Nesta Verch Gruffydd is the mother and also the wife of Arnulph De Hesdin? [closed]

Question

It appears that Nesta Verch Gruffydd (unknown surname) is the wife of Gerard de Hesdin and mother of Arnulf de Hesdin. She  is also listed as the wife of her son Arnulph de Hesdin and the mother of his son William de Graegham.

Comments

Someone got confused in date entry for and linking and un-linking profiles, I have had this happen If you disconnect someone you can also get odd connection that you never intended and if you don't look at all the affected (all family members) you don't know its there.

Also in that time frame I have seen where a father did in fact marry his daughter

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Linda, this comment is from a year ago.  It was resolved...

Answer 1

Oh boy! As they say in the dog world, I think we've got some "line breeding" going on here.  Dr. Seuss ("What Pet Should I Get") would be proud.

Answer 2

In my experience, when I found conundrums like this, I often find there could be two simple explanations for this occurence:

1. A mistake somewhere in the recording of the information that lead to Nesta Verch Gruffydd being listed as both the mother and the wife of Arnulph or,

2. There may have been two Nesta's.

In some families it is not uncommon for persons of different generations to have the same name. Some families have a tradition whereby the children are named after forbearers and then often end up with the same name not only in several generations, but also with several people form the same generation having the same name.

 

I hope that this helps.

Comments

The coincidence of more than one Nesta is believable. The coincidence that there was more than one Nesta who happened also to be the daughter of a man called Gruffydd is perhaps stretching it a bit (having Nesta and Gruffydd as father and daughter in successive generations). In the Welsh patronymic system, where two generations have repeated names another level was often applied - that is the particular Gruffydd would be identified - that is to say Gruffydd ap X compared with Gruffydd ap Y.

Your explanation 1 is the best response - a mistake!

Answer 3

Not to mention that one of the Nestas has 4 husbands.

The trouble starts with the Grahams.  They first appear in the time of David I and their origins are completely unknown.

Well that wouldn't do, so a pedigree had to be devised.  I don't know why they went for Ernulf de Hesdin as an ancestor, but I suppose he looked suitably important-but-obscure.

Presumably whoever did that thought Ernulf's wife was unknown, so he conjured up a nice Welsh girl.

Then later it would be noticed that Ernulf had a wife called Emmeline (she was the widow of a Lacy, not the daughter).  So two different pedigree-mongers would come up with two different "solutions" - one makes Nesta the 2nd wife, the other tacks on a previous generation and makes her the mother.

But the Welsh, having no actual records for that era, are committed to the view that their old genealogies are 100% accurate oral traditions.  So a lot of effort goes into combining them and reconciling their many contradictions.