Hallstein Torleivsson - The connection between the deposed king of Isle of Man and the noble Skanke family i Norway, Sweden and Denmark

Just to repeat what we know (I think):
- The kings of Man used a sigil with 3 feet in it.
- Torlak Schenk signed a document with a sigil with 3 feet in it.
- There isn't a single contemporary document that says "Torlak Scheck is the son of a king of Man".

Are we agreed that these 3 points are facts at the moment?
(Note: I'm even unsure of these. I haven't seen a picture of either sigil that is clearly referenced to the source document.)

> Would you not think that the norwegian kings were aware of and approved the using of a sigill a knight or a sysselmann or a riksråd placed on official documents ?

No, I definitely would not think that. This is a mistake people often make. They imagine that heraldry was always centralized and that kings exercised complete control from the beginning. The situation was actually very different.

Many families adopted coats of arms that were the same as people in the same kingdom and the same as people in other kingdoms. People adopted arms that 100, 200 years later would have had serious political implications.

I do not assume that my Swiss ancestors were a branch of the kings of Naples just because they used the same coat of arms. Although -- I could play the same game. I could ask in a hushed and scandalized tone of voice if you really believe the Pope would allow a simple priest to be sealing documents for the monastery using the arms of a kingdom that was in the middle of vicious civil war. And the answer would be that the Pope didn't care or have any reason to care. Heraldry hadn't yet reached that stage.

Remember too that Norway was always particularly lax about heraldic rules even when it did become systematized and semi-centralized.

Logical systems are not the only way to prove facts. We have had the same attempt between mathematical and judicial conclusions of evidence. The mathematician says : is it not the best system to rule out any logical nonsuspect and find the withstander guilty ?

The problem with your (like the mathematicians) attempts to decide the links between historical persons is that you rely too much in your logical system. No one can oversee all factual bits and pieces. The problem is that the input into your logical system is full of flaws.

You are making the same mistake by your examples - they are not comparable to HT. In my opinion you are making a big mistake by desavuating the findings of historians by filtering them through a logical system - true or false. Like in the rulings of law, logics and mathematics are just factors in historical conclusions wich always will be done by "the more or less likely" parameter.

This was the age of Norways greatness, Magnus Lagabøte was the great reformist and the countrys "riksråd" that actually ruled the nation in some of the years afterward consisted of 12 - twelve- men. It is unlikely that anyone of these noble men would have copied someone elses coat of arms.

Stein, I think you already see the problem here. There will always be debates like this one because there is an underlying difference in how historians and genealogists approach the questions.

Some historians support this theory, some reject it, some think it is somewhere between possible and probable, and some think it is rather unlikely. Their conclusions are very subjective.

This is something every good historian knows -- it is impossible not to be subjective in the interpretation of sources, particularly when the interpretation involves questions of how much value to place on different pieces of circumstantial evidence.

So, you've chosen sides in the debates. No one can fault you for that. You can believe whatever you want and if your opinion is supported by some historian you respect, you can feel good about your belief and you can think everyone else is an idiot.

But then, when the answer has to be Yes or No, you complain about the binary system. You want just the opinion that agrees with you. You have lost the nuance in the historians' arguments. You argue that it is not acceptable for anyone to disagree.

We should be clear about this. In the binary system of genealogy, a No does not mean this person is not the father. Not even close. It means this relationship has not been proven to the point that it is accepted by the majority of experts.

Personally, I believe many things I would not bother to argue on Geni. In some cases I think the experts have accepted something I do not accept, and in other cases I think the experts have rejected something that seems obviously true to me. It's not worth arguing about, in my opinion.

Harald, I think we can all agree on those three points.

Stein, just a brief point. You said, "It is unlikely that anyone of these noble men would have copied someone elses coat of arms."

It would not be the case that any of them "copied" anything. This is right at the earliest documented period of Norwegian heraldry (1297, 1303), when men were putting their family symbols on shields or inventing new ones.

Heraldry itself was only about 150 years old at this time, spreading out from its Anglo-Norman origins (say, 1151). We don't know when it actually reached Norway. At this time it was only then becoming clear that sons would generally use the same arms as their father, but sometimes of their mother's father or of an uncle on one side or the other.

It's perhaps significant that the Manx coat of arms itself only dates from this time (about 1270). Supposedly it was adopted by Alexander III of Scotland, for his conquest. There is a great deal of doubt (and no proof) that it was ever the coat of arms of the dispossessed kings of Man.

Certainly, you can theorize about that, but it has the potential to become a circular argument -- that the use of these arms by Hallstein Torleivsson, who you think was a descendant of the kings of Man, proves that these were the arms of the kings of Man.

