Harald "Blue Tooth", king of Denmark - Confusion about ancestry paths.

It shows "Randi Charlotte Kjærvik is Harald "Blue Tooth", king of Denmark's 30th great granddaughter", when I looked at your relationship, and that wasn't the shortest path according to what you wrote above, so maybe, Geni is holding on to the recent searches, next time when the cache needs to be refreshed, you maybe got the other line? But I agree, something could be added, like for example a button that list a couple of different pathways?

About Harald "Blue Tooth" nickname, most people do believe that it actually meant "blue tooth", I have an own idea that it actually just meant the "black thane", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thegn and somehow have been confused up later. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thane_(Scotland)

Randi, I understand completely what you're saying. I wish there was a button we cold press that would let geni calculate our relationships another way or even a third way for that matter. Because like you, I've come across different lines going to the same person (by accident). Usually geni does the shortest one. But it would be neat if you could find out all the different lines going to whomever. So I do get what you're saying an agree.

Hey Ulf Ingvar,

via my mother, I am his 30th great granddaughter. Via my father, I am his 31th great granddaughter. :)

I would be very happy if Geni managed to put in a function that makes it easier to find different paths.

Regarding Harald's nickname, I remember when I was a little girl, people used to say that he loved blueberries so much that his teeth were often blue. Later in life I read somewhere that his name originates from his dark hair and complexion.

Hey Arthur,

good to know that it's not just me who would like this function. :))

There IS a button you can press, - it is displayed as a two arrows in a circle after the path description. Holding the cursor over it shows when the path was calculated and cached.

However, - that button shows up when that calculated cached path is over one week old, so in general: just be patient.

The curators does not have this limitation, but personally I want to spend time on more important issues than helping people with that since everyone can do this if they wait a couple of days.

If you wonder why Geni are caching the paths and have this limitation look up the theories on the shortest path algorithm, like Dijkstra’s shortest path algorithm. Then apply this theory on how much processing time it takes on a grid of 103 million nodes which the world tree soon is...

I hear you Bjorn. But for me it doesn't pop up after a week. It only pops up after "some type of information has changed" and then it lets me recalculate the links and 9 times out of 10 it ends up being the same link. Which is perfectly fine.

One thing that people who join societies (like myself) like to do is find different pathways which we can then present to the Society as supplements which is a pretty neat thing and also helps others who might want to join a certain society, say the General Society of Mayflower Descendants and it can help them if they're stuck. So it's not a complete waste of time IMO.

Opposite: It pops up after a week if nothing in the path has changed causing a partial recalculation.

Hmm, well that's strange because I've been on here for 17-18 months and most of my ancestors have never even had that arrow icon pop up on them ever. The only time it has popped up is when it tells me something has changed and if I want to update the link.

Maybe it's different for a curator. Because I do know one time a lineage link had changed and I asked a curator about it. He told be to press the arrow icon and I didn't have one. But he did and it corrected the links from his side while I was unable too.

No big deal. Just what I've experienced on my end. H
ave a good day.

There are a lot of royal paths running thru the Skancke farm through four generations. I have lines going to Sweden, via Jamtland and now Denmark via the Tunsberg farm.
A winding road from there to the prairies of North Dakota...
Every time I follow Ulf and his work I find another road.

Randi Charlotte Kjærvik In the first tree I think you will have problems proving the link between Sigrid Björnsdotter Bjälboätten and her supposed father Kongsønn Bjørn Haraldsen Ironside You can probably cut that link, but you can start a discussion from Sigrid's profile about her ancestry and see what comes out of it.

In the second tree you get you problem a lot earlier. Kirsten (Karen) Andersdatter Rist is proabaly not a daughter of Anders Lorentsen Rist (whose ancestry also is unknown) and she is absolutely not a daughter of Mette Rist who never was married to Anders Lorentsen Rist and probably never sat her foot in Norway. So your secind line stops at Kirsten (Karen) Andersdatter Rist since her ancestry is unknown.

