Geni Projects

February 1, 2019 by Justin Durand

These are a few of the projects I started at Geni.com.

Many of my Geni projects reflect the work I did many years ago in graduate school about fictional genealogy in the Middle Ages. Back then, my primary interest was in the chansons de geste, the Arthurian legends, and the Scandinavian sagas.

Nowadays, my interest has broadened to include all forms of fictional genealogy, as well as ongoing academic attempts to find the Holy Grail of genealogy — a verifiable Descent from Antiquity.

I’ve mostly left the projects in other hands now, but many of them still contain good research summaries and sources.

America and the American West

There are many interesting stories in the world without resorting to fake genealogy.

Biblical Links

There are no proven links between Western Europe and biblical genealogies. There is a possible link through Paloma, but it’s controversial, More importantly, there is no proven descent from Makhir of Narbonne. The connection to Makhir was an academic theory that didn’t stand up to further research, but it is still alive in Internet fantasies.

Jesus’ Ancestors There are no proven descents from Jesus.

Chivalric Orders

Descents from Antiquity

Despite what you might find on Geni, there are no proven descents from antiquity to western Europe. The oldest line generally accepted as proven is the O’Neill family back to about 600 — not quite far enough to reach Niall of the Nine Hostages himself. If you find a line on Geni that shows you are a descendant of Roman emperors, the kings of Troy, King Arthur, Cleopatra, King Herod, or Alexander the Great, it’s a known fake. These lines are on Geni only because so many people keep trying to add them back.

Aeneas – Brutus – Briton line
Aeneas to Romulus and Remus
Agilolfing Dynasty
Ancestors of Charlemagne. Charlemagne has only a few proven ancestors. Depending who you ask, somewhere between 8 and 14. The rest are fantasies. He has no proven descents from Rome or from the earlier Merovingian kings.
Ancestors of Teresa of Portugal Many fake lines channel through her.
Ancient Rome No connection to modern Western European genealogy, but interesting for its own sake.
Arnulfings
Barbarian Kingdoms
Barbarian Kingdoms: Burgundians
Barbarian Kingdoms: Herulii
Beleos Dynasty
Carolingian Dynasty
DFA: Attila
Dukes of Alemannia
Dukes of Alsace
Gallo-Roman Families If a link to antiquity is ever discovered, it will be in Roman Gaul.
Gausi Dynasty
Gens Aurelia
Gens Iulia
Gens Octavia The Octavii, were wealthy townsmen from Velitrae, southeast of Rome.
Guding Dynasty
Imperium Romanum The emperors of Rome.
Lething Dynasty
Lombard Kingdom
Mayors of the Palace
Suevian Kingdom

DNA for Genealogy

DNA is one of the best modern tools we have for investigating ancient stories.

B (mtDNA)
D (mtDNA)
DNA Primer – A portal for genetic genealogy
DNA Testing: Choosing a Test
G-L140 (Y-DNA)
G-L42/S146 (Y-DNA)
G-L91 (Y-DNA)
G-P15 (Y-DNA)
G-P303 (Y-DNA)
G-U1 (Y-DNA)
G-U1, DYS392=12 (Y-DNA)
Habsburg Family DNA Project
Hauri Surname DNA Project
mtDNA Haplogroups Many subprojects.
V2 (mtDNA)
Y-DNA haplogroups Many subprojects.

Family Projects

Fictional Genealogy

Western Europe has a rich tradition of genealogies invented by different royal families as propaganda to create the illusion of antiquity. Some of the projects in this area are:

Arthurian Fiction Fictional descents from King Arthur.
Claimed as an Illegitimate Child of Henry VIII Not all fakes are ancient.
Darrien Scheme
Early & Fictional Flemish Genealogy
Early & Fictional Frisian Genealogy
Fictional Genealogy The beginnings of an overview.
Fictitious Habsburg Genealogies
Frankish Fiction The fictional link between the historic Merovingian kings of the Franks and the mythical kings of Troy.
Fictional Irish Genealogy The fictional links between the Irish kings and the Bible.
Historical King Arthur
King Arthur The search for the real King Arthur.
Testing for Fake Medieval and Ancient Lines

Heraldry

Irish Kingdoms

Jewish Genealogy

Locality Projects

These are places that have captured my attention, where I am interested in almost any connection someone has.

