Anders Tokeson Hvide - remove the wife

I assume you have these conclusions because you have documentation on the dates?
If not I suggest we just remove or ignore the dates.

No, I don't. There are, however, many other reasons to disbelieve this family line.

Kristina's father Stig Tokeson died, according to DAA 1898 in 1151, which means Kristina must have been born in 1152 at the very latest. Most likely, she was born earlier, as suggested in her profile, because she was married to the Swedish king and gave birth to his son in the early-mid 1160s. It is therefore extremely unlikely that she should be the mother of Marsk Stig Andersen, who fl. in the 1270s-90s and died in 1293.

If Stig Andersen was in his 80s, when he in 1275 led a Danish army into Sweden, his proposed mother Kristina could have been in her forties or fifties, when giving birth to him. The problem, of course, is that Kristina joined Vetra nunnery in the late 1160s.

Moreover, all serious biographies of Stig Andersen recognise that he married into the Hvide-family, and was not one himself (http://www.denstoredanske.dk/Dansk_Biografisk_Leksikon/Samfund,_jur...).

Examining Anders Tokeson Hvide, I suspected he might be a construction to connect the famous, but genealogically obscure Marsk Stig to the Hvide family. On this page (http://www.toveogflemming.dk/tove/per04684.htm) the invention of not only Anders Tokeson Hvide, but of his father Toke Stigsen Hvide is admitted.

There is not a shred of historical evidence to support even the existence of these two generations,and yet I am asked for evidence to disprove the existence purely invented relationships and individuals? The entire premise of Geni seems to be that anything goes, and that counter-evidence is required to get rid of non-existing people.

You can't just remove dates, and pretend that fiction is reality, that is a terrible approach to history and genealogy. The dates are indications that something is wrong, and this wrong should be examined further.

If geni is at all to be trusted, at least when it comes to public early modern and medieval genealogy, source based evidence should be a requirement, and the burden of proof should be carried by those who propose relationships, not by those who question it. If not, geni will be completely untrustworthy, and filled with fictitious people.

Peter, I agree with you. Let's give it a few days for comment, then if no one objects we can remove this relationship.

DAA (Dansk Adels Årbok, I suppose) should be considered a source in Geni terms.

There is lots of guesswork in years of birth and death at those distances; at least it helps if we have a source of some reputation doing the guessing.

Please note on the profile whose years you are using.

From one of Norwegians most prominent medieval genealogists, the late Tore Vigerust: http://forum.arkivverket.no/topic/102709-16937-knud-von-hadeln-og-a...

Translated: You can not rely on the content of DAA concerning persons born before about 1550, discussed in Volume older than about 1920, but all content after for example 1925 is good enough, and genealogies of the 1600s and later.

I disagree with Vigerust, who is obviusly generalising. Allthough some of the early genealogies from DAA are clearly wrong, many 19th-century volumes of DAA are much better than the modern ones to reference their claims. Allthough some of the bits of information are based on secondary works, and there is as Harald points out lots of guesswork, DAA is one of the only well-referenced genealogical collections, and a bulwark against the insanely unreference chaos of the internet.

Moreover, my argument is not solely resting on DAA alone, but DBL, and the fact that Anders Tokeson and Toke Stigsen are admittedly invented.

I'm also talking generally, and not spesific about Hvide. My experience is the same as Vigerust had. I have used DAA alot for the von Everstein family and DAA is really making a mess, mixing the persons with another family named von Eberstein, so I think Vigerust is generally correct about his statement.

So - if we have the time and patience for it - let's make sure that we write in a profile either:

- <some fact> is taken from Dansk Adels Årbok <edition>

- <some fact> is wrong in Dansk Adels Årbok <edition>, and correct information comes from <other source>

Because sure as day follows night and Geni is collaborative, someone *will* come after us with DAA in hand and try to "correct" what we enter.

Remi Trygve Pedersen : I have done some work on the Everstein family myself lately, and DAA certainly make mistakes, especially in the earliest generations.

However, DAA, unlike the work Vigerust's normally used to recommend (Europäishe Stammtafeln), occasionally provides references to the primary sources. This allows you to do the work yourself, and make your own conclusions based on the reading of the primary sources, which is what I intend to do on the Everstein family. It would be very interesting to hear, Remi, about your work on the Eversteins and which sources and/or secondary literature you have used (send me a private message), because apart from DAA I have not been able to find any thoroughly source based approach to the family. The early generations are mentioned by the Foundation of Medieval genealogy (fmg.ac.) with some wonderful references to primary sources, but sadly FMG does not include the Danish branch of the family.

The von Everstein / Eberstein mix up was the only real major mistake I could think of from the DAA, although I am sure there must be others, given the amount of guesswork involved. Even so, DAA is one of the most exhaustive and systematic works of Scandinavian genalogical writing, and invaluable in the instances it provides sources to its information. They also sometimes really do admit what they do not know, and they rarely indulge in frivolous conjecture, as has been done later in the cases of Johan Richard von Buchwaldt til Fossnes or Andrew Mowat of Hugoland, whose parents are indeed not (yet) known.

Moreover, I believe it is a fallacy to conclude that a few embarrasing mistakes necessarily discredit the trustworthyness of the entire work. It should be said that Europäische stammtafeln includes entirely unreliable Scandinavian genealogies from the viking age, no doubt based on much later sources from the twelfth and thirteenth cenuries. This of course does not discredit the entire series, just like the Everstein/Eberstein-mistake should not discredit all of DAA.

Peter, I agree. But it's not bad to keep in mind that the trustworthyness of the earlier editions of DAA probably are less than the newer ones. Anyway, DAA is at best a secondary source, and should ofcourse be treated as such.

Harald: "Because sure as day follows night and Geni is collaborative, someone *will* come after us with DAA in hand and try to "correct" what we enter."

So very true!!!