A note to Justin's comment: Genealogy is not binary. It strives for binary outcomes, for sure, but genealogy, like all sciences where you can't run repeated tests, deals with "this theory seems like the better one".

It's the platform we're using that can't represent the doubt in any way but commentary written into the "about me", and makes the choice of parents (or non-parents) binary. In which we have to go with what the responsible people regard as the "preponderance of evidence".

In this case, it seems that Remi, Justin and I all agree that the preponderance of evidence (tallying the historians who say "yes" or "no", and making our judgment about who's more trustworthy) come down on the "no" side.

We may be swayed by a well-written tally that talks about evidence and historians who come down on the "yes" side and what evidence they have considered that isn't considered by the historians on the "no" side.

But we're not going to change our minds based on repetition of participants' position.

You do actually overall defend each other, no matter how bad decisions you make, it's obvious, no matter from what well respected authority, it all comes down to just an opinion! Frankly, you can't say what's right, do you?

In matter like this, a footnote in the top field on the profile saying, "relationship unproven", would have been just as an good solution.

Very funny, Ulf, but it's not a secret conspiracy against you. We all agree so often because we use the same method for arriving at the answer that all other reputable genealogists and historians use.

The fun times are when we disagree. Remi and I get pretty rowdy, but I think you know that already ;)

Hallstein Torleivsson, his parents are unknown... but according to the patronymic his father was a man named Torleiv, HIS parents may be unknown, uncertain etc, but at least, put the break on him, not the son.
That would to be honest, that would also be in accordance to what is known, that would be correct. Orherwise, I see no other alternatibe that to change the sons name to just Hallstein.

I draw a straight line between what is ridiculous and what is serious.

The abuse on Geni does not become lesser as other curators repeating it ! Your approach is definitely not that of a proffesional : to choose between historians wievs on subjects are not a question of pro and con. By doing that you are reducing the value of scientific work done by historians.

From an outsiders perspective, this constitutes a ridiculous attempt. You are not above authorative historians or in any position to validate their work without a clear DNA test that proves otherwise. Roger de Robelin is not a professor even though he has written a book.

Stein,

I see the misunderstanding about method is deeper than I thought. This is a very basic point, and it's not difficult to understand.

You complained that history cannot be reduced to a mathematical equation. I have already explained that different historians might decide something is "likely" or "not proved". This is what you call binary. That's not the best description. I used your terminology to explain further. Then Harald explained why "binary" is a misleading description.

Now you are focusing on a part of Harald's description where he talks preponderance of the evidence. You think that means choosing between historians, but that's not accurate.

Maybe it would help to think of it like this.

You want to connect Hallstein Torleivsson as the son of Torleiv Haraldsson Schanke on Geni. You think it is true so you want everyone on Geni to agree that it is true. But the experts aren't saying it is definitely true. Their opinions range from "probably true" to "possible" to "unlikely".

Historians and genealogists know these differences of opinion can exist for any question, but on a platform like Geni there is only one choice. Someone is linked or not linked. This is the binary system you are complaining about.

Because we have only one choice on Geni -- link or don't link -- we have to decide which one it will be. So, we ask if the evidence is good enough to justify turning all the different opinions into a definite Yes.

And here, the answer is No. There is not enough evidence.

To be good enough, it would have to be a case where "the majority of experts agree". If we have to say "expert opinion is split" then we also have to say we have not reached a point where we can turn it into a fact in genealogy.

This is a very long way of saying you haven't met the burden of proof. Yet. It isn't enough to find one historian who agrees with you, when there are other historians who disagree.

I don't think that I have misunderstood the method at all. How many other profiles on Geni from this period do this burden of proof apply to ? If you are honest in your answer, very few geniprofiles from this age will meet your requirements.

How many other links are cut of on the tree ? Please advise.

In my view you are presenting this as a politician, arguing your view as a curator. You are not acting as a profesional and your conclusions will not be of any value to anyone else. I think you are abusing this geneaological tool.

How many others? Hundreds, maybe thousands. And still many thousands still waiting.

I think you do not understand the scope of the problem.

There are maybe 200 curators, for a 100 million Geni profiles. Most profiles are entirely non-controversial, but there are a significant number where there is a dispute.

The high profile problems are the colonial immigrants to America, Canada, Australia, South Africa, etc. (where there is a lot of wishful thinking by descendants who want to believe they have an exalted ancestry) and medieval profiles (where people just copy what they find on the Internet without doing any research).

I think you would be very surprised to find out how many messages curators get each day, complaining that this person has the wrong parents or that person has the wrong death date or something else is wrong so the curator must fix it immediately or the world will come to an end.

