sir James Hobart his father → Thomas (1410) Hobart, "of Leyham" his father → Allinor "Ellyn" Hobart (Taylor) his mother → Sir John Taylor - Knight to King Edward III her father → Hanger Taylefer (Taylifer) his father → William Taillefer his father → Alice de Courtenay his mother → Pierre I de France, seigneur de Courtenay her father → Adélaïde de Maurienne, reine de France his mother → Gisèle (Gille) de Bourgogne her mother → William the Great, Count of Burgundy her father → Adeliza, comtesse de Bourgogne his mother → Richard II "the Good", Duke of Normandy her father → Gunnor, Duchess of Normandy his mother → Harald I "Bluetooth" "Blaatand" (Bluetooth) Gormsson, "Blaatand", King of Denmark her father → Gorm Hardeknudsson, King of Denmark his father → King Knud Sigurdsson his father → Sigurd "Orm-i-øje/Snake-Eye" Ragnarsson his father → Ragnar "Lodbrok" Sigurdsson his father

From the illustrious various options, Aslaug Kraka Sigurdsdatter is my 32nd great grandmother. ;-)

To narrow down what does excist of primary sources of Ragnar.

In the 1500 centuary. I dont remember the date, the danish king recieved a book as gift. It was the written Saga of Ragnar Lodbrog. The book is today in Copenhagen.
I think Saxo allso mention Ragnar. The Chronicle of Roskilde, mention his sons.
That is the written records we have of Ragnar. They are mostly bases on stories tolled oraly over the centuries.
In the Scandinavian countries there was a very vivid oral tradition, where stories where tolled and past on from generation to generation.
So do I believe Ragnar was a real person == yes==. Do I believe he did all the deeds that was ascribed to him and in the way that it was tolled. Short answer: == No==
I do believe that the story tellers have made the stories bigger and more exciting to wow their audience. And through time some exstra stories have been ascribed to him.
Therefore the stories can not be taken litteral, but that goes for most information from that period of time.
So an amount of scepticism is needed, but it is one amazing story.

There's also the mentions of Ragnar in the various pieces of Flateyarbok - "Hversu Noregr byggdist" has him in a couple of its ancestry listsings - but these are more casual references.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragnar_Lodbrok has a list of sources.

Yes, fascinating it is!

Where there's smoke, there's fire!

Anette, I disagree that there exist primary sources about Ragnar, only secondary/tertiary sources. All the sources mantioning him are written a very long time after he supposedly lived, which rule them out being primary sources.

Yes, fascinating stories, but that is really what they are, stories.

I think the wiki-article Harald links to sums it up, we do not know wether he existed or not, and the stories about him and his life is an amalgam of several possible historical persons.

Genealogically he is worthless since we don't know if he existed or not, and ofcourse all links from persons living today and back to him should be severed somewhere along the lines.

Well we might have to agree to disagree on this one. Yes the ones we have is far away in time, but there is a lot of mentiones of especially Ragnars sons in different sources that are more contempoary in time. This is the Christian annales of different kinds. I have discussed the issue with a few danish historians. Most of them actually believe Ragnar was a real person, just not the superhero he has been made into. That is where I am too.

I have a middle stance on this one. As long as people are aware that we are in the lands of sagas here. I do not mind that he is attached to the historical known profiles.
Reason for this is, that many of the historical profiles understood themselfs as the descendent of him. Ofcause that was allso a political move. That way they could show a fine bloodline and justify their rule, but still. People back in the day would not have let them run around with a fake bloodline, so maybee there is a thruth to it.

Talking about kings with fake bloodlines, here is a good example: Sverre I, King of Norway

Just to prove that people back then infact would let pretenders become king.

As I said it is in the lands of the sagas. I do not believe Ragnar Lodbrog was a giant made out of steel.
He was a man that had some adventure on his shirt. Hovever. Where it goes wrong here is not with Raagnar Lodbrog. Where it goes wrong is with Gorm the Olds father. No one has from the time said that Gorm the Old and his father was descendant of Ragnar. Hardeknuts ancestry is lost in the myth, so here it should not state that he was descendant of Ragnar.
That does not change that I believe Ragnar was a real man. So to clear it up. I am surposedly a descendant of Ragnar through the danish kings. There is nothing in the Old documents to back that up.

