What was Cawley thinking?

Question

Usually Charles Cawley in his Medlands Database documents everything.  But in his writeup of Aelfgar of Mercia, he adds in 1058 a second marriage to an unknown daughter of his good Welsh battle-buddy Gruffudd ap Llywelyn, and then adds that there is no documentation about her.

This marriage of "Unknown" and Aelfgar produced no children so there is no reason to posit her existence.  The marriage would have been one in which each buddy, Aelfgar and Gruffudd, married a daughter of the other, which if not incestuous would at least have been unusual.  

There is no reason I can think of to believe that such a person as "Unknown" existed or that this marriage took place.  

Can anyone help me understand what made Cawley add this reference in his writeup?

Answer 1

The Medlands webpage has a place where you can do feedback. So, why not ask him?

Comments

Charles does accept a certain level of feedback, but try to put it in very clear and succinct terms.

Answer 2

Jack I have to say that this is quite normal on MEDLANDS, which is why I have a habit on wikitree of pointing out that we should not be naive about the quality control there.

One of the aims he has given himself is to use only primary sources and not be influenced by secondary sources. But the reality is that he has clearly used secondary sources, but old ones, and inconsistently. He does not always mention this. Therefore MEDLANDS is filled with comments such as "the primary source has not yet been found" which are a little odd.

Sometimes this is quite definitely misleading and simply apparently because he could not follow through himself. I have for example written to him about cases where he says an author says X but does not name their source, but where the source is absolutely clearly stated in the same sentence so to speak.

In other words, whenever you see that something is unknown or has not been traced. You unfortunately need to read this, at least most times, as simply meaning HE has to work on this later to finish it off.

MEDLANDS can be useful in my opinion but it can be a challenge also.