Helene, illegitimate daughter of Richard III, Duke of Normandy = Helene "le Bon" ? ? ?

http://www.geni.com/path/Elizabeth-Woodville+is+related+to+Helene-i...

I connect through 2 great uncles, not close but still interesting to me a novice in this endeavor.

http://www.geni.com/path/Elizabeth-Woodville+is+related+to+B-Rice?f...

Woodville is very close to Dudley and I am very close to establishing Sir Robert Dudley's downline as my cousin. for what ever that's worth. DCR

Both Helenas are fake. A curator should MP both profiles, lock the name to include "Fictitious Person", add them to the Fictional Genealogy project, and disconnect them from parents and children.

The Helena who was fake wife of Waldron / Waleran de St. Clair is sometimes said to have been the fake daughter of Richard II (that is, "sister of the 6th duke") instead of fake daughter of Richard III.

As far as I know, the first attested use of the Greek name Helena anywhere in this cultural region is Helena, wife of King Inge of Sweden, a generation later. Her daughters also had Greek names -- Margaret and Christine. The connection makes sense because of Sweden's close cultural ties with Greece and Russia. England and France weren't yet that sophisticated.

Whoever does the cleanup should also deal with this problem:
http://www.geni.com/merge/compare/6000000017488959640?return=duplic...

Also, remove her as wife of Neil / Neel de St. Saveur and as mother of Billeheude.

Not mentioned as a daughter of Richard II or Richard III at MedLands:
http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/NORMANDY.htm#RichardIIdied1026B

Not mentioned as a daughter of Richard II by Stewart Baldwin and Todd Farmerie at the Henry Project. There is no entry here for Richard III.
http://sbaldw.home.mindspring.com/hproject/prov/richa001.htm

Mentioned as a fake by expert Todd Farmerie at SGM:
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.genealogy.medieval/79Or6W3XbUA/...

Both are curated. One by Angus Wood-Salomon who added a new Curator's Note yesterday.

And one by Private User.

Next step is to detach husband Hubert Hussey from the Helena who is married to Waldonius St. Clair.

Both fake. Why create a fictitious relationship between the two husbands?

Martin, not everything on the Internet is true. The experts say she's fake. If you think she was a real person, please give us proof.

LDS is not a good source. Random vanity websites are not a good source. You need an original charter from her lifetime, or a division of her property among her children. Or, you can trust the experts in the field.

Yes, it's an old myth.

Here is a way to understand what you're seeing.

Until the time of Horace Round (1854-1928), English genealogy was just collecting and repeating old legends. Horace Round was among the first to take an academic approach to genealogy, the way we do today. He researched many of those old legends and he found there was no contemporary evidence for them.

One of his most famous books was Studies in Peerage and Family History (1901). It was shocking because it exploded the old legends of some of England's most prominent families. The legends weren't just little exaggerations, they were entirely false.

Horace Round: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Horace_Round

Studies in Peerage and Family History (1901): https://archive.org/details/studiesinpeerage02rounuoft

Horace Round did more than anyone else to put genealogy on an academic footing. After him, genealogists started questioning the old legends and giving up the ones that had no evidence.

Many modern genealogists still copy the legends. They love the story more than the truth.

On Geni, English and American users and curators have been very slow to give up the old stories. The Scandinavian, Dutch, and German users and curators have been much better about demanding evidence.

We've been through the specific problem of Helena before, but let's do it again.

The legendary genealogy says there were two different women:

1. Helena, daughter of Duke Richard III, was supposedly the *mother* (not wife) of Hubert Husee, a companion of William the Conqueror.

Battle Abbey Roll, Husee: http://www.1066.co.nz/library/battle_abbey_roll2/subchap93.htm

2. An unnamed daughter (not Helena) of Duke Richard II or Duke Richard III supposedly married Waleran (Waldron, Waldonius) de St. Clair.

Burke's Extinct Peerages (1866): http://books.google.com/books?id=1DEGAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA493&lpg=...

They are not the same woman and were never intended to be the same woman, although some modern genealogists have combined them.

Burke's Peerage looks like a good source, until you look at the date - 1866. This is before Horace Round, so it was before Burke's stopped using old legends and started relying on academic research. This information was dropped from later editions.

The Battle Abbey Roll is supposed to be a list of men who fought with William the Conqueror. at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. It also looks like a good source, until you realize that the original is lost, and this is a reconstruction prepared by the Duchess of Cleveland in 1889. She was collating three different surviving copies of the original roll, and adding genealogical notes from later sources. In the introduction she says bluntly, "The antiquity of these names can, on account of the admitted interpolations, only be accepted with great reserve."

Battle Abbey Roll, Introduction: http://www.1066.co.nz/library/battle_abbey_roll1/chap00.htm

It's worth noting that the Duchess of Cleveland's notes on Husee say, "I fear we must admit that the element of romance is predominant in this composition. The Lord Constable of England under the Conqueror was, according to Dugdale, not Hubert Hussey, but Walter, the father of Milo, Earl of Hereford; [60] no daughter of any Earl of Warwick is mentioned as having married a Hussey; nor can I even suggest what island in the Mediterranean