This is what I notice, people in power possess more wealth
and their children will inherit it. With it comes often also a
high rank in the society that will lead to marriage with other
members of the elite, they are all in the same small circles.

One way to stop this would be if someone killed the offspring
to the powerful, or that they all died out in accidents / diseases,
war etc, if that would have been the case, then it certainly would
have been mentioned and remembered as a myth at least,
evil dead has a remarkable way of surviving through time,
truth at last cannot be hidden forever.

Then, Anette, remove the undocumented link and write a curatornote in Gorm the Old's profile saying that there are no known documents that support Gorm the Old being a descendant of Ragnar. I'm almost certain that every single one of us living today, when resarching our links between ourselves and Ragnar will find links that are undocumented, speculative or plain wishfull thinking. Most of these doubtfull links will be in the timeperiod 1600-1100, and when we find these, and are not able to verify the correctness of the link, we should ofcourse cut the links and write in the About me why we did it. That would make our tree better and more trustworthy. Then Ragnar and his close familymembers can be an isolated part of Geni, which is more correct since I doubt that any of us can really say that he is one of our ancestors for certain.

@remi, the source we have for Gorm says that he was the son of Hardeknut - so that should remain. The parentage of Hardeknut is weakly documented, in my opinion.

But that should go into a discussion under Knut Sweynson - not under Ragnar.

I will add it to my to do list or maybee first start a debate on it.

I allready have to look a the Gorm the Old profile.

and Harald I just prest the Button answer when yours showed up.

You are absolutely right. It should be HardeKnuts profile where it should be cut.
I'll find the documents to these profiles.

Thought I would put this on. The text is from "Roskilde Cronicle" written or finished around 1140. Here is the mention of Ragnar as father of Iver and the other. Some of the information they have from Adam of Bremen. Its before Saxo.

http://heimskringla.no/wiki/Roskildekr%C3%B8niken

You can also see the info on the text here.

På den tid samlede Lodbrogs søn, kong Ivar, som siges at have manglet knokler(28), og hvis brødre Ingvar, Ubbe, Bjørn og Ulf stod i spidsen for Nordens folk(29) de grummeste af Nordmændene(30) om sig og kaldte også Danernes konger til hjælp for at ødelægge Anglernes land. Jeg siger: konger, fordi der den gang var mange konger i Danmark; efter sigende var der nemlig i gamle dage 2 i Jylland, en 3dje på Fyn, en 4de på Sælland, og en 5te i Skåne; men stundom var der 2 over hele Danmark, stundom også 1 over hele Danmark, og stundom 1 over hele England og Danmark tilsammen, som vi senere skal berette(31).

Hello relatives...

Ragnar "Lodbrok" Sigurdsson is my 33rd great grandfather.

Ragnar is at least according to Geni my 28, 33, and 38 and 40th grandfather... he is something like a super bottleneck.

Ålov/Alof Ragnarsdottir is Ulf Ingvar Göte Martinsson's 27th great grandmother!

http://www.geni.com/path/Ulf-Martinsson+is+related+to+%C3%85lov-Alo...

Björn Ragnarsson «Ironside» Järnsida is Ulf Ingvar Göte Martinsson's 32nd great grandfather!

http://www.geni.com/path/Ulf-Martinsson+is+related+to+Bj%C3%B6rn-Ra...

Sigurd "Orm-i-øje/Snake-Eye" Ragnarsson is Ulf Ingvar Göte Martinsson's 39th great grandfather!

http://www.geni.com/path/Ulf-Martinsson+is+related+to+Sigurd-Orm-i-...

Ragnar "Lodbrok" Sigurdsson is Ulf Ingvar Göte Martinsson's 38th great grandfather!

http://www.geni.com/path/Ulf-Martinsson+is+related+to+Ragnar-Lodbro...

I don't want to get into the debate about the historicity of Ragnar, i accept that the character is based on 4 or 5 real men merged into one story and i find McTurk's argument that "Lodbrok" was actually his wife's name that has been morphed over time to be his oh so colourful nickname fascinating.

I'm posting here to try and get some common ground to clean up the Geni profiles.

