(Justin Durand -- could you take a look at this discussion? I'm going to try to summarize the messages so far, and what's going on, but since you were doing the original work on the research for the fictional designation, your input would be valuable.)
There has been a discussion among profile managers, started by Dorothy Smid, with input from me and from Private User, concerning the piece of the Geni tree wherein Ingelram is separated from his son Otger of Harelbeke and Otger is given Unknown parents.
The evidence for this can be found in the overview sections for both Otger and Ingelram, but the ways in which all of the evidence can be argued -- and what useful evidence actually is -- is a lot of what is going on here.
so I'm bringing this to public discussion, and will provide a precis of the argument, and list the pieces of evidence given so far, explaining what is useful or not useful about them.
And then you can ALL get involved, if you are interested.
To wit:
The issue has to do with the ancestors of Baldwin I "Iron-Arm", 1st Margrave of Flanders -- there are traditional stories about his ancestry, but current scholarship holds that these stories were made up my monks living hundreds of years later, in order to give him heroic origins. (This is VERY common in early medieval genealogy; this discussion comes up a lot, therefore.)
The overviews for these profiles refer both to http://www.davidsfonds.be/publisher/edition/detail.phtml?id=3549 and to Medlands (more on Medlands later), as sources for the idea that Baldwin's ancestors were legendary.
On the other hand, users have provided many links to sources meant to show that Baldwin's ancestors are not fictional, but real, as follows:
http://fosterfamilyhistory.com/french-origins.pdf -- this is part of a family web site, and there are no sources given for the information; so there is no way of judging its veracity; it is not useful.
http://www.genealogy.com/ftm/h/u/g/Loretta-F-Hughes-North-Richland-... -- this is a family web tree site, and gives no sources for the information; there is no way to judge the veracity of the information, and it's not useful.
https://translate.google.ca/translate?hl=en&sl=nl&u=https:/... -- Wikipedia sources can be useful, if they are sourced; there are no sources given for this information, and it is therefore not useful.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baldwin_I,_Margrave_of_Flanders -- although this Wikipedia page SAYS it does not have sources, it actually does; however, the only real scholarly source is from 1886, long before later scholars argued that the legendary story is exactly that, legendary. So it's not useful, not because it isn't sourced, but because we know that the source does not take later thinking and information into account.
https://translate.google.ca/translate?hl=en&sl=nl&u=https:/... -- Wikipedia page with no sources, not useful.
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lijst_van_forestiers_van_de_Vlaandere... -- Wikipedia page with no sources.
http://www.microsofttranslator.com/BV.aspx?ref=IE8Activity&a=ht... -- no sources, but all about the legend.
https://translate.google.ca/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=https:/... -- Wikipedia page that does have sources, and is all about the legend, stating that it is a legend.
https://translate.google.ca/translate?hl=en&sl=nl&tl=en&... -- this is actually a VERY useful Wikipedia page, because it gives both the early story AND the later explanation of its speculative nature. It does have a scholarly source, which is the very one given in the Overviews to the contested profiles. And it all goes to show that indeed, there is no real reason to believe that the legends are true.
So, so far, nothing here leads me to believe that the recent scholarship is wrong; essentially, what we're seeing here is that the stories about Baldwin's ancestry were indeed made up at a later date.
BUT! WAIT! What about Medlands?
We rely pretty heavily on Medlands here at Geni, though the site is somewhat uneven (it's not good for tracing women, for instance), so let's go look at what they've got:
It's a massive page, but luckily we just need the beginning.
And at first glance, it seems to support the idea that indeed the ancestors of Baldwin are real and should be reinstated, as it gives the lineage Lideric - Enguerrand - Odacre - Badouin, exactly what the legend says. And it gives all the medieval manuscript sources for this line.
But it also gives the entire issue, at great length, which I'll summarize here, as you can go read it all in the link:
Lideric: "The existence of Lideric is unknown and, if he did exist, his origin uncertain."
Enguerrand: problematic, even if he did exist, as the dates are contradictory
Odacre: also problematic, as the dates don't make sense.
ALL of the information on these three men, moreover, has been presented in square brackets, meaning that it is NOT verifiable, and should be treated with caution, as the first paragraph of the page makes clear:
"The county of Flanders took its name from the Carolingian pagus flandrensis, located around Bruges, the countship of which was granted to Baudouin I in 863 by Charles II "le Chauve" King of the West Franks whose daughter he had abducted. Before this date, the senior governing figure in the area was apparently the "forestier", in other words the "controller" of the forests, a post held successively by some of Baudouin's supposed ancestors, although both their existence and, if they did exist, the extent of their authority is subject to debate[1]. The possible ancestry of Baudouin I Count of Flanders is set out in Chapter 1.A below. None of the individuals named is referred to in surviving contemporary primary sources, although it is impossible to assess whether the later sources were based on earlier documentation which has since disappeared. Information relating to these individuals is incomplete and, in part, contradictory. The earlier generations of Count Baudouin's alleged ancestors are referred to as counts at Harlabecce, presumably Harlebeke on the outskirts of Courtrai. It is assumed that, if they were historical people, they were minor lords whose jurisdiction was limited to a small area. It is probable that the title "count" was attributed to them retrospectively by the later sources in order to boost the standing of the comital family of Flanders. No reference to a pagus Harlabeccensis has been found: in particular it is not included among the Flemish pagi which are described by Vanderkindere[2]. Stewart Baldwin, in his detailed analysis of all references to these individuals, has concluded that the ancestry is "legendary" and should be rejected as "an eleventh century invention", although he acknowledges that there is still a chance that the entries in the Annales Blandinienses are based on genuine information[3]. It is also interesting to observe that none of the names of these supposed early counts is found among the descendants of Count Baudouin, although this does not provide conclusive proof of the unreliability of the ancestry. Although the names and relationships of these individuals are referred to in a wide range of sources, the ancestry is shown in the present document in square brackets, indicating that the information should be treated with caution."
For those still having questions about why Geni disconnects Baldwin from his legendary ancestors, it is worth going to Medlands and clicking on the first notation link [1] -- that will lead you to some of Stewart Baldwin's presentations of the arguments that the legends are legends and not actual ancestors.
