Ragnar "Lodbrok" Sigurdsson - The birth of Ragnar circa 750, instead of 765?

I have thought about this date thing for a very long time. And I think I have gotten to the conclusion that there should be no dates.
With profiles this old and knne deep in the sagas, its impossible to have clues aboout dates.
I do not now what everybody else thinks about this, but I think the dates might need to be removed.

To make it more clear what I fell about this. I dont think we can not use decades its more in the direction of centuries!

Well, if one can verify that birth/death dates are correct, then why not. But clearly one should cross-check that there would not be such inconsistencies, such as this.

I agree that the best practice is to cross-check for inconsistencies, but I agree with Anette that birth dates for saga figures should usually be blank. They can't be estimated closely enough for a reasonable guess.

When we do use a birth date for distant historical figures, it's better to use a date range than circa. If the date range is more than 10 years, I don't see how it can be useful.

Reading about it, Ragnar was married when he was 15, counting in a pregnancy for his wife, ca. 9 months, makes the eldest son born around 780, if Ragnar was born 765. He could very well have been born a couple of years earlier, making it possible to have a son in the year 777.
In Ragnar Lodbrokes case, he should probably have a born between 755~765. That is my opinion based on what I have been reading in this topic, feel free to see why this correspond with the sources.

Unfortunately it makes it impossible for Ragnar to have been an active part in the siege of Paris 845, because he would have been around 80 years old if he still was living at that time, more likely is that they only used his fleet and reputation.

Ulf, what about the invasion of England 20 years later in 865 to avenge for Ragnar's murder?

Jani,

Which two sons of Ragnar are you referring two? According to which source are they his sons? How do you know their birth dates?

The point i am making is that there is so much inconsistency iun the sources, even doubts as to whether Ragnar ever existed or if he was actually several different men, not necessarily alive at the same time.

The text i wrote for his profile states:

"
Birth Date

With a death between 845 and 865 and at least two marriages and seven children to account for (three and nine respectively, according to Saxo) a birth date before 795 seems to be the strongest statement that can be made with a lower limit of 765, making him 80 years old as an absolute maximum if he died in 845.

Which i still support but there are so many variables that a definitive answer is almost impossible without becoming meaningless.

I think everyone could agree that Ragnar (whoever/whatever he was) was born between 700-865, but being so broad what would be the point of that?

I do agree with your logic to start with his son's birth's and work backwards but please don't make the mistake of looking at the profiles of his son's here on Geni and assuming that their birth dates are accurate.

When Ragnar had become of old age he went to England to plunder and die in battle in a glorious way, but instead, he was sneakily murdered so he had to be revenged. What part in this is not likely Alex, is it the year when this was supposed to occur or the story in itself?

I was asking about the year, you mentioned that he was unlikely to be at the Paris raid in 845 because he would have been 80 years of age by your estimate.

_IF_ his sons invaded England in 865 to avenge him that would imply he died reasonably soon before 865 while raiding in England at nearly 100 years of age (by your estimate of his birth date) which is even less likely than him being on a raid at age 80.

It seems to me unreasonable to say that he could not be raiding in Paris in 845 because he was too old but then argue that he was raiding England 20 years later.

It comes down to how you read "active". You can of course be a part of something like a raid, but at the age of 80, it would be more likely that you were a lot less active when it come to take actual part in a battle, face to face man to man. Invading England at the age of a century, yes, it would be a suicide mission, why really revenge such a stupidity? If he tried and it didn't go as he had planned, who to blame?

I thin it is a meeningless discussionin the first place, It is very few of these vikings that we can say much about.
THe closest we get to dating one is if there is some sort of archaeologic dig that can give some sort of timeframe.
To discuus wether he was 80. 70 or 60 when he died does not change Ragnar as profile since the sagas is not clear when it comes to this.

Actually it goes for must profiles from as far back as this. Nodody nows, but as far as I see it that does not change the figure or the stories.

It is just that uncertainties.!

But Anette, the problem is that Ragnar's profile currently DOES show his birth date as circa 765.

So a typical Geni user like Jani might look at that profile and think "With 374 managers, including several curators, there must be a good reason why that date is listed".

PS some poor quality text has sneaked onto the end of Ragnar's About via a merge.

Yes that is correct. I think there need to be a change. Reasently I got sendt a sorce that tolled another timeframe again. It goes back and forth.
Therefore it is necessary to discuss how to display this. Not just for Ragnar, but for other old proflies, bacause it is a problem that shows up again and again!

Yes thanks I noticed that I need to clean up again!

Delete the date and lock the field, that way it says blank forever.

Anyone that wants to discuss the possibilities can do so as much as they want in the Discussions.

Alex and Anette, I strongly support that solution.

I will live this debate open for the rest of the day to see if others have a position on this.
If not I will do as sugested.

Let the listed 374 manager vote! OR, maybe none of you are living or believing in democracy? I have a lot of problem with a small group of Geni terrorist who doesn't believe in either dates or facts. It shall be empty, or clean slots in every profile, the less information the better. One of them, when I asked, just told me that if I wanted information I could read some book.

