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  1. #1
    VictoriaB
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    Default Fergus Mor King of Dalraida

    I came across this online, as Fergus I is my direct ancestor from my Ormiston line.
    The fraternal line on this website goes back to Adam. So Adam is apparently my 156th great grandfather. How reliable is this?
    freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~
    jandjroots/Mackay/d0009/g0000084.html#I9812
    Last edited by Lesley Robertson; 11-06-2014 at 7:23 AM. Reason: Active link broken

  2. #2

    Default

    I would apply the same standard to this as to my other research - I'd want to see the original evidence, not books and articles written hundreds (or thousands) of years later. There are too many assumptions and guesses involved. For example, I have a copy of a book written in 1426 that claims to prove that the Scottish royal family descended not only from Adam, but also Thor, Venus, Jupiter and most of the other Scandinavian, Roman and Greek gods.
    In Scottish genealogy, the documents become thin on the ground once you hit the 18th century, in Ireland it's worse.

    As for Adam being a relative, if you believe the Old Testament, he's everyone's multi-great grandfather. If you don't, he's mythical, and as likely an ancestor as Thor, Venus and Jupiter, etc.

  3. #3
    VictoriaB
    Guest

    Default

    I read a lot more on this line than the link above - this was just one with the quickest and easiest view. There's quite a bit online and plenty of references. To interpret the originals though is far outside of my abilities. I'm not currently dusted up in my 5th century Irish!

  4. #4

    Default

    documented proof - not stories but actual documents like wills, land transfers, certificates of ownership, court documents like letters patent or warrants for arrest. Anything written as a story by someone not involved is just hearsay.

    Harsh, I know, but if you want to be accurate then that's what you need. If your ancestors are even a little bit like mine then some of them could be ............................liberal with the embroidery and sometimes forgot the actual facts. That's the fun of the chase. I would have to vrify every stated source before I accepted a tree going back that far.
    Sadly, our dear friend Ann (alias Ladkyis) passed away on Thursday, 26th. December, 2019.
    Footprints on the sands of time

  5. #5

    Default

    Just as an example, I'm one of the authors of a new biography of a key 17/18th century scientist. The most influential previous biography of the man was written in 1932, and many people have accepted everything in that book as fact. Simply by spending a couple of days hunting in the city archives, I managed to find two documents that the 1932 book stated had been lost over 100 years ago - a testament and the inventory of the guy's house. Both have already solved a couple of mysteries. Not only that, I can prove that the 1932 author mistranslated a single word and that mistranslation has spawned all sorts of stories including a BBC radio play!

    Now, that book was written less than 200 years after the death of the subject, and the guy was doing his best but he didn't check things for himself (I know that he visited the same archive), but instead simply quoted 19th century authors.... I've already heard from2 people who wrote about the same guy some years back, and have to admit that they didn't look further back than the 1932 book.

    Obviously nobody will let you get hold of papers a thousand years old, but I'd want to know that the documents actually exist and that the person I'm quoting had seen them, or photos/copies of them. Otherwise, it just turns into Chinese whispers - if just one person makes a mistake or a dud assumption in a chain where X quotes Y who was quoting Z all the way back, the whole chain falls apart.

    It's really up to you. As a research scientist in real life, I'm a bit obsessed with being sure something is correct, not just likely or possible.

  6. #6
    VictoriaB
    Guest

    Default

    Thanks for your replies. It makes for an interesting research project that will probably never be finished!

  7. #7

    Default

    If it was easy, it wouldn't be fun!


  8. #8
    Loves to help with queries
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    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Lesley Robertson View Post
    I would apply the same standard to this as to my other research - I'd want to see the original evidence, not books and articles written hundreds (or thousands) of years later. There are too many assumptions and guesses involved. For example, I have a copy of a book written in 1426 that claims to prove that the Scottish royal family descended not only from Adam, but also Thor, Venus, Jupiter and most of the other Scandinavian, Roman and Greek gods.
    In Scottish genealogy, the documents become thin on the ground once you hit the 18th century, in Ireland it's worse.

    As for Adam being a relative, if you believe the Old Testament, he's everyone's multi-great grandfather. If you don't, he's mythical, and as likely an ancestor as Thor, Venus and Jupiter, etc.
    Stuff starts getting concrete after Fergus Mor's grandson, he himself is only attested later, but his great-great-grandson is contemporary (to) and mentioned in some sources.

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