Before you publish such ancestral trees as you have done, it is always wise to check each link for truthfullness. You have obviosly not done this this time, since you then probably would have noticed where in these two lines there were problems with proving a link between a child and his/her supposed parents.

Well, there's more than one road to Rome...

Margrete Valdemarsdatter, Prinsesse is my 21st great grandmother.
Randi Charlotte Kjærvik is Margrete Valdemarsdatter, Prinsesse's 23rd great granddaughter.

Harald "Blue Tooth", king of Denmark is Margrete Valdemarsdatter, Prinsesse's fifth great grandfather.

Margrete Valdemarsdatter, Princess of Denmark

At a certain level in this noble families tree, the amount of intermarriage are so high that it's more than likely that you actually will find more than one path to several profiles higher up, so if anyone has established one proven link to any older noble family that lived before 1650 in Scandinavia, they will most likely be connected to the majority of the rest of them, thus having a lot of Nordic king and queens as well in their ancestry. Only someone without historical insight would believe something else, or hold this for not true, and by the way, the amount of infidelity in most Nordic countries between the period 1000-1850 were less than 1%, and if any noble people would have been unfaithful, you can bet that it most likely was with another among the nobility group, and yes, without insight, you know nothing worth knowing!

The road to Rome is an interesting one and not all that smooth. There is a lot of support to show the intermarriage between the various Scandinavian royal families, particulalrly after the Civil War created a lot of crossroads, and that appears so through a few areas, now what was so confusing at the Seljord parish records going back from there appears to have a bit of merit.
Have you read the article on Norwegian geneology authored by Lars Loberg in 1991? It was presented at SAGS conference for consideration. He was the Vice Counsel of Norway at the time. Just curious as you folks have been doing this stuff for a while.

Remi Trygve Pedersen, it seems you missed the point I was making.

I am not claiming any path, one way or the other. I'm only stating what Geni shows, and asking about a method for disregarding a path prioritized by Geni - using Harald "Blue Tooth" as an example.

I don't think I am at liberty - or experienced enough - to cut any of the paths that have been entered in the Geni world tree by others 8-9 years ago.

Private
Anyone can read it, but he misses the big point,
http://www.rogalandslag.org/Files/Kings&Queens910227.pdf
most people do not have a straight fathers to fathers line 1000 year back, that they are aware of, instead the line will be mix with both men and women and jumping a long the whole way down, so that eventually, you will find that it's the ones in many lines that did not was the eldest who inherited most, but the siblings ending up at the "losers" side, time after time until all that was left consisted of commoners.

When people understand this, they could maybe accept the very idea, that the path are crumbling thru the history when it comes to famous people, zigzaging all the way down to you, so when you notice that a family of nobles got extinct, it all handles about the male line that died off, meaning that they did not count in the female line, and yet, it's thru these women the majority of us connect back in time.

Accept that, and maybe then you could also believe that some of us actually can both state and more or less prove ours roots back to the vikings, and even without proof, we are the survivors of the ones who lived before us, so the only different lies in whether we have name or not on our forefathers...

My straight fathers and mothers line upwards are not impressive at all, and if I understand it right, that's more or less what DNA would count in.

Lars Jonsson 7th great grandfather, Born 1665

Malin 6th great grandmother, born cirka 1730

Ulf Ingvar Gote Martinsson I agree completely. I was hoping that would be an observation made by a specialist. Being a proud Norwegian American I figured that I wod find a bunch of Norwegian farmers. I did but then the roads went east and south from Telemark towards Sweden and there was also a significant Danish influence on my dads gene pool before I get to my mothers side where there is some Danish from my grandfather Andersons mother. I am apparently Scandinavian and less Norwegian. Very enlightening for me with all of the strange paths I have meandered down these past few months.

It's fun actually, people could not care less about their ancestors when they married someone in general, but very few would buy a dog without a good pedigree!