I can only speak for myself, not for the other curators. What I do is this. I look at the information I already have from my own research. If I already know the line is wrong, I add the sources and make the corrections.

If I don't already have information, I will try to let it slide unless someone is so unhappy that I feel like I really do need to put my life on hold and go do the research myself. If I disagree but I don't see that anyone else is complaining, I also let it slide.

There is too much work to do to work any other way. If I don't cut a line, it's almost always because I don't have time for the drama, not because I don't know it should be cut.

So, before you continue these personal attacks and accusations of abuse, I want you to think about your own expectations and why you have the idea that every curator has to fix every problem or give up the right to fix any problem.

PLAUSIBLE. Lets see what happens if we play with synonyms to that word on the relationship between Hallstein and Torleiv.

Is it reasonable, yes
Is it likely, yes
Is it acceptable, yes
Is it presumable, yes.

Do we have any document that support anything of this? No, only circumstantial indications, his name, his seal, his rank in the society, geographic location in accordance to historic events.

In many similar cases that alone would be good enough to be considered to be plausible, so why not in this case?

The argument against the seal are not good enough, but it's apparently one of the reason to dismiss the connection, that and the lack of a paper trail. But then you miss the big picture, it's like a puzzle, when we lay the pieces we get a picture, we can actually sometimes see how missing pieces should look like, this has nothing to do with guessing, contrary, it needs analysis skills, recognition abilities, historical background knowledge to do that and this is actually the common method thinking people use when filling in the blanks and if this is done correctly it can almost be just as good as any valid document.

We have only one truth, no matter what we believe, because in the end there can only be right or wrong and there are no room for opinions or democratic votes.

The question would be, where do we set the upper or lower limit to accept someone as a putative parent?

Harald Tveit Alvestrand, one of the clearest sources of the link is the name "Skanke". I think that all agree that this relates to the coat of arms. The meaning of the word is "legs", i.e. plural.

The first documentation of use of the name is RN in 1295. The surname is used until present, and would apply as a very strong proof of ancestral links. A rational explanation is that the kings writer named the kings guarrantist in the official document by the guarrantists coat of arms.

Despite of changes to the coat of arms, from clockwise (Hallstein Torleivsson 1302) to counter wise (Nils Hallsteinsson 1345), from three legs to one leg (Ønd Pederson 1397) and finally one leg with feathers (Ørjan Karlson 1474), the name is unchanged through history, The name Skanke (plural), pointing back to three legs even though the latter coat of arms show only one leg. This is also a strong proof of ancestral links.

Ulf, you are making a more sophisticated argument. Maybe after all our past discussions you can guess what I will say ;)

Harald phrased the standard as "preponderance of the evidence". That's a common way to say it. Other people phrase it as "more likely than not" or as "clear and convincing evidence".

Personally, I'm not entirely happy with any of these phrases because they are all borrowed from Anglo-American law. They have specific connotations for someone with a legal background, but they don't always make sense to other people because there are nuances that get lost.

I don't teach this stuff anymore, but back when I did I used to tell people that the better way to think of it is that there are to be more evidence (of all kinds) in favor of the theory than there are reasons to think it could have happened another way.

Not as catchy, but easier for people to understand.

As you say, it's like a puzzle with many pieces. When you look at the partial picture you have to ask whether there is only one way it could turn out.

I agree with you when you say this is plausible. Everything seems to fit. But I don't agree that this is the ONLY WAY it could fit. The coat of arms evidence is not as good as it seems on the surface, which is the kind of thing that maybe only an expert in heraldry can see. And, there is the fact that other historians, far more expert in this whole area, think it is bunk.

You don't just have to come up with good reasons to think something is true. You have to also show that the objections are all improbable or impossible.

Harald Tveit Alvestrand and Justin Swanstrøm, please advise if you still think it is correct to cut off the link between Hallstein Torleivsson and Torleiv.

In my opinion the issue in this discussion is wether Torleiv is a descendant of the deposed royalty of "sudreyar" or not. That is a different problem !

A generic Torleiv or Torleiv Haraldsson in particular?

That must be Torleiv Skanke (Torlack Schenck).

I see two different questions here, Stein:

- Whether Torlack Schenk who signed the surety was the father of Hallstein Torleivsson

- Whether Torlack Schenk who signed the surety was the son of Harald Gudrødarson, king of Man

Is that the questions being asked?

BTW, in Norwegian as of 2016 "Skanke" means rump (singular). Languages are slippery; I had no idea Swedish used it to mean "legs" rather than "leg"; most Swedish plurals are suffixed with "r".

Hi! What about the connection between Sæmund Torleivsson:

Sæmund Torleivsson Torleivsson

And Torleiv Haraldsson Schanke

Also a questionmark?