The problem is that this "little" group consist of at least 5-6 person and that they together is set up as manager for almost 70.000 profiles. They do a lot of this by creating a duplicate, a sibling, than merge them together. In that way they notice when someone alter or changes a profile, the response to that is often to destroy the new info or alter the profile in such a way that the previous changes disappears.

First as thought that they were demented, senile, but one of them are only 21, so that can't be the case. Secondly I started to believe that they are hiding something, like false lines or wants to preserve false path, but it seems meaningless unless they are paid of. Question, people have been paid to forge false ancestry, would someone really pay someone else to uphold that on a site like this?

There is really easy to fake a line, but what's happen is that someone who really have that line suffers. Taking a real family, mix with the children, put up the wrong ones on wrong lines, it takes them out and they become occupied. It's not always easy to spot what is real and not, especially when there are no sources at all or dates.

The end point with this site for the users are not to have a false tree, because that would be tho opposite to the meaning of genealogy.
I would like to believe that we or, the most of us, want a tree that reflects the reality and is backed up with as much facts as possible.

LOL. Democracy doesn't always work when it comes to facts. You might get 300 people to vote that the earth is flat, and only 74 to vote that it's a sphere, but it still wouldn't be flat ;)

There is a far way from not wanting info on a profile and wanting it to be as correct as possible. I am all for tons of info on a profile, if it is correct. In this case. It can be any random number we can give him as birthdate.
That does not come any closer what we might now about Ragnar, and that is the stories tolled in the Sagas.

Anarki
Demokrati
Diktatur
Geniokrati
Hierokrati
Kleptokrati
Meritokrati
Monarki
Nekrokrati
Oligarki
Plutokrati
Republik
Teknokrati
Teokrati

Have they all been tested ? Which one did won?

Science ;)

Ulf please get back to the subject.! I do not believe a wote will do much good, but no harm in sending them all a message making them aware of this discussion.

You forgot the land Utopia, were everybody is happy.!

Sorry now I am teasing you a bit.!

It's just that that I see the dates as extremely helpful, because it can do the difference whether to accept it or not. It helps us calculate things as within a certain range, not only someone lived, but also when we can estimate when they married, had children etc. When it comes to multiple marriage, we can from the facts calculate to whom the offspring should belong, and thus if so only the date of the dead partner, will give us the estimation where to start when those other children could earliest have been born. In that way, we can arrange a whole lot of intermediate relationship within a family, one date here, something missing there, another there combined gives us those invisible and unwritten facts just by this method of combining the little facts that do exist.

For example, one mans wife died 1365, the year is known, also that he had a child with her, and that he later married a second woman. He died 1375, that gives us the fact that all his new children must have been born between circa 1365-1375, the woman than remarry another man and thus, we have the earliest dates for those child's, not only that, we have the sequence of the order that happened. Any new persons that do not fit these ranges can not be put in, because the room is occupied,
it's the facts that lock what is possible, that and the biology of our species.

I can follow you completely on that. But with Ragnar and these old Profiles there is nothing to calculate from.
It gets worse if you try to go backwords.
Take an example Gorm the Old and his father Hardeknud. Hardeknud is surposed på be linked with on of Ragnars sons. Only we have no clue how many generations in between, so we really dont no how their realtion fit in the time line. If Hardeknud was son of one Ragnars son. It will place them closer in time to Gorm. Is he a great Grandson. Further back.
So you see there is not much too hang our hat on! The only solution I see with a date is if we state he was born around this periode and then maybee have a space of maybee 50 years. I know that is a long time back then, but it is not possible to come any closer.

How about a middle stand. I know that a lot of people think like Ulf when it comes to dates.
I could make a Curator note or something like saying that the dates can not be taken accurate. Since it is a very old profile.

Ulf, I agree with you!

I often do exactly what you say with taking a known date and working out sound estimates for events around it.

For example if John Smith the 1st died in 1686 then John Smith the 2nd must be born before 1687 and "Wife of John Smith the 1st" must be born before 1674. Yes?

But as Anette says in Ragnar's case there is no anchor by which to start our calculations. We don't even know if he was one person or many merged together. Did he die in 865 (so his children must all be born before 866) or did he die in 845 (making all his children 20 years older!).

Did Ragnar's father really die in 812? Do we really know who Ragnar's father was? If Ragnar is a composite character then most likely he has more than one father!

These are all points i brought up when i first started looking to clean up his profile.

Also regarding "democracy", Geni is closer to anarchy than any other system.
Or perhaps feudalism? The locked MP profiles represent Curatorial strongholds surrounded by areas where the profiles get a reasonable level of scrutiny.
There are also areas where hard working Pros try to keep their own areas of connection/interest under control.
Then there are the outlaw territories where random users login and make all sorts of weird connection and duplicates and blank profiles with only a name (sometimes not even that!).

Anette,

How long can the Curator Notes get?

How about something like:
"Due to the lack of verifiable evidence and strong possibility that Ragnar Lodbrok is a composite character combining several historical viking figures it is not possible to attach clear dates to him."

Then set birth to "Between 745 and 795"
Death "Before 865"

If you want me to explain why i choose those particular numbers i can but for now i need to get back to my real job.