Modern Nonsense

Fake Titles. Geni has a few dozen users who are fake knights, princes, countesses, and so on. They are generally engaged in personal projects to prove they are the heirs of old royal families, descendants of Jesus, Grail princes, or members of a holy bloodline.
Holy Blood, Holy Grail. An idea drawn from popular culture, not history, that Jesus married Mary Magdalene, had children with her, and was the ancestor of the Merovingian dynasty.

Mormon History

Mythology

It should not surprise us that many tribal cultures believed they were descended from their gods.

Odin’s Kin. Descents from the Norse god Odin to the kings of Scandinavia, England, and Scotland.

The Scandinavian Sagas project isn’t one I created, but it’s pivotal to work in this area. The saga genealogies, some good, some bad. Most of them will start a shouting match between opposing camps.

New Age and Metaphysical Connections

Occupations

Royal & Noble

Saga Genealogies

Scottish Clans

The umbrella project for Scottish Clans was created and is administered by June Barnes.

Swedish Genealogy

Miscellaneous

Research Resources

January 10, 2019 by Justin Durand

Life is easier when you have an list of links to the sources you use most often, or so says Thomas MacEntee. This is mine. I had it started before I watched his 2011 webinar. One of these I’ll come back and do some polishing. Now, I’m moving it back offline.

Quick Links

Calendar

DNA Tools

Genetic Affairs. Automates retrieval of new genetic matches.
Shared cM Project 3.0 tool. Calculates probable relationships from amount of shared DNA.

Education

Handwriting

How to Read Medieval Handwriting (Paleography).
Gothic Handwriting Tool. Type in a word to see how it would look in Gothic handwriting.

Heraldry

Languages

Abbreviations Found in Genealogical Records, from Latin and English, alphabetically arranged.
Anglo-Norman Dictionary, now available online.
Bosworth-Toller Anglo-Saxon Dictionary.
Latin Genealogical Word List, from Familysearch.org
Latin Language and Script: Resources for the Genealogist, from Ancestry.com
Latin Words for Genealogists, a list of Latin words commonly found in genealogical research, alphabetically arranged.
Middle English Dictionary, now available online.

Link Collections

British Library: TimeLines. Portal to articles and collection items. British Library.
Guide to Online Primary Sources: Medieval. UC San Diego.
Digital Scriptorium. Image database of medieval and renaissance manuscripts. UC Berkeley.
Genealogy Research Toolbox. A sample online links database from Thomas MacEntee.
Medieval source material on the internet.
Internet Medieval Sourcebook. Collection of medieval primary and secondary sources, including maps. Fordham University.
The Labyrinth. Resources for Medieval Studies. University of Georgetown.
Luminarium, Gateway site for early English literature and scholarship.
Pre-Christian Religions of the North: Sources. Collection of academic sources.

Medieval Genealogies

Stewart Baldwin, Early Swedish Kings (1999).
Stewart Baldwin, Gorm of Denmark and his immediate predecessors (2001).
Stewart Baldwin, The Kings of the Isle of Man (1999).
Stewart Baldwin, Kings of the Danes prior to 887 (1996).
Stewart Baldwin, Llywelyn ap Iorwerth ancestor table (1998).
Peter C. Bartrum, A Welsh Classical Dictionary: People in History and Legend up to about A.D. 1000 (1993).
Bernard Burke, A Genealogical History of the Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited, and Extinct Peerages of the British Empire (1866). Use with caution.
Charles Cawley, Medieval Lands (MedLands). Genealogies of European royal and noble families. This is the database preferred by Geni.com’s medieval curators.
Todd A. Farmerie and Stewart Baldwin, The Henry Project. Ancestors of Henry II of England.
Todd A. Farmerie, Robert de Torigny and the family of Gunnor, Duchess of Normandy (1996).
Manfred Heibel, Dynasties. Medieval German dynasties.
Manfred Heibel, Genealogie Mittelalter. Medieval genealogy in the German Reich until the end of the Staufens.
Eduard Hlawitschka, Franken, Alemannen, Bayern und Burgunder in Oberitalien, 774-962 (1960)
Miroslav Marek, Genealogy.eu. Genealogies of European royal and noble families.
Raymond W. Phair, Who were the parents of Gilbert de Gant? (1999).
Prof. Herbert Stoyan, Stoyan. Database at the University of Erlangen. An old standby, but has quirky navigation and is often off-line.
Christian Settipani, Les ancêtres de Charlemagne.
Christian Settipani, Addenda to Les Ancêtres de Charlemagne (1990).
Zoltán Szombathy, Genealogy in Medieval Muslim Societies (2002). Requires JSTOR membership.
Paul Theroff, Online Gotha. Genealogies of European royal and noble families.
Paul Theroff, Royal Genealogy. Descendants of Henry VII, Descendants of James I, Matrilineal Descents, etc.
Diana B. Tyson, A Medieval Genealogy of the Lords of Brecknock (2004).
Leo van de Pas, Genealogics. Research collection.
François Velde, French Royal Genealogy.
—, soc.genealogy.medieval. Forum for discussions of medieval genealogy.

