Gange-Hrólfr 'Rollo' of Normandy - Gange-Hrólfr 'Rollo' of Normandy and number of children

Tagging Gange-Hrólfr 'Rollo' Ragnvaldsson so that it's listed in his "discussions" tab.

The one that's on every tree is William (Gulliaume) "Langaspjot" of Normandy. I think we can assume that he's documented.

There's Geirlaug / Geirloc / Adele who married the duke of Aquitane. Medlands thinks she is well documented.

There's Kadin, who's attested to in Landnamabok.

These 3 are currently listed on the tree.

Medlands (http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/NORMANDY.htm#RobertIdied928) also mentions a daughter called Niederga from "Europeische Stammtafeln", but notes that primary evidence is not found.

I'm missing some....

There should also at least be a Robert. I have not had the time to look at him yet.

Spennende :)

http://www.abcnyheter.no/livet/2016/03/02/195202973/dna-jegere-apne...

That's Richard the Fearless, Duke of Normandy and Richard II "the Good", Duke of Normandy being tested - whether or not they can say anything about Rollo, it should be lots of info for the families of medieval Europe, given all the people they're related to!

For a good, academic analysis of the children of the Rollo (and all the Norman dukes) see The Henry Project:

http://sbaldw.home.mindspring.com/hproject/prov/rollo000.htm

For those reading Swedish:
http://www.svd.se/vem-var-gange-rolf

According to Geni, all male-line descendants of Ragnvald Mørejarl are either descendants of Rollo or descendants of the Orkney jarls.
The only pure Y-line I've been able to trace (using HistoryLink) that might have living descendants is the one leading to this profile:

John Washington

All other lines lead to dead Y-ends in the tree.
If we're able to get a good read on the Y-chromosomes of these two guys, I think there will be a good deal of interest in expanding this tree further!

... and a couple of levels further down the tree, I end up with only the 2 sons of this guy:

Maximilian Emanuel, Freiherr von Washington

neither of which is listed with children.
We can only wait...

> descendants of Rollo or descendants of the Orkney jarls.

Assuming you accept Rollo as a descendant of the jarls of Orkney ;)

And unfortunately, the line back from Walter de Washington is a well-known fake. This was an early attempt to glorify the ancestry of US President George Washington. Sort of a legitimist propaganda. I'm surprised no one has MP'd this profile and disconnected it.

So would you cut above Bondo or below Bondo?

It was kind of a fun exercise to see if Geni contained a claim for an unbroken male line from Ragnvald Mørejarl that did not go via Rollo - but the chances of the lines standing up to scrutiny aren't very good - a bit sad that there was only one :-(

Nothing like a little linke-cutting to stir up some controversy!

I would cut the parents of Walter (below Bondo). I doubt that Bondo was a real person but we can leave that for another day. Hoping one of the curators will take an interest in the Washington family and lead a major clean up here.

My Norwegian Cousin in More sent me this link today. Apparently the two Rollo's are related to each other? They are taking their bones out of small boxes. Its seems highly unlikely that any DNA would survive someone boiling bones?
http://www.smp.no/nyheter/2016/03/02/DNA-jegere-%C3%A5pnet-vikinggr...

That's the same story as the one that Marianne posted above - yes, it's exciting times!

Random googling seems to say that you boil the samples when extracting DNA (https://www.researchgate.net/post/Boiling_method_for_Bacterial_DNA_...) - so it might be OK. Only the results will show!

My line goes to Jon Mogensen Skancke and ancestors in Jamtland then Sweden and then Iceland for a number of generations until Rollo. Daugther Kaølin who is in Iceland. Is any of this correct?

Kaðin and her descendants are documented in the Icelandic "Landnamabok" - they have a long tradition of believing that the book is accurate.

The early generations of Skanke (1300s) are much in doubt, but later generations are well documented.

The link from Kaðin to Rollo is a matter of much debate - if it wasn't weighed down with the weight of many historians, I'd guesstimate that there were multiple people known as Ganger-Rolf, and that Kaðin is not the daughter of the one identified with Rollo.

It's unlikely we'll ever know for sure.

Harald, I believe the article which Google translated said that they boiled the poor men to fit them in the boxes for burial, not to extract DNA. They plan to extract DNA from the tooth. One can only hope they did not boil their skulls as well.

