Halfdan Ragnarsson

I must be slow today. I don't see the question.

The Great Heathen Army was an invasion of the English kingdoms that began in 865 and went on for 14 years. Three of the leaders were Halfdan Ragnarsson, Ivar the Boneless, and an unnamed brother identified in later sources as Ubba. These three are perhaps the core of the tradition about Ragnar Lothbrok.

When looking at Ivarr's tree i spotted a brother Halfdan Ivarsson, the name Ivarsson made me suspicious so i went to see what Cawley says. Cawley does not list a son of Ivar named Halfdan but he does lista _potential_ brother, from this i deduced that the profile name should actually be Halfdan Gudrodson not Halfdan Ivarson.

However, reading Cawley's comments it is clear that this relationship is not 100% certain, Cawley quotes the same text that you did but then points out that "Ivar" may not be Ivar Gudrodson at all.
He then talks about whether Halfdan could be the same person as Albann but again there is no clear relationship between Albann and Ivar in the texts he quotes:

4. [HALFDAN (-after 876). His relationship with Ivar is confirmed by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle which records in 878 that "a brother of Ivar and Halfdan was in Wessex in Devon with twenty-three ships" and was killed[1192]. It is not certain that Halfdan´s brother Ivar was the same person as Ivar who is named above, as the death of the latter is recorded five years earlier. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that "Bagsecg and Halfdan, the heathen kings" were in one division of Danes who fought Æthelred I King of Wessex at Ashdown in 871, adding that "Bagsecg" was killed[1193]. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that "Halfdan went with a part of the host into Northumbria, and took winter-quarters on the river Tyne" in 874[1194]. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records in 876 that "Halfdan shared out the lands of Northumbria, and they were engaged in ploughing and in making a living for themselves"[1195]. same person as…? ALBAN (-killed in battle Loch Cuan 877). The Annals of Ulster record in 875 that "Oistin son of Amlaib, king of the Norsemen, was deceitfully killed by Albann"[1196]. It is not certain that this passage refers to Halfdan, who is recorded in Northumbria in 874 and 876 by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (see above), although it is not known of course whether he spent all his time there. The Annals of Ulster record in 877 "a skirmish at Loch Cuan between the fair heathens and the dark heathens, in which Albann king of the dark heathens fell"[1197].]

I don't actually see why Cawley has added Halfdan as a brother of Ivar, i dont think he belongs there, Cawley does say "possible brothers".

I think we should merge the two Halfdan profiles and disconnect from the Dublin family but quote Cawley's passage in the About

It is all back to the "does Ivar = Ivar" question, if we say "Nay" i think Halfdan's profile should be connected to the Danish tree not the Irish.

Hvidserk Ragnarsson
same as
Hvidserk Ragnarsson
vitsärk, was just the nickname.

This profile has no proposed descendants (good).

I propose that it be kept attached to Ragnar, but clearly marked as "this is the profile where we keep information that hints at Ragnar having a son named Halfdan".

Halfdan Ivarsson would be a different profile (I think we have him too).

Harald Tveit Alvestrand
Who is Halfdan Ivarson?

I know we have a profile with that name but who is it supposed to be? Is he supposed to be Ivars brother as currently positioned? Would make the name Ivarsson very odd.
Cawley describes Halfdan as one of 3 brothers connected to Wessex in 878, if these are the leaders of the G.H.Army then it is Ivar Boneless and HIS brother Halfdan not Ivar Godrodson. Because on Geni we show these two Ivars as two different people, the confusion only occurs if you want to make Ivar=Ivar which i bet a lot of websites/MH users/Gedcom importers do

Alex, at the moment it is in generalities but I can see no other reason why so many trees list him as Haraldson but son of Ivar. I tried to find the link I used for the University of Hull in UK but the Halloween ghosties and ghoulies and long legged beasties are raising the Devil's own time with my computer. Happy Halloween to all.

I'm not seeing that Cawley's reconstruction is currently any better or any worse than any of the other half dozen competing academic reconstructions. Needs more work.

Ragnar Lodbrok was supposedly the father of the Ivar the Boneless, Halfdan Ragnarsson, and Ubbe who are mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as leaders of the Great Heathen Army.

Without identifying his father, Cawley identifies this same Ivar one of five brothers who were in Ireland, although he says "It is not certain that Ivar recorded in this chronicle was the same person as Ivar King of Dublin."

