Ragnar "Lodbrok" Sigurdsson - 31st Great Grandfather

Hi : Ragnar "Lodbrok" Sigurdsson is my 30th great grandfather.

Thanks for citing that article, Remi. Stewart Baldwin's article is considered to be the leading (American) genealogical reference on this question.

He has several other pages that might also interest genealogists:

http://sbaldw.home.mindspring.com/

These include:

Llywelyn ap Iorwerth Ancestor Table
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~medieval/llywelyn.htm

Kings of the Danes prior to 873
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~medieval/danking.htm

Kings of the Isle of Man
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~medieval/man.htm

He is my 33rd great grandfather:)

Remi who said anything about king?

Remi if this site is so fake why are you a curator here?

Private User why don't you check out his profile and read his suffix and under his worktab.

To get it better, Dennis, to get it better, by being the genealogist that I am.

Remi,Just a off topic question if its okay,How accurate are these ancestor lists? I know some have mythological and fictional people in it but. Just wondering. Geni seems a bit messy. But well i have just created my family tree and stuff like that so it doesnt bother me much.

In Northern Europe it is almost impossible to get further back in time than ca. 1600-1650 without finding persons that are either priests, nobles, people set to administer for the king or the king and their families themselves. If the ancestors you are looking for were only farmers, fishermen, or belonged to the working class, there is usually no hope in finding any information. And if you find any information about some people on a farm in the 15th-16th century, it will be hard to link them to people living in the 17th century.

It's a little bit easier with the priests/bishops, the nobles and the kings/queens since there are written a lot more about these people and they produce a lot of writings themselves. But it will be hard to follow priests/bishops and the nobles and their families further back than ca. 1350. If you haven't reached a king/queen/prince/princess before you get back to 1350, your line will stop.

When it comes to the early middle ages we have to rely on the different sagas and the other storywriters of that time. These can be correct about the information close to the time they were written, but they become more and more unreliable the further back in time the story get from the time they were written.

Most sagas written about the Nordic lands are written between 1200 and 1350. Which mean that the stories they tell that happened more than 100-150 years earlier should not be trusted alone, but the information should be checked against other writers that are not connected to each other.

Basically all information that happened more than 200 years before it was written is untrustworthy when it stands alone. And information before 800 is more or less fictional.

The same goes for the rest of western Europe except that you can get a little further back in time with the nobles and kings.

There are plenty of trees on Geni that are wrong due to wishful thinking, using sources that are to old and that have newer information about the persons in them, copying information uncritically from other internetsites and thinking it is correct without checking, and so on. This makes a mess.

People using Geni for their familyhistory and genealogy should try to get a correct tree as possible, then mythological, fictional and deities in these trees are ofcourse unproven information and should not be in the tree at all, since what I hope all of us are trying, is to get the most correct information possible. If we are not trying to do this we might as well add this tree to our own: http://duckman.pettho.com/tree/v_american.html

You are not disappointing me, I'm a medieval scholar and yes, there are lots of mistakes and fictional people on here. With Ragnar I was just curious how far someone bothered to take this back, it was amusing.

Well :P I didnt exactly mean to ask that. i mean how accurate the list of ancestors people have are. many have this 5000+ ancestors and well i wonder how many of them they really are related to.

And my family tree is pretty much correct,nothing special in the family history. but it sure is interesting and exciting to learn more about your forefathers. my oldest ancestor lived in 1590. But then we have a person on my mothers danish side which probably is the father of my great grandfather and he got this massive ancestor list on geni. but as i said. i wonder how many of those ancestors actually are related to the people inthe list

Thank you very much Private User I'm trying to live up to what I consider a genealogist should do. And the first is 1) don't make up things, and the 2) be true to what the sources say and try to use primary sources where they exist.

Private User that is impossible to answer. That depends on the list of ancestors, and where you are in doubt, you should check the information, and in my opinion, if you find something that looks dubious, start a discussion on the subject, either on Geni or on a swedish or danish genealogical forum, then you will probably get some information.

Remi Pedersen
Yeah,Well i have started a couple of threads on different forums and contacted different peopleabout this. they have helped me and we now know more then ever :)

And its possible we found the father,well.. not thefather but the family and out of those threesons got to be the father. Currently getting in contact with descendants of those people to see what they know.

But well.. Hard to find evidence which proves that one of them are the father. and no they are not noble or of a royal house or something. Normal people but from then i can trace back really far back if i am related to them. And start a subject where? On the profile of the one i think is the father? If so. Wellwont help becouse i already contacted the one who created that profile (his grandson) (possible my grandmothers cousin)

Ragnar "Lodbrok" Sigurdsson might have been a fantacy figure, but also a real person.
What is myth and what is fact when it comes to norse history is hard to define what is a true person.
Ragnar Lodbrok Sigurdsson are mention in the Norwegian King Saga, he is also mention in chronicles out of Scandinavia.
Odin, Woden, is he also a mythical figure? Or was he a Chieftain. He is also mentioned in the spanish chronicles as a man that led his tribe north escaping the Roman armies.
We can remove them but are we certain that none of these mythical heroes of the past did not excist while chronicles claim them excist?

But, Private User how are you going to prove that one or more of these mythical figures are in your familytree? Should we add them as single profiles or small lonely clusters?