Thanks Harald, hadn't paid much attention to the Rollo name until I saw the article and thought I would check. It seems that I am connected to pretty much ever famous Norwegian or other Europeans including Ragnar Lodbrock! At least according to geni. I have stories of Jon Skancke and his son Sakarias (7th ggrandfather) but don't pay much attention to anything beyond Jon.

We're all connected :-) I suspect that when we finally decide to unmerge Rollo from Ganger-Rolf (I'm slowly coming over to "when", not "if", but am happy to delay the decision until the DNA evidence is published), there will be much lamenting about lost connections to Ragnar - but then people will discover that there are other paths....

Harald, why do you think it is likely we will end up concluding Rollo and Gange-Rolf is not one and the same. Are you in Dudo camp or do you see other evidence that might go in that direction?

Ole, a very preliminary study a few years ago seemed to suggest that the dialect of Norse spoken in Normandy was closer to Danish than to Norwegian. It's nothing firm enough to draw conclusions but it's suggestive.

Ole, Dudo plainly thought of everything to the North as "far away barbaric places", so I wouldn't trust him to understand the distinction between Denmark and Norway.

The ones that get me are:
- The dissonance between "Rollo" and "Rolf"
- The presence of "Ganger-Rolf" as an appellation in multiple places
- The long timespan from Rollo's time to Snorre's formalization
- The lack of pointers to Norwegian relatives in contemporary Frankish annals

I have a sneaking suspicion that if Ragnvald Mørejarl had an overlarge son named Rolf, he ended up on Iceland, not in Normandy. But I don't think we'll ever know for sure.

http://home.earthlink.net/~henryproject/hproject/prov/rollo000.htm

Further to some of Harald's points:

- Landnámabók says Caðlín was daughter of Gongu-Hrólfr but Laxdœla Saga says this Gongu-Hrólfr was son of Oxna-Þórir.

- The natural Latinization of the name Hrólfr would be Radulfus or Rodulfus. Yet, the Frankish and Norman sources usually refer to the founder of Normandy as Rollo. Since these Frankish sources also include numerous individuals named Rodulfus, and consistently distinguish the two names, it appears that the names were regarded as different.

Looks like Ketill Flatnose and Rollo are associated with each other but not by blood.

http://www.geni.com/path/Ketill-Bjarnarson+is+related+to+Gange-Hr%C...

There are a lot of Kitchel/Kitchells out there today. The name sounds a lot like Ketil but there is no proof of association. The oldest known Kitchel was born in England than disappears. Ketil is referred to as having Scottish roots, while Kitchel is referred to as having German roots but shows up in England. Scandinavian, Scottish and Norse are connected with the Ketil name. Does anyone think it is possible that Ketil and Kitchel are variations of the same name?

One Cornelis Ketel has Dutch roots yet his name is not. Kitchel is a German name but is found in England. Both Ketel appear in England but neither name reflects where they are born or where they are from.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelis_Ketel
nd Kitchel are found in England about the same time.
Edward Kitchell

Ketil is a Nordic given name, not a surname.
It's thought to be derived from "Kettle" - some more inf (in Norwegian): https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kjetil

The name Ketil may be nordic, but, the word came from Latin. Catillus, cadus, catinus, - over to casque, or in english, soup-plate... Nice name.

Thank you Harald and Ulf. Harald, the information is very helpful. I noticed that there is a J in the name Ketil using the Norse origination. Would Kjetil sound like Kitchel when pronounced the old norse way?

The J seems to be a later convention. I have seen cases where the sagas have been translated into modern Norwegian where they've also changed the spelling of the names - Ketil / Kjetil is probably one such pair; we can't be certain how they pronounced it, but no change is necessarily implied by this.
In modern Norwegian, the "Kit" part of "Kitchel" would have a different sound from the "Kje" part of "Kjetil" - the "t" sound is part of the second syllable of "Kje-til", but I'd make it part of the first syllable of "Kit-chel" - but language scholars often have different ideas of what "sounds alike" than what I have!

Old Norse inflected names too (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Norse#Grammar) - so when one reads an Old Norse text without knowing the grammar, it can be quite difficult to be sure whether two names are the same or not!