Then he adds a brother Halfdan, relying on the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the Great Heathen Army for the idea that Halfdan and Ivar were brothers, although he says " It is not certain that Halfdan´s brother Ivar was the same person as Ivar who is named above, as the death of the latter is recorded five years earlier."

When I read all of this, what I see is possibilities that don't quite hang together and no real proof.

It seems to me we're looking for a Geni answer by comparing speculative reconstructions.

Halfdan and Ivar were common names. I don't see any reason to combine the two from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle with the two in Ireland and Northumbria without better evidence than we have. Certainly not on the basis of one particular reconstruction when we know there are others equally as convincing.

And, just briefly, I want to point out that the reason we see so many trees with these same men under different patronymics is that people have looked at the various reconstructions and filled in a patronymic based on the name of a speculative father.

On Geni, we really should be deleting any patronymic that is not supported by primary sources so we don't keep making the mistake of thinking that someone whose profile says he is Ivarsson has been proven to be the son of an Ivar.

Agree with the principle that we should, as far as possible, err towards having different Ivars from different sources. It's easier to keep things straight when the profile says "XX has speculated that this is the same as <pointer>, but this is uncertain" than when boht are the same profile, and the profile says "this is a synthesis based on XX's attempt to reconcile <this> and <that>".

One century soon, I'm sure Geni will support concurrent theories of descent....

Justin,
I agree with everything you've posted other than one detail

"Halfdan and Ivar were common names. I don't see any reason to combine the two from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle with the two in Ireland and Northumbria without better evidence than we have."

What evidence to we have of a Halfdan in Ireland? There is an ALBAN (-killed in battle Loch Cuan 877) but i don't see any suggestion that he is a relative of the Dublin kings.
I think the only reason we see a Halfdan in this generation of the Dublin tree is because of people conflating Ivar with Ivar, i dont see any other evidence to have a Halfdan in the family.

Alex, I think you're overreading what I wrote.

Cawley is speculating that Alban is the same as Halfdan. Gaelic name versus Norse name. Albann is in Ireland. Falls at Loch Cuan in 877.

The identification of Alban with some Halfdan is plausible. I'm cautioning against identifying him with this Halfdan.

Yes but of the texts that Cawley quotes i dont see anything like "Alban was Imar's brother". Alban is described as the murderer of Oistin and also as king of the dark heathens

That's the point, isn't it? At least I think so. Cawley relies on other sources to draft this Alban = Halfdan into the ua Ímair family. Yet, it's not so simple as saying there is no evidence of a Halfdan in Ireland.

Consider the common but speculative equation Halfdan = Alban = "White" = Hvitserk (White Shirt) = Halfdan Hvitserk.

It seems to me that any search for certainty founders at this point. You want there to be no independent evidence of a Halfdan in Ireland but a careful reading is that there is some evidence of a man who might be a Halfdan and who might have been brother of an Ivar who might have been this Ivar. Or not.

there are three pieces of evidence:

1) Halfdan is Ivar's brother
2) Albann kills Oistin in Ireland
3) Albann "king of the dark foreigners" dies in Ireland

there are two points of speculation

4) Ivar = Imar
5) Halfdan = Albann

2 and 3 prove that Albann is a viking interacting with the ua Imair kings but have no genealogical significance.
1 proves nothing unless you accept 4.
5 might be true but is only relevant genealogically if you accept 4.

There's already been a long Geni discussion about 4 which was resolved in the negative.

If 4 is negative every other detail can still be resolved.

If 5 is true and "king" Albann is actually "prince" Halfdan Ragnarsson, son of the Danish/Norwegian king Ragnar Lodbrok (which makes 1 true), then 2 and 3 represent a power struggle between to viking dynasties. One is trying to hold its position in Dublin while the other tries to expand its sphere outwards from England.

And this is where the arguments become too circular for me. Generations of scholars have bashed out their brains on these rocks. I don't expect to solve it here.

Any line we draw is going to be arbitrary. For example, I believe that Alban is almost certainly intended to be Halfdan Hvitserk but I don't necessarily accept that he was. I think it's possible he has been confused with another Halfdan as part of the developing Ragnar Lothbrok myth.

One major stumbling block is that the Annals of Ulster that contain this information is a 15th century compilation from earlier, now lost sources.

Representing the ambiguity on Geni is going to be difficult, and keeping it cleaned up even more so.

