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Should her name have an accented "e" - de Neufmarché...? Ghmyrtle ( talk) 08:14, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
I have uploaded some relevant images to the article. Any suggestions or comments?-- Jeanne Boleyn ( talk) 09:09, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
Copied from User talk:Daicaregos
Everything in the lead needs to be in the main text, and referenced. So to take the first sentence, for example: "Sibyl de Neufmarché, Countess of Hereford, Lady of Brecknock, Lady Abergavenny (c.1104 – after 1143), was a Cambro-Norman heiress, described as having been one of the wealthiest in south Wales."
The ref for Sibyl's dob (Ancestral roots of certain American colonists who came to America before … By Frederick Lewis Weis, Walter Lee Sheppard, David Faris) also has 177, which notes “Nesta, m Bernard de Neufmarche, d 1093 … Two questions: 1. I couldn't find a reference to Sibyl's dob, which page/line is it on? 2. Not sure if they are saying Nesta or Bernard died in 1093 (think it's Nesta) but either way it's unlikely Sibyl was born three years after the death of one of her parents. Thoughts?
I'm sorry if I'm sounding a little pedantic over this guys. Part of the intro reads "Sibyl passed most of these estates on to her husband, Miles de Gloucester, 1st Earl of Hereford following their marriage in the spring of 1121, which had been personally arranged by King Henry I of England." I may be reading it wrong, but to my eyes this sentence appears to saying that Miles took possesion of the estate immediately after marriage, which couldn't have been the case if Bernard were still alive, and I'm sure he was. Dai, if you want to cut and paste my comments over to the article talk page please do so. Your talk page is getting a little full on this subject, mainly due to me butting in :). Jack forbes ( talk) 15:03, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
Yes, Jack you are right, the sentence reads much better without mentioning the author. As you correctly pointed out, the ref cites her name. Looks much better this way.-- Jeanne Boleyn ( talk) 04:44, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
I checked and discovered that armorial bearings were first used on the battlefield in the mid-12th century, so they would have been anachronistic to Sibyl as well as to her father. Therefore they cannot be in the article.-- Jeanne Boleyn ( talk) 08:46, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
Shall I add one?-- Jeanne Boleyn ( talk) 09:26, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
I presume the language written in Henry's charter was Latin. We should confirm this and then add it to the article.-- Jeanne Boleyn ( talk) 11:57, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
This is all my fault guys. I should have clicked on to the main text of the source and didn't. Sorry for all the wasted words on this when other things could have been done. A lesson learned for me I reckon. Jack forbes ( talk) 15:37, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
Sybyl was styled Coutess of Hereford until Miles death. She was also titled Lady Abergavenny and Lady Brecknock. Did she retain these two titles or lose them also? Jack forbes ( talk) 13:56, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
Would you normally expect to see a couple's children noted in chronological order? If so, this source (p 2) places the order as: Margaret, Roger, Walter, Henry, Mabel, Bertha, Lucy. They confirm that Margaret de Bohun was the eldest child, are unsure of the position of the other daughters and note that William is only mentioned by Giraldus Cambrensis. Does this information agree with your sources? Daicaregos ( talk) 14:51, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
According to Charles Cawley, Eleanor de Braose married the son of the 2nd Earl of Hereford, not his grandson. Her son succeeded as the 3rd Earl of Hereford. An intersting fact is that while the de Braoses eased to be a power, the de Bohuns rose to become the most powerful family in western England, with several de Bohuns marrying members of the English Royal Family.-- Jeanne Boleyn ( talk) 12:22, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
{{
cite book}}
: Check |isbn=
value: checksum (
help); Check date values in: |accessdate=
(
help)" is actually Davies, John Reuben (2003).
"The Book of Llandaf: A Twelfth Century Perspective". In Harper-Bill, Christopher (ed.). Anglo-Norman Studies 21: Proceedings of the Battle Conference 1998. London:
Boydell & Brewer. pp. 42–43.