Yes, Odin is a mythical figure/deity. And how can you be sure that the person mention in the Spanish chronicles is the same person mentioned in the norse sagas?

In our genealogy we should, in my opinion, only have persons that we are pretty sure have existed and that we can link, with good sources, generation for generation. That means that in the Nordic countries, if you don't get linked to the kings and queens before you get back to 1350, you will not get any further back in time, and it is hard enough to get further back than 1600-1650 since there is a shortage of good sources.

Remember, if you say that there is a link between 2 persons, it is up to you make good arguments for it and you have the burden of proof.

The main sources of knowledge about Ragnar Lodbrok is Ragnar Lodbrok saga , the shorter and perhaps younger Tale of Ragnar 's sons saga ( Þáttr af Ragnar Sonum ) and Bosi and Herrauðs saga. He is also mentioned in Volsungesaga and Orkneyinga saga.

It tied a connection between Ragnar Lodbrok and Orkney. A rune stone which bears his name. According to the fragmentary Irish annals were Ragnar's son Halfdan 's three sons displaced to the Orkney Islands . It happened recently in 854 Ragnar Lodbrok is also a central figure in skaldic poems Håttalykill ( Háttalykill in forni = Versemålnøkkelen ) , poem by Icelander Hall Torarinsson and Ragnvald Orknøyjarl jointly. Krákumál skaldic poems , written in the 1100s , pretending to be Ragnar's death song.

Lodbrok means " hairy pants ", perhaps because Ragnar made an armor of animal skins . The name " Lothbroc » 's work Gesta Norman Norum Ducum of William of Jumièges ( ca. 1070 ) where this is mentioned as the father of Bjorn Iron Side, the latter being confirmed by other sources. Ivar Benløse has also been identified as a son of Ragnar Lodbrok by Adam of Bremen who called Ivar son of " Lodparchus.
It is the Icelandic saga writer Are Frode (1067-1148) is the first known author relating Lodbrok with the first name Ragnar , or links two people together in a figure , Ragnar and Lodbrok . In Ireland fragmentary annals there is a record of a " Ragnall " ( Ragnvald ) , son of " Alpdan " ( Halfdan ), " King of Norway ", and his businesses until York falls to the Danes . In my humble opinion it is one of the strongest arguments for Ragnall or Ragnvald is the same as Ragnar Lodbrok , and chroniclers of the British Isles , it was difficult to distinguish between Norwegian and Danish when they barely enough doing it themselves.

There in the french chronicles mention about Ragnvald/Ragnar Lodebrok. When he sorrounded the Paris and demanded ransom. Nothing less than 7000 pound of silver. However my point was not that he was one of my ancestor but if he was just a mythical figure.
So long the earliere kings are buried and no archaelogical excavation are performed DNA samples will not be available.
However, in the Catholich Church there is a leg bone that claims comes from St.Olaf.
They have got DNA samples out. If you want to check to see if you are related you take an DNA test.

And the trustworthiness of these sources are? That is the question you must put to yourself.

I have the same issue with the bible, after all the sage are written down 300.400 years after Jesus walk the earth, never the less it's a good storrie. Then then there is the issue about the trustworthiness of the sources ,-)

@ Ragnar Lodbrog is my 29. great grandfather :)

Well here is the issue on hand.
When several chronicles mentioned above, of different nationalities, we should ask ourselves if they are all wrong and we are the one that claimed to know the truth?

I think the historians both in England, France, Ireland, and the Nordic countries already have asked themselves this question a long time ago like what the Norwegian middle age historian Peter Andreas Munch did more than 150 years ago: http://no.wikisource.org/wiki/Det_norske_Folks_Historie/1/52 and since then other historians hasn't said he was wrong but instead has evaluated the history of Ragnar and found that what Munch wrote probably is more correct than wrong. Then who are we to say that the scholars of the last 150 years are wrong?

Remi, thanks, its cool just to have this conversation.

It is interesting and instructive to read about knowledge that you yet not have. It is the best way to develop your skills. Then it is up to you to sort out what you belive or not.

There are many historical names around whom legends have grown. Scholars can agree that some of the information is legend, but they often disagree about how much to accept or reject. In my opinion it's not a good idea to tamper with "traditional" genealogies without citing and evaluating the original sources. And, even then, we have to accept that there is often room for disagreement.

Hello everybody!
Ragnar Lodbrok Sigurdson is my 29th great grandfather.

He is also my 31st Great Grandfather! What a fascinating tale, true or not! I think I have been pretty careful back to the Welsh ancestor's family that came here. I guess it is more fun to believe the connection than not!! I'm not trying to reclaim any booty.. although I do have a sister living in Sweden...

Ragnar "Lodbrok" Sigurdsson is MY
38th great grandfather.

31st great grandfather

I'm amazed that some of you want to be a descendant of a person that probably is a figure of imagination. That is your prerogative.

In my genealogy, though, I want to have as correct ancestors as possible, and I wander what you want? Is it ok to depict ancestors that may not be in your family at all, or do you want to have your ancestral tree as correct as possible according to trustworthy sources? Because to me it looks like some of you don't care much about what is correct, and instead want to be connected to "famous" or "known" people. Please prove me wrong!

Ragnar Lodbrok är min 28 farfarsfar