There were plenty of power struggles between viking dynasties (usually among local people with power later called kings of some part of one of todays countries Norway, Denmark, Sweden) during the 8th, 9th and 10th century. And these power struggles lasted until well into the 13th century. And not only did they involve these 3 countries, but also at some times included Finland, Russia, the Baltic states, Poland, Northern Germany, Holland, Belgium, France, England, Scotland, Shetland, Orkneys, Isle of Man, Ireland, Nothern Ireland, Iceland and Greenland

So we shouldn't be amazed about a power struggle between vikings and their descendants during the timeperiod 800-1100 and further into the middle ages until around 1300.

Please remember that "the vikings" wasn't one united entity allthough foreign sources "foreign as in non-viking" are talking about them as one. The norwegian, swedish and danish vikings fought as much among themselves as they did outside the "viking area".

"Representing the ambiguity on Geni is going to be difficult, and keeping it cleaned up even more so."

As is pointed out very frequently, I am no scholar and no expert. I am just a Geni addict so representing the ambiguity and keeping it cleaned up is my ambition not solving the mysteries themselves.

The way i look at it Halfdan cannot logically be a member of both families, we have two Ivars on Geni and i am happy with that compromise. I can see why people have added two Halfdans to Geni but i dont feel so happy about this compromise.

Halfdan seems quite clearly to be Ivar Boneless' brother and on Geni Ivar Bonelsss is not Irish, I feel that so long as we have two Ivars on Geni then Halfdan should be part of the Lodbrok family not the Dublin family.

I would like to hear more input from other users. Not pet theories, but suggestions about how to arrange it all on Geni.

I think it's clear that the old sources thought that this Irish dynasty was the same as Ragnar Lodbrok's family. It doesn't seem that they were. So, where do we draw the line? How far do we go to maintain two mutually exclusive theories that overlap here?

I added the pic from Wikipedia so I can see in the tree. If anyone does not likie it please remove It..

"Halfdene", Halfdan's name as it appears in the Peterborough Chronicle at least 200 years later, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halfdan_Ragnarsson

All good Bill.
I changed the profile picture for Ivar/Imar today, as you say if anyone doesn't like it...

I edited his About as well including a link to Ivar's profile.

Ubbe Ragnarssen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubba

Ubba / Ubbe / Hubba / Ubbi / Husto is my 32nd great uncle.

Justin wrote: So, where do we draw the line? How far do we go to maintain two mutually exclusive theories that overlap here?

When they started to more seriously write down the genealogy of the nobles in Sweden under the 1600's, they had forgot about Snorre Sturlasson writings and some others so they used their own sources in the older lines with the result that some families differed at some points, we still have some profiles here on Geni that are affected by this with profiles having two completely different parental lines.

In some cases they could actually be the same but with just different name spellings depending on where they lived and which source they used, in other cases, one or both lines could be wrong. Some of the archive and sources they then used have also been lost, making it impossible to determined which is right.

Can we live with that? Yes! We could actually have two fathers and two mothers to some of them, explaining the case in each profile of them, and let it be that way until new findings arrive, if it ever will.

Norman Davies,Supernumerary Fellow of Wolfson College,Oxford, states that "under the two brothers Olaf the White and Ivar the boneless(d.873) they turned Dublin into a major slaving centre and a base for attacking Britannia.)

An example of experts who disagree with other experts ;)

When I was in Dublin they were unearthing Viking Dublin. All the experts then could agree on was that "there be Vikings there".

Linda, there is no doubt there was a viking kingdom in Dublin. The controversy is about the genealogy.

Justin, What I was saying is that the "experts" then were as much in disagreement about the founding of Dublin as they are now. I am going to take Olaf Kvaaran as a start and work on it next week while I'm on the road. Happy Hunting!

Hello all,
I'm not wishing to weigh in to any previous conversations as I feel I don't know enough about Geni to do so, ha ha, but I just wanted to ask about the TV show that people have spoken about? Ragnar has come up as my 33rd or 34th great grandfather, and having read a few articles about him, I now hear that there is a TV show? can someone please tell me more? Thank you in advance.

Re Rebecca. Read about in.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2306299/

Just remember that this TV show is drama and not historical facts. It's not even close to be true to what the sagas say. But it is very good entertainment for those that like action and are not scared of watching some violence, blood, beheadings and nudity/sex.