ISBN
0 8511 5745 0. Retrieved 22 October 2010. {{
cite encyclopedia}}
: Check |isbn=
value: checksum (
help); Check date values in: |accessdate=
(
help)
Ealdgyth -
Talk
16:13, 4 November 2010 (UTC)I have checked; Henry VII was not her descendant; however, his son Henry VIII was through his mother, Elizabeth of York. I don't think it's necessary to mention the European royal families who are, by dint of descent from Mary, Queen of Scots (Elizabeth of York's great-granddaughter), Sibyl's descendants as well. Thoughts?-- Jeanne Boleyn ( talk) 09:30, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
From Sibyl's legacy: "The Brecknock lordship would eventually go to the de Bohuns, by way of Eleanor de Braose. Eleanor, a descendant of Sibyl's through Bertha of Hereford, married Humphrey de Bohun, son of the 2nd Earl of Hereford." How is Eleanor de Braose descended from Sibyl? Daicaregos ( talk) 10:53, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
I wonder if we could discover how her surname was pronounced, then add it to the article in the lead?-- Jeanne Boleyn ( talk) 15:26, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
"Walter died in the Holy Land"
The term "Holy Land" is often regarded as POV. Maybe consideration should be given to using the term "the Levant" which is a non-contentious description of the same region often used in books on medieval topics. Doug ( talk) 23:58, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
"Matilda also granted Miles the title Lord Abergavenny, making Sibyl Lady Abergavenny"
The source given (Keats-Rohan) states in her article (p16) that Brien fitzCount granted Abergavenny to Miles, not Matilda. Doug ( talk) 18:17, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
When I first came to this article a few days ago, I was considering starting the GA review process. I have since decided that there are two major problems with it.
Firstly the article cannot yet be regarded as stable. With over 500 revisions in the last month it must be regarded as still a work in progress so the application is premature.
An even greater problem is the question of whether Sibyl is notable enough to justify the article at all. Wikipedia's standard of notability usually means that the subject must have received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources. It is hard to find this coverage of Sibyl.
I have searched through the article for facts about Sibyl. All I came up with was:
The rest of the article is about her father, her husband or a background to the history of the period. It is a very interesting essay but not really an encyclopedia piece about Sibyl de Neufmarché. Most of the work would make a good article entitled Miles of Gloucester. (He only has a very brief article at present yet he is a distincfly notable character written about in many secondary sources!)
GA criteria demand that “It keeps focused on the topic” and I would expect it to fail on this.
References
Congratulations to Jeanne and Dai for getting this interesting article to a state worthy of GA status. Doug ( at Wiki) 17:34, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
There are quite a few tags in the references section. Could one of the regular editors hae a look into fixing them. AIRcorn (talk) 10:47, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
Copied from Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 135#The Foundation for Medieval Genealogy. AIRcorn (talk) 01:25, 2 November 2012 (UTC) Maybe this should be copied to the article talk page, but for more general interest here are some notes about the 7 uses of this source on the article mentioned:-
1. Note b says that Richard Fitz Pons was brother-in-law of Miles FitzWalter de Gloucester, being the husband of his sister, Matilda. It references Charles Cawley, Medieval Lands, English earls 1067-112. But the English earls link is not included and is here: http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/ENGLISH%20NOBILITY%20MEDIEVAL.htm#_Toc321390470 . Note that specifically it is in the section concerning the Earls of Hereford. The relevant passage about Mathilda gives as its source
2. Footnote 15 refers to the same Cawley URL and is actually a footnote for 5 places in the article. The sentences in our article which link to this:-
The first three above are about Sybil's inheritance and marriage. Cawley cites these sources for this:
These same sentences are also already backed up in our article by two other sources, currently 13, 14 and 16. These back up Cawley but Cawley gives a reader a more complete list of primary sources. I think that is something we do not want to delete.
{{
cite book}}
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value: checksum (
help); Check date values in: |accessdate=
(
help){{
cite book}}
: Check |isbn=
value: checksum (
help); Check date values in: |accessdate=
(
help){{
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: Check date values in: |accessdate=
(
help)Concerning the listing of children, 2 have other sources already attached in order to back Cawley up, (footnote 26 cites Cawley again, see below 3.) and 7 have their own Wikipedia article. NOTE: I am not going to list all the dozens of sources given for these children, just for practical reasons. There are all here: http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/ENGLISH%20NOBILITY%20MEDIEVAL.htm#_Toc321390470
The last use of footnote 15 is also backed up by another source already, although once again Cawley gives a much more complete biography of the true sources. NOTE: but I see no source for the word "henchmen".