Today more than ever, it all seems to come down to money more or less, and that doesn't exclude, rather requires to rest upon the fact that like will to like hook up. To some degree it's fated who brought their genes forward and into what groups they will belong, and we all more or less becomes a part of a lottery when it comes to who's related to whom, but the vast majority of people are not the slightest interested in genealogy and therefor don't care about vikings, kings and noblemen in the past or intentionally try to make their children be connected to them.

We are surrounded by invisible walls, therefore, You and I do not pounce upon a celebrity, no one that doesn't belong to that specific circle would do so, yet, a lot of people dream about being able to cross the societies rigid hierarchical boundary, but the only ones with the slightest chance to actually do that, needs to be extremely beautiful and that often combined with a rare natural talent of some kind.

There are very few exceptions throughout our common western European history still until today, where someone from a very modest background have managed to accomplished a successful marriage with someone belonging to the upper class, and the few who done it surely become front page stuff in newspapers so in general, nothing has changed at all, except for the fact that today we have more people without any known "finer" ancestral lines who have managed to make millions on something, often suspicious trading, some bs company or drugs, or did belong to some other psychopathic group, like politicians, and thus have managed to climb upon the social stairway allowing them to get married into some "finer" families who never in h*ll would have allowed such a union if it weren't for the amount of money.

So with this said, people will naturally reject the very idea that some daughter to a noble man married to a simple farmer, because they do not trust it to be trustworthy, they will also automatically believe that people in order to connect to any royal family will invent a new unknown mystical daughter just to do so, thus reject by default upon all those who actually have such a "daughter" in their lines, scrutinize to such a degree that not even a birth certificate could be accepted as anything else than a forgery, throw in a daughter and connect are in their eyes a method that people use to establish possible or plausible trials, when all other linkage have been dismantled, but just as Lars Loberg wrote, 5 out of 100 paths are likely true.

"We have perhaps 100 different lines going through these rural farmer families back to the old Norwegian kings and vikings. 80 of these lines are based on a dangerous combination of fraudulence and wishful thinking, 15 may be possible, but impossible to substantiate, thus only about 5 out of 100 lines are interesting in a genealogical point of view."

@Ulf Ingvar Göte Martinsson where on earth do you have your statistics on those family lines you mention in your last comment? Could you please provide the sources you base your comments on?

It's odd to compare pedigreed humans to pedigreed animals. Human pedigrees are not a guarantee of consistent quality. A bunch of thieves and thugs.

In general, I find the relationship path algorithm used by Geni is pretty useless. My wife's ancestors are cross-connected many ways, so that I often find the father of her nth-great grandfather, as calculated by Geni, is not her (n+1)th- great grandfather, but some strange (but shorter) path calculated through the spouse, and various cousins, and uncles.

This is been an annoyance to me for a long time (particularly in her Monrad ancestry), and I asked Geni for an option for a path calculation based on simple blood relationship some time ago.

In the meantime I suggest people look at their relationship paths with a critical eye.

Regards,

Mike King.

Yes i have noticed this too,Some people i have a path too and some i dont but when i look at ancestors of my ancestors it shows more. Also i am very well aware that most trees here should be taken with a grain of salt.
It is still fun and really interesting

Those lines at the end of Ulfs message were uttered by no one less than the Vice Counsel of Norway Lars Loberg in a message to the assembly at a SAG conference some years back...he was decrying, amongst other things, the state of genalogical research...in Norway in particular...despite all of this, it is still major fun. There is a nine page summary of it...I stumbled upon it some time ago and printed it as I figured I would never find it again...and it was before I discovered Bing translator (thanks to ulf and a few friendly Norwegian posters who were very patient with this North Dakotan...

@Andrew Gilbert ! This explains a lot because many Norwegians don't recognize pedigrees except the one they discover in church books. The thing is that the Church Books in Norway, as is common elsewhere in the World from the period before 1700 – many are lost or destroyed or don’t reach that far back into the middle ages to be of use to us today. That doesn't change the fact that people existed before written records and relied on oral speech to preserve their History and memories. For example, I know for a fact that one of my great grandmother could tell tales of people and events as far back as 300 years - her son and my grandfather was like an encyclopedia.

