Some suggestions/complaints about a profile from a well-known author

Question

With the pre 1500 projects in a state of change I take the simple of option of posting here. I am not saying a project NEEDS to do anything, but posting here gives the option. More importantly:

As will be seen on the profile, which is for an illegitimate son of a member of the royal family, Douglas Richardson has been writing to me about it and suggesting improvements. 3 which are most clear:

1. Why don't we add the wife he identified, Isabel. Probably, knowing Wikitree, this is because there is doubt about what LNAB to give her. However he feels he has made a strong case for her father's name. I propose we add Isabel, but should we give her an LNAB of UNKNOWN or use the proposed name?

2. Why do we have a sister named Isabel for whom there is no evidence. I noticed I already proposed disconnecting the sister in 2017 so speak now if anyone sees a reason not to.

3. Richard was never called Plantagenet, so why do we call him that. This is of course because of LNAB habits.

For the record this profile is a descendant of Edward III, and even his grandson Henry IV, and may have modern descendants. It seems worthwhile getting this profile looked at by more people.

Comments

If I understand correctly, Richardson is claiming that a memorial to Isabella (Richard's supposed wife) in St Paul's Cathedral describes her as the wife of John Boys and Nicholas Rikhill but makes no mention of her current husband Richard. That is just so impossibly unlikely to be correct that further discussion seems pointless.

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Not necessarily Matthew.  I wouldn't say it is common but certainly not unheard of.  The memorial was probably made after the deaths of her previous husbands and before her third marriage.  I find it very common that a widow choose to be buried with her first husband and not the last.

If Isabel, wife of Nicholas Rikhill, was the cousin and heir of Nicholas de Wokyndon, and
Isabel, wife of Richard Bastard of Bedford, is also called cousin and heir of Nicholas de Wokyndon, then obviously they married the same person.

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I agree with Joe with maybe a tweak here and there.

I'd say indeed memorials often don't include all spouses, and there are good reasons for that. Medieval land holders often had several spouses on both sides, and at the ends of one life, the spouses moved on to build a new alliance.

Perhaps there could have been two cousins of Nicholas de Wokyndon named Isabel, and so on. But basically I think Richardson is not being unreasonable to argue that Isabel's basic identity and mother is pretty well demonstrated, if not absolutely perfectly, and that the bigger doubt concerns the name of her biological father.

Answer 1

I think inertia is the curse of WikiTree.  People will agree that something should be done, but then no one does it.

I'd think, myself, this one falls into the Medieval Project territory,

Comments

Well, point 3 is unlikely to be solved today, but on 1 and 2, if there is no reaction here, I'll just go ahead and make whatever seems to be the best action. They are not that complicated, and we all have to make decisions like this sometimes. I just wanted to give others a chance to comment.

I don't think the profile necessarily needs a project managing it by the way, but anyway I don't think it would really change the issues involved.

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I agree. But on this one, the medieval tag is probably going to attract more of the people you want to answer than the england tag, now that things are changing in the projects

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Oh that could be. I really don't know, but I noticed England is taking over some of the more royal and notable medieval profiles. Maybe what you mean is that medieval project people have more experience with this type of question? Also possibly true, but I was thinking of these projects as having largely overlapping memberships anyway.

Answer 2

Two things.

1) If there has been no opposition since it was suggested in 2017, it's IMO a good idea to disconnect the sister Isabel.

2) Do we have to stick to the house LNAB rule for illegitimate offspring?

Concerning the wife, WikiTree really has a ton of Unknowns. I would tend to support giving the wife the name suggested by Richardson (adapted to our conventions if necessary), since he makes a strong case for it.

Sorry I can't help much, but it would be nice to provide some activity around this question.

Comments

I would go ahead with 1 and 2 - if a person's surname is truly unknown there's nothing wrong with using Unknown - seems more accurate than guessing.

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Just one thing though, if we need to change the LNAB (question 3) I'll need someone else to help out there. I am not opposed to that though.