{{
cite book}}
: Check date values in: |accessdate=
(
help)3. Footnote 26 is an incompletely finished reference to Cawley, but in a section (the listing of children) which already cites him. It appears to be intended to be a citation for "Walter [of Hereford, so on Sybil] departed for Palestine on Michaelmas 1159,[26] and died shortly afterwards without leaving legitimate issue.". Cawley gives a citation for this to Keats-Rohan Domesday Descendants, p. 512. Keats-Rohan is probably the strongest source we could ask for in modern academic medieval genealogy. But the bigger listing of information by Cawley adds a lot of colour not yet reflected in our article.
4. Footnote 32. Used to source "Sometime after 1137, Sibyl, together with her husband, made a further endowment to Llanthony Secunda." It cites
Wales Lords of Brecknock, October 2010 {{
citation}}
: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1=
(
help); Unknown parameter |title-date=
ignored (
help). Cawley in turn cites
But once again Cawley gives interested readers a lot more information and other sources.
5. Footnote 34. Used to source "Matilda [the Empress] gave her permission for the transfer" of "the honour of Abergavenny from Brien FitzCount, the (likely illegitimate) son of Duke Alan IV of Brittany". The URL should be added, which would be http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/BRITTANY.htm#_Toc284059583 . However I do not immediately see the right information there. Perhaps better is the Hereford URL again where Cawley gives the following sources:
Note that according to Cawley's Bibliography, CP stands for
6. Footnote 41. Used to source "Eleanor and Humphrey's son, Humphrey de Bohun, succeeded his grandfather to the titles in 1275" This Humphrey has his own Wikipedia article with its own sourcing. The URL given is http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/ENGLISH%20NOBILITY%20MEDIEVAL.htm#HumphreyBohunHereforddied1298A. What Cawley supplies here is a record that Humphrey was indeed heir to these titles in 1266/67, but apparently he was too young to take up the titles at that time. Reference he gives is a primary document:
I would suggest looking to Humphrey's own article for a source for 1275, but I see no big reason to remove reference to the further information in Cawley.
7. Footnote 42. Used to source "By way of Edward's daughter, Elizabeth of York, every monarch of England and, subsequently, the United Kingdom, from Henry VIII up to and including Elizabeth II, descended in a direct line from Sibyl de Neufmarché, as did the various royal sovereigns of Europe who shared a common descent from Mary, Queen of Scots." The URL given is http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/ENGLAND,%20Kings%201066-1603.htm
Maybe a more exact URL would be http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/ENGLAND,%20Kings%201066-1603.htm#_Toc321390528
The basic point being made here is about Elizabeth of York, a member of the royal family. Elizabeth married Henry VII of England, the founder of the Tudor dynasty. Often such information is not even sourced, because it is widely known, uncontroversial, and easy to check if anyone has a concern.
Overall the sourcing seems good. Simple improvements should be made, but deleting a source which gives readers more leads would not seem to be a way of improving WP?-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 11:16, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
There have now been four conversations at WP:RSN about FMG/Charles Cawley that I know of:
I was involved in conversations 2 and 3 and in my opinion the consensus is that Charles Cawley is not a reliable source. I ran AWB over hundreds of articles which cite his pages and most of them simply cite one of his pages with a general reference or sometimes an inline citation. None of these are laid out in such a way that they meet Wikipedia reliable sources (See for example three of the biography pages of descendants of Sibyl linked to this article ( Walter de Hereford and [ Bertha of Hereford and Eleanor de Briouse).
Bad citation style like this can be fixed by citing Cawley and then citing his sources WP:SAYWHEREYOUREADIT. If he cites a secondary source (then eventually an editor can read that secondary sources, verify the information and remove the Cawley source.
Problems arise though when Cawley cites a primary source, as we are taking his word on the interpretation and linkage. Just because a man called John Smith married Mary Taylor which is recorded in a parish register does not necessaries mean that it is the John Smith about whom we are writing and Cawley has provide a link. This is a fairly common mistake that occurs in the DNB and is picked up in the ONDB written 100 years later. There is no way for us to judge how often Cawley makes such a mistakes, if he were a recognised academic publishing in a peer reviewed journal, then this would be a minor issue, but as he is not then by relying on his research on primary sources we can not confidently assume that the information he provides is correct.
