"I want to call out this comment in particular. You said:
> Anette's "there was several of people named Toke in this time", doesn't fit my definition of an opponent theory.
Yes, Ulf. It most certainly fits as an opponent theory. In fact, it's the most intellectually honest of the theories because it puts the focus where it belongs. Truly, we can't be sure of any answer because we can't be sure we've identified all the different Tokes or that we've sorted them correctly."
But that is garbage! That would be the same to say that in 1700 there existed a lot of Anders, we can't know if that Andersson belonged to that Anders, of course we can, by ruling out the other Anders that lived elsewhere, had other wives, children, their occupations, approximately when they lived etc, we can rule out almost all of the other Anders, but best of all, we do not have to count them all in.
As demonstrated very clearly, Odinkar sat as a bishop 1005, he must have been adult, likely born at a minimum before ca. 980, more likely, in the middle of 970's.
Thereby we can rule out all the Toke's born after 980, 100% guaranteed!
Toke must have been of age when he became father, thus minimum ca. 15 years, old, so if we concentrate on the ca. date that his son was born, the father must have been born before 965, but more likely again, before 960. We can thereby rule out all other Toke's born after ca. 960.
It is assumed that Gorm was dead 958 and that he ruled from 936-958, which correlates to tradition and archaeological findings, it is also assumed that his son Harald ruled from 958-986, Gorm ruled in Jelling, at Jutland, = Jylland, if our Toke was related to the kings in Jylland, we thus have only one family who ruled there between 936-986, a range that well cover a Toke born before ca. 960 and since we do know that he was a jarl, he would very likely have been a son to a king, because that was the tradition. The only other mentioned candidate with this high rank, would have been Sigtrygg Gnupasson who perhaps died 940. Hypothetically he could have had children, but that would surely be speculative to create them as we don't know.
The only other candidate are Palnatoke, a jarl in Vendsyssel 956, but he originated from Fyn, not Jylland, he has no known connection to the royal familes in Jylland, unless his fathers fathers father were related to Harald klak or his sons, of which we do not know anything. Some has theorized that Tyra, Gorm's wife belonged to that branch, if so, Palnatoke and Gorm would have been cousins.
Other theorize that Tyra was a daughter of an English king, Ethelred, that has been hard to verify chronological so right now, she has no parents at all. ( I can name the most likely real father, yes).
Faced with what we do actually know, there's only one candidate left to set up as Odinkar's father, all the talk about none existing or could have been and clearly undocumented other possibilities becomes redundant.
All your talk about intellectual honesty is nothing but dishonesty as you rather rely on none existing possibilities than contemporary named real persons, as in this case, Toke jarl who died at Fyrivall ca. 980-985 and as he had a son who died with him, he was guaranteed 100% born before 960, likely he was born after 940 which in turn fits the sources.
Maybe there should exist a course in genealogical math, meaning, people learns how to understand consequences of the chain father, son, and the minimal number of years we have to take in consideration, compared to different standard sets both worldwide and thru history, with a consideration taking to each separate culture?