Historically accurate or not about the best dating evidence for the character Raganr, as opposed to the real men he is based on, is the Great Heathen Army that invaded England in 866. Accepting for this exercise that the purpose of the invasion was to revenge Ragnar's death then it follows that the death date currently displayed (845 AD) cannot logically be correct as no one waits 20 years to extract revenge.

I propose moving date of death up to c.863 which gives the Ragnarsons 2 or 3 years to prepare themselves for revenge and sounds a lot more likely than 20 years.

Either way Ragnar's birth date also needs to be reviewed, it currently shows as "765 in Uppsala, Sweden". Most people equate the character Ragnar as king of Denmark but Norway is also included often, neither of these would suggest a birth place in Sweden?

As for the date if we accept that the Ragnar's death is in c.863 this would make him 98 years old when he attack's Northumbria which hardly seems realistic (no matter how healthy his diet was!).

Geni currently shows Ragnar's parents as dying in 810 and 812 and Ragnar's Saga makes it very clear that Ragnar is quite young when he succeeds his father as king of Denmark. So i would propose changing birth to "c.795 in Denmark".

This would make Ragnar 68 when killed by Ælla, remarkedly old but not unbelievable so. This change of course means that the dates of Ragnar's wives and children also all need changing to be consistent.
Certainly [Unknown Profile's birth date is highly suspect, either that or the parentage is just wrong (he has a duplicate too Sward Ragnarsson de Jutland).

I'd be inclined to change all three wives births to c.795 (Thora's death to c.820). The sons from Thora birth c. 815, sons with Lathgertha c820 and son's with Aslaug c825. This would make Ivar (Boneless or otherwise) about 40 years old when the invasion of England takes place in 866, which seems perfect.

Note: there is an activity in Ragnar's Timeline that he was CHRISTENED in 765. I cannot delete this activity but clearly it is not accurate, even if he was born that year.

PS: Åslaug Sigurdsdatter, {Ragnars Saga} has "Town-Heart" listed in her AKA field which presumably is a mistaken reference to Thora "borgarhjörtr" Herraudsdatter "...who was called Thora Hart-of-the-Town.". So the AKA fields of the two wives seem to have become muddled.

I could not agree with you more. There is a lot of cleanup to on this profile around this profiles, around his so called descendent.
Just the merge issue of the many copies flooting around.
So yes it needs to be cleaned up. Have started a little but not even half done

Ragnar is completely locked down against editing as are most of the MPs within his immediate family.

I think the son Sweyn Thorgilsson, of Strivelyn is actually not a son at all. Reading the About Section (Google translated from Danish) he seems to be a duplicate for Sweyn I "Forkbeard", king of Denmark, Norway & England.

Hooray for accurately reflecting the Ragnar legend(s) into the profile!

If doing real research, I'd favor date ranges rather than "ca" dates. For instance, given the Great Heathen Army date (865) is definite, his death should be marked as "before 865" based on this fact; we can think about how to determine an "after" date based on other facts.

Of course, the basis for the calculation has to be given in the "about me", so that people with new arguments know what they need to argue against.

I get your point Harald and normally would agree with you 100% but the fact we are starting from a point of knowing that he isn't real makes me less inclined to be so factual.

For example we don't really KNOW that the 865 invasion had anything to do with Ragnar so trying to be ultra accurate with his death date based on the invasion date seems a bit over zealous.

I am not sure how consistent i am being, sorry.

It would be nice to have a single isolated profile for "Legendary" Ragnar unconnected to anyone else and then have 6 (7, 8?) MP profiles of the men that scholars think are the origins of the legend with links in the About of each man to the "Legendary" Ragnar.

Of source where to draw the lines becomes an instant confusion which i why i thought of the "compromise" i tried to outline above. I think Remi said 5 or 6 pages back that Ragnar shouldnt even be on Geni and i sort of agree but he's so popular that keeping him off would be impossible.

@ Harald. I am happy just to be in the conversation with the Vikings.

Just looking at Saxo again and I see that he has Ragnar leaving Lagertha for Thora so that would change Lagertha's children to c815, Thora's to c820 Thora's death at c825 and 3rd marriage to Aslaug/Ivar's birth at c825.