There are two other problems with Cawley. The first is when he states something without a source to back it up. The third--of which there is a good example in his Syble entry -- is where he synthesise information in a way that is also quite common on Wikiepdia. The current article says "Together Sibyl and Miles had eight children" (this is done by counting the list and concluding it is complete and all the entries are correct). Cawley states "Earl Miles & his wife had seven children:" without citing a source. [4] Daryl Lundy (another unreliable source) states "Children of Sybil de Neufmarché and Miles of Gloucester" and lists six [5] but lists seven for Miles of Gloucester [6] (Lundy lists one child of Miles which was not Syble's). For all the children Lundy lists he cites G.E. Cokayne (reprint 2000) as his source. I think that the wording that Lundy uses is superior to that in the current Wikipedia article or Cawley because it does not draw conclusions about the number of children from the number in the list (see WP:SYN). While Cawley is free to draw any conclusions he wishes, because he is not a reliable source, Wikipia articles should not include his conclusions as if they were established facts.
The edits I made to this article 14:24, 17 November 2012 was intended to clean up the Cawley citations by changing then were possible to WP:SAYWHEREYOUREADIT and that is what most of the edit was about. But there were some other specific points:
-- PBS ( talk) 00:41, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
I think that the paragraphs that start:
should be removed.
The first I am not so fussed about, but I do not see the relevance of it. The second because it is a synthesis.
This information regarding her daughters descendants was not deemed irrelevant at the time of the GA review and in fact it was encouraged. I also think any information regarding her legacy is useful to readers. At Wikipedia there seems to be a tendency to disparage ancestry but remember that back in the Middle Ages, a woman's primary function was dynastic.-- Jeanne Boleyn ( talk) 07:49, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
Sibyl de Neufmarché has been listed as one of the History good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it. | |||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||
Current status: Good article |
This article is rated GA-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Should her name have an accented "e" - de Neufmarché...? Ghmyrtle ( talk) 08:14, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
I have uploaded some relevant images to the article. Any suggestions or comments?-- Jeanne Boleyn ( talk) 09:09, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
Copied from User talk:Daicaregos
Everything in the lead needs to be in the main text, and referenced. So to take the first sentence, for example: "Sibyl de Neufmarché, Countess of Hereford, Lady of Brecknock, Lady Abergavenny (c.1104 – after 1143), was a Cambro-Norman heiress, described as having been one of the wealthiest in south Wales."
The ref for Sibyl's dob (Ancestral roots of certain American colonists who came to America before … By Frederick Lewis Weis, Walter Lee Sheppard, David Faris) also has 177, which notes “Nesta, m Bernard de Neufmarche, d 1093 … Two questions: 1. I couldn't find a reference to Sibyl's dob, which page/line is it on? 2. Not sure if they are saying Nesta or Bernard died in 1093 (think it's Nesta) but either way it's unlikely Sibyl was born three years after the death of one of her parents. Thoughts?