I agree that there is two different questions, see my comment above. My concern is the link between Torlack Schenk and Hallstein Torleivsson, Remi Trygve Pedersen has cut off.

Skanke is a norwegian word plural indefinite form meaning "legs". In singular form its spelled skank, (en skank, flere skanke(r)). Do you actually differ from this ?

I'd say that plural indefinite is "skanker", I don't have any information about a deviant plural.
Here's the dictionary entry:

http://www.nob-ordbok.uio.no/perl/ordbok.cgi?OPP=+skank&ant_bok...

I have used "skanke", not "skank", when speaking about the singular, but the dictionary doesn't allow that form, so I guess it's a (contemporary) dialectic deviation.

Johan: Sæmund is definitely a question mark, given that there are no sources cited. But nobody seems to be maintaining him. Feel free to become his minder!

Harald : (skanke) by contemporary deviation I asume you mean your own dialect ?

In Danish, a form of plural indefinite is skanke.

http://www.ordbogen.com/opslag.php?word=skanke&dict=auto&wc...

"Skank", t.ex. I Erici 1642, sv. dial. även skånk, där också med betyd, ’skenben’ = no. skank, skonk, lår(ben), da. skank, smalben, motsv. mlty. schenke, lår, ags.scanca (eng. shank), nedre delen av låret.

Avljudsformer: ffris. skunka, lår, benpipa, o. skinka.

Av samma germ. stam skank- som fsv. skakker osv., sned (se skack, skaföttes); med samma grundbetyd, ’krökning o. d.’ som t. ex. lår 2, lägg, vad 1, grek. skélos, ben, skänkel, till skoliós, krökt, böjd; osv. Se f. ö. skinka, skynke, skänkel o. skänka samt med avs. på växlingen av a och å framför nk kanka o. stånka 2.

http://runeberg.org/svetym/0815.html

Harald Tveit Alvestrand, Justin Swanstrom. I expect that one of you curators will undo the cut off made in the link between HT and TS.

Here is how I would approach the question.

1. There seems to be no evidence that Torlack Schenk was the son of Harald Gudrodsson, except a theory about his coat of arms. As far as I can see, the only mention of Torlack Schenk is when he was one of the guarantors of the 1295 treaty.

2. Torlack's name is not documented as Haraldsson, although Geni pretends it is. Geni also pretends his documented name was Torleiv when it was really Torlack.

3. There is a claim that Torlack's coat of arms was three conjoined legs but we have not seen it. Until we see evidence, it is possible that this coat of arms is attributed to Torlack only because it is the coat of arms documented on the seal of Hallstein Torleivsson.

4. Torlack's title on Geni is pure nonsense for this time period. Torlack is not documented with this title. Also, the word "prince" did not acquire the meaning of "king's son" until the 15th century. Before then "prince" was just a synonym for a king or other great magnate.

5. The idea that Hallstein Torleivsson was a son of Torlack seems to come from the idea that Torlack in the 1295 treaty could be a mistake for thie name Torleiv. This is hard to judge. If there is proof that Torlack used the same coat of arms or evidence that Hallstein Torleivsson used the name Schenk in his own lifetime, it makes a better guess, but we would have to look carefully for other evidence that Torleiv and Torlack were two different men. For example, whether they could have been brothers.

6. Assuming that Schenk means "legs" (cognate to the English word "shank"), the problem is harder. Many Norwegian families in this period took their surname from their coat of arms. So, any family with a leg in their coat of arms could have used the name Schenk on one or more occasions, particularly in the earliest period. Similar surnames and similar coats of arms aren't always proof of relationship at this early period.

Stein, we cross posted.

I am not going to undo the cut link. I think there is enough doubt here to justify it.

My personal opinion is that the relationship between Torlack and Hallstein is plausible but there isn't enough evidence to exclude other possibilities.

If you can offer additional evidence -- not just theories -- I'm open to changing my mind.

Justin, my problem is the hypothesis made in these numbers :

1. and 2. Geni repeats the theory brought forward by professor Munch, professor Ahnlund and professor Barney Young.
3. It is no argument (so far) against the coherence between the name and the coat of arms. Skanke means "Shanks" and would directly describe the shanks in the coat of arms. No grounds for argument.
4. I agree that the title on geni seem to be of "political origin", but then again who started the argue ?
5. Professor Munch describes the spelling of the name in the regest as questionable. But you must bear in mind that it was professor Munch that linked these persons.
6. Do you have examples (or better : proof) of other persons in scandinavia using the same coat of arms at the same period 1275 to 1300 (in english : shanks) ?