Should Arnulf of Metz have parents in WikiTree?

Question

Hi! I'm Roger Travis, organizer of the European Aristocracy user-group. I want to try using this awesome new resource to get a sense of what WikiTree users think about some of the thorny questions we're facing at the very top (or maybe root) of the tree. Take a look at this, if you're interested in this kind of thing, and let me know whether you think all the various things you'll find for his parentage at places like Geni and Ancestry should have a role, or whether we should just cut him loose, with a note in his bio that nobody knows.

Answer 1

I belief that if there is historical document refering to a parent ('...A 9th century genealogy names "beatum Arnulfum episcopum" as the son of Arnold...') , this parent should be named in an individual profile (as the parent) with the mention to this document in the comments. One could add the label 'Uncertain' to that parent's name, but at least it's a start.

If there are several documents refering to uncertain parents, than the probability of refering to the right parent(s) becomes to low and none should be added as parent but instead all mentions should be added to the profiles comments.

At least that's my humble opinion.

Sincerely,

Martyn Grifhorst

Comments

Thanks so much for wading in, Martyn! The difficulty here is that 9th C. is very late for an assertion with any kind of idea of accuracy. I always put references to such documents on the profiles, in the bios, with links to the purported parents, but part of our function is (I think) to evaluate such sources, and this one doesn't pass any kind of test.