I'm sorry if I'm sounding a little pedantic over this guys. Part of the intro reads "Sibyl passed most of these estates on to her husband, Miles de Gloucester, 1st Earl of Hereford following their marriage in the spring of 1121, which had been personally arranged by King Henry I of England." I may be reading it wrong, but to my eyes this sentence appears to saying that Miles took possesion of the estate immediately after marriage, which couldn't have been the case if Bernard were still alive, and I'm sure he was. Dai, if you want to cut and paste my comments over to the article talk page please do so. Your talk page is getting a little full on this subject, mainly due to me butting in :). Jack forbes ( talk) 15:03, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
Yes, Jack you are right, the sentence reads much better without mentioning the author. As you correctly pointed out, the ref cites her name. Looks much better this way.-- Jeanne Boleyn ( talk) 04:44, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
I checked and discovered that armorial bearings were first used on the battlefield in the mid-12th century, so they would have been anachronistic to Sibyl as well as to her father. Therefore they cannot be in the article.-- Jeanne Boleyn ( talk) 08:46, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
Shall I add one?-- Jeanne Boleyn ( talk) 09:26, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
I presume the language written in Henry's charter was Latin. We should confirm this and then add it to the article.-- Jeanne Boleyn ( talk) 11:57, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
This is all my fault guys. I should have clicked on to the main text of the source and didn't. Sorry for all the wasted words on this when other things could have been done. A lesson learned for me I reckon. Jack forbes ( talk) 15:37, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
Sybyl was styled Coutess of Hereford until Miles death. She was also titled Lady Abergavenny and Lady Brecknock. Did she retain these two titles or lose them also? Jack forbes ( talk) 13:56, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
Would you normally expect to see a couple's children noted in chronological order? If so, this source (p 2) places the order as: Margaret, Roger, Walter, Henry, Mabel, Bertha, Lucy. They confirm that Margaret de Bohun was the eldest child, are unsure of the position of the other daughters and note that William is only mentioned by Giraldus Cambrensis. Does this information agree with your sources? Daicaregos ( talk) 14:51, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
According to Charles Cawley, Eleanor de Braose married the son of the 2nd Earl of Hereford, not his grandson. Her son succeeded as the 3rd Earl of Hereford. An intersting fact is that while the de Braoses eased to be a power, the de Bohuns rose to become the most powerful family in western England, with several de Bohuns marrying members of the English Royal Family.-- Jeanne Boleyn ( talk) 12:22, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
{{
cite book}}
: Check |isbn=
value: checksum (
help); Check date values in: |accessdate=
(
help)" is actually Davies, John Reuben (2003).
"The Book of Llandaf: A Twelfth Century Perspective". In Harper-Bill, Christopher (ed.). Anglo-Norman Studies 21: Proceedings of the Battle Conference 1998. London:
Boydell & Brewer. pp. 42–43.
ISBN
0 8511 5745 0. Retrieved 22 October 2010. {{
cite encyclopedia}}
: Check |isbn=
value: checksum (
help); Check date values in: |accessdate=
(
help)
Ealdgyth -
Talk
16:13, 4 November 2010 (UTC)I have checked; Henry VII was not her descendant; however, his son Henry VIII was through his mother, Elizabeth of York. I don't think it's necessary to mention the European royal families who are, by dint of descent from Mary, Queen of Scots (Elizabeth of York's great-granddaughter), Sibyl's descendants as well. Thoughts?-- Jeanne Boleyn ( talk) 09:30, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
From Sibyl's legacy: "The Brecknock lordship would eventually go to the de Bohuns, by way of Eleanor de Braose. Eleanor, a descendant of Sibyl's through Bertha of Hereford, married Humphrey de Bohun, son of the 2nd Earl of Hereford." How is Eleanor de Braose descended from Sibyl? Daicaregos ( talk) 10:53, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
I wonder if we could discover how her surname was pronounced, then add it to the article in the lead?-- Jeanne Boleyn ( talk) 15:26, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
"Walter died in the Holy Land"
The term "Holy Land" is often regarded as POV. Maybe consideration should be given to using the term "the Levant" which is a non-contentious description of the same region often used in books on medieval topics. Doug ( talk) 23:58, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
"Matilda also granted Miles the title Lord Abergavenny, making Sibyl Lady Abergavenny"
The source given (Keats-Rohan) states in her article (p16) that Brien fitzCount granted Abergavenny to Miles, not Matilda. Doug ( talk) 18:17, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
When I first came to this article a few days ago, I was considering starting the GA review process. I have since decided that there are two major problems with it.
Firstly the article cannot yet be regarded as stable. With over 500 revisions in the last month it must be regarded as still a work in progress so the application is premature.
An even greater problem is the question of whether Sibyl is notable enough to justify the article at all. Wikipedia's standard of notability usually means that the subject must have received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources. It is hard to find this coverage of Sibyl.
I have searched through the article for facts about Sibyl. All I came up with was:
The rest of the article is about her father, her husband or a background to the history of the period. It is a very interesting essay but not really an encyclopedia piece about Sibyl de Neufmarché. Most of the work would make a good article entitled Miles of Gloucester. (He only has a very brief article at present yet he is a distincfly notable character written about in many secondary sources!)