@ Anna Kristin Petursdottir.
I wish I had listened a bit more to the elders when I was younger. Luckily, the church records at Seljord are some of the better ones, set up by Zachariasson who was a member of the Skancke family so we are in decent shape getting back there. Luckily the parish priests were very good at what they did and how they did it. so the church records gave a decent foundation. Since I try to disprove something by nature, the unfulfilled expectations issue has never been an issue with me. I am surprised but really shouldn't be by how much movement between countries there was...thus my idea (somewhat fanciful I guess) of what a Norwegian was relative to the lineage is naïve at best and simply wrong more than likely...I believe I have been carrying the old family pride in the old country a bit too far, since the Jamtland connection seems highly likely and my maternal great-grandmother did come from Denmark...I may have to just say I am Scandinavian now and that may not be the smartest thing at The Sons Of Norway codfish feed when next I head out for a bit of Aquavit and dilled potatoes. I am envious that you were able to have access to an oral history of your family. It has been a wonderful diversion and trip through the family history as best as we can go amongst some nice possibilities.....we are currently trying to find our connection to Norway on my maternal side. On my fathers side, both families come from Kviteseid though they met in a small town in North Dakota ironically....

@ Justin Swanstrom

I prefer to take my chances with a dog...your chances of quality is better...I agree with your assessment completely LOL.

@Ulf Ingvar Gote Martinsson

I have to agree, it is great fun, but the thought that there was no "interaction" between the classes is...naïve? Contrary to human nature?

Hard to prove either way, but pretty enjoyable never the less. I have learned quite a bit from you this past month...except for the humor part though...genealogically speaking or otherwise...
Some of the debates are seriously semantics driven and I found some of that very interesting.
The thought that all the bloodlines are dead ends defies logic, though the paternal lineage may be "eliminated from the record" the lineage may not be due to cross pollination with other countries, families and the stray out of wedlock dalliance. The confluence of different bloodlines, Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian through the Skancke family alliance is fascinating....

Well, Andrew, of course there must have been a lot of people from the higher classes that took advantage from less fortunate individuals, in more then one way, and of course some of them would even had a lot of offsprings, but when it comes to genealogy, if the source of their origin was not written down, they didn't exist, funny, of course they did, but we can't just prove their lines. In general, men have had none or little problem doing it to almost any woman regardless class, it's in their nature.

An upper class woman at the other hand would have had a lot more difficulties doing it with someone from the lower class, but exceptions can't be ruled out. They were more guarded so to say, had eyes on them and would not as easily get away with it if they were busted. Ever heard of chaperone?

If a man had the slightest suspicion that he wasn't the father, it would in many cases be regarded just as a guilty verdict, guilt by association in clear text. They didn't have DNA test, but they had a lot of various methods, many of them may seem to be out of the blue, nevertheless, they used them and if that didn't brought the truth forward, torture or murder were used as a way to get either to admit or just a divorce, till death do us part, until the reformation the western Europe were catholic.

It didn't become easier after either, at the contrary, many rules were sharpened, penalties got harsher, in fact became equal to sharia laws. Yet some people had along this time frame, 1000-1850, lived outside the grid, never married officially, lived as they did, but they would just be exceptions from the majority.

The church, the state and norms of society have tried to control both men and women over the centuries, but in fact, this have had some good benefits also, especially when it comes to hinder us from all getting extinct from diseases, or become infected by venereal diseases.
Just as one example, in London 1850, 1 out of five had syphilis, without this moral over steering it would certainly had been a lot worse.

Still some people today, feminist etc, actually believes that it all was about controlling women, hinder them in their freedom or sexual adventures, explorations, but the limitations was actually gender neutral, nevertheless, in all patriarchal societies men have always been a bit more favored...