Medieval Databases

British History Online (BHO). Includes the Victoria County Histories.
Corpus of Electronic Texts (CELT). Irish literary and historic texts.
Celtic Literature Collective. Many broken links but still a great collection.
Corpus genealogiarum Hiberniae (CGH).
David Nash Ford’s Early British Kingdoms.
Sir Archibald C. Lawrie, Early Scottish Charters Prior to A.D. 1153 (1905).
English Muster Roll Database 1369-1453.
Germanic Mythology: Texts, Translations, Scholarship.
Inquisitions Post Mortem, at British History Online.
Internet Sacred Texts Archive. Database of “sacred” and folkloric texts, including saga material.
The Legend of King Arthur. Database of people named in the Arthurian material.

Medieval Documents

The Avalon Project. Medieval Documents at Yale University.
Diplomata Karolinorum. Carolingian charters.
Early Manuscripts at Oxford University. A collection of some of the manuscripts held in Oxford libraries.
EuroDocs. European historical documents; this includes transcriptions, facsimiles, and translations.
European History Primary Sources. Digital sources from the European University Institute.
Monumenta Germaniae Historica (dMGH).
Northvegr. Collection of Norse and Anglo-Saxon sagas and chronicles.
Roskilde Chronicle. Danish medieval history.
Sources of the history of Denmark 789-1450. Collection of letters and from the medieval period.
Saxo Grammaticus. Medieval Danish historian.

Names

What is onomastics?
Scottish Names Resources, a collection of pages for deciphering Scottish naming conventions form several sources, including Gaelic, Norman, Pictish, and Norse, along with associated cultures.
Quick and Easy Gaelic Names, explaining both Irish and Scottish naming conventions.
Medieval German Names, including High German, Middle German, and Frankish.
Medieval Islamic Names, including Arabic, Turkish, and Persian.
Medieval Names from India, China, and Japan.
Indexing of Welsh Personal Names, useful for understanding medieval Welsh naming conventions.

Prosopography

Prosopography is an academic field closely allied to genealogy. It studies the lives of individual people as part of a group by gathering all original source material about their lives. Prosopographical databases are useful to genealogists because they provide precise dates and forms of names.

What is prosopography?
People of Medieval Scotland 1093-1314 (PoMS), database of people named in Scotland primary sources
People of Northern England 1216-1286 (PoNE), database of people named in English primary sources.
Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England (PASE), database of people named in Anglo-Saxon charters and chronicles.
Prosopograhy of the Byzantine World (PBW), database of people named in Byzantine primary sources.

Style Guides

Evidence Explained: Sample QuickCheck Models.
Purdue: APA Style.
Purdue: Chicago Manual of Style.
Purdue: MLA Style.

Miscellaneous

Nathaniel L. Taylor, Canon Law and Consanguinity. Drawn from Constance B. Bouchard’s article, “Consanguinity and Noble Marriages in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries”.
BYU Family History Tech Lab.
Early Medieval Charters: A Guide For Students. From The Making of Charlemagne’s Europe.

My Link Collections

Genealogy playlist, at YouTube.
Genetics playlist, at YouTube.
History playlist, at YouTube.
My projects at Geni.com.