GA criteria demand that “It keeps focused on the topic” and I would expect it to fail on this.
References
Congratulations to Jeanne and Dai for getting this interesting article to a state worthy of GA status. Doug ( at Wiki) 17:34, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
There are quite a few tags in the references section. Could one of the regular editors hae a look into fixing them. AIRcorn (talk) 10:47, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
Copied from Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 135#The Foundation for Medieval Genealogy. AIRcorn (talk) 01:25, 2 November 2012 (UTC) Maybe this should be copied to the article talk page, but for more general interest here are some notes about the 7 uses of this source on the article mentioned:-
1. Note b says that Richard Fitz Pons was brother-in-law of Miles FitzWalter de Gloucester, being the husband of his sister, Matilda. It references Charles Cawley, Medieval Lands, English earls 1067-112. But the English earls link is not included and is here: http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/ENGLISH%20NOBILITY%20MEDIEVAL.htm#_Toc321390470 . Note that specifically it is in the section concerning the Earls of Hereford. The relevant passage about Mathilda gives as its source
2. Footnote 15 refers to the same Cawley URL and is actually a footnote for 5 places in the article. The sentences in our article which link to this:-
The first three above are about Sybil's inheritance and marriage. Cawley cites these sources for this:
These same sentences are also already backed up in our article by two other sources, currently 13, 14 and 16. These back up Cawley but Cawley gives a reader a more complete list of primary sources. I think that is something we do not want to delete.
{{
cite book}}
: Check |isbn=
value: checksum (
help); Check date values in: |accessdate=
(
help){{
cite book}}
: Check |isbn=
value: checksum (
help); Check date values in: |accessdate=
(
help){{
cite book}}
: Check date values in: |accessdate=
(
help)Concerning the listing of children, 2 have other sources already attached in order to back Cawley up, (footnote 26 cites Cawley again, see below 3.) and 7 have their own Wikipedia article. NOTE: I am not going to list all the dozens of sources given for these children, just for practical reasons. There are all here: http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/ENGLISH%20NOBILITY%20MEDIEVAL.htm#_Toc321390470
The last use of footnote 15 is also backed up by another source already, although once again Cawley gives a much more complete biography of the true sources. NOTE: but I see no source for the word "henchmen".
{{
cite book}}
: Check date values in: |accessdate=
(
help)3. Footnote 26 is an incompletely finished reference to Cawley, but in a section (the listing of children) which already cites him. It appears to be intended to be a citation for "Walter [of Hereford, so on Sybil] departed for Palestine on Michaelmas 1159,[26] and died shortly afterwards without leaving legitimate issue.". Cawley gives a citation for this to Keats-Rohan Domesday Descendants, p. 512. Keats-Rohan is probably the strongest source we could ask for in modern academic medieval genealogy. But the bigger listing of information by Cawley adds a lot of colour not yet reflected in our article.
4. Footnote 32. Used to source "Sometime after 1137, Sibyl, together with her husband, made a further endowment to Llanthony Secunda." It cites
Wales Lords of Brecknock, October 2010 {{
citation}}
: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1=
(
help); Unknown parameter |title-date=
ignored (
help). Cawley in turn cites
But once again Cawley gives interested readers a lot more information and other sources.
5. Footnote 34. Used to source "Matilda [the Empress] gave her permission for the transfer" of "the honour of Abergavenny from Brien FitzCount, the (likely illegitimate) son of Duke Alan IV of Brittany". The URL should be added, which would be http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/BRITTANY.htm#_Toc284059583 . However I do not immediately see the right information there. Perhaps better is the Hereford URL again where Cawley gives the following sources:
Note that according to Cawley's Bibliography, CP stands for
6. Footnote 41. Used to source "Eleanor and Humphrey's son, Humphrey de Bohun, succeeded his grandfather to the titles in 1275" This Humphrey has his own Wikipedia article with its own sourcing. The URL given is http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/ENGLISH%20NOBILITY%20MEDIEVAL.htm#HumphreyBohunHereforddied1298A. What Cawley supplies here is a record that Humphrey was indeed heir to these titles in 1266/67, but apparently he was too young to take up the titles at that time. Reference he gives is a primary document:
I would suggest looking to Humphrey's own article for a source for 1275, but I see no big reason to remove reference to the further information in Cawley.
7. Footnote 42. Used to source "By way of Edward's daughter, Elizabeth of York, every monarch of England and, subsequently, the United Kingdom, from Henry VIII up to and including Elizabeth II, descended in a direct line from Sibyl de Neufmarché, as did the various royal sovereigns of Europe who shared a common descent from Mary, Queen of Scots." The URL given is http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/ENGLAND,%20Kings%201066-1603.htm
Maybe a more exact URL would be http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/ENGLAND,%20Kings%201066-1603.htm#_Toc321390528
The basic point being made here is about Elizabeth of York, a member of the royal family. Elizabeth married Henry VII of England, the founder of the Tudor dynasty. Often such information is not even sourced, because it is widely known, uncontroversial, and easy to check if anyone has a concern.
Overall the sourcing seems good. Simple improvements should be made, but deleting a source which gives readers more leads would not seem to be a way of improving WP?-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 11:16, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
There have now been four conversations at WP:RSN about FMG/Charles Cawley that I know of:
I was involved in conversations 2 and 3 and in my opinion the consensus is that Charles Cawley is not a reliable source. I ran AWB over hundreds of articles which cite his pages and most of them simply cite one of his pages with a general reference or sometimes an inline citation. None of these are laid out in such a way that they meet Wikipedia reliable sources (See for example three of the biography pages of descendants of Sibyl linked to this article ( Walter de Hereford and [ Bertha of Hereford and Eleanor de Briouse).
Bad citation style like this can be fixed by citing Cawley and then citing his sources WP:SAYWHEREYOUREADIT. If he cites a secondary source (then eventually an editor can read that secondary sources, verify the information and remove the Cawley source.
Problems arise though when Cawley cites a primary source, as we are taking his word on the interpretation and linkage. Just because a man called John Smith married Mary Taylor which is recorded in a parish register does not necessaries mean that it is the John Smith about whom we are writing and Cawley has provide a link. This is a fairly common mistake that occurs in the DNB and is picked up in the ONDB written 100 years later. There is no way for us to judge how often Cawley makes such a mistakes, if he were a recognised academic publishing in a peer reviewed journal, then this would be a minor issue, but as he is not then by relying on his research on primary sources we can not confidently assume that the information he provides is correct.
There are two other problems with Cawley. The first is when he states something without a source to back it up. The third--of which there is a good example in his Syble entry -- is where he synthesise information in a way that is also quite common on Wikiepdia. The current article says "Together Sibyl and Miles had eight children" (this is done by counting the list and concluding it is complete and all the entries are correct). Cawley states "Earl Miles & his wife had seven children:" without citing a source. [4] Daryl Lundy (another unreliable source) states "Children of Sybil de Neufmarché and Miles of Gloucester" and lists six [5] but lists seven for Miles of Gloucester [6] (Lundy lists one child of Miles which was not Syble's). For all the children Lundy lists he cites G.E. Cokayne (reprint 2000) as his source. I think that the wording that Lundy uses is superior to that in the current Wikipedia article or Cawley because it does not draw conclusions about the number of children from the number in the list (see WP:SYN). While Cawley is free to draw any conclusions he wishes, because he is not a reliable source, Wikipia articles should not include his conclusions as if they were established facts.
The edits I made to this article 14:24, 17 November 2012 was intended to clean up the Cawley citations by changing then were possible to WP:SAYWHEREYOUREADIT and that is what most of the edit was about. But there were some other specific points:
-- PBS ( talk) 00:41, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
I think that the paragraphs that start:
should be removed.
The first I am not so fussed about, but I do not see the relevance of it. The second because it is a synthesis.
This information regarding her daughters descendants was not deemed irrelevant at the time of the GA review and in fact it was encouraged. I also think any information regarding her legacy is useful to readers. At Wikipedia there seems to be a tendency to disparage ancestry but remember that back in the Middle Ages, a woman's primary function was dynastic.-- Jeanne Boleyn ( talk) 07:49, 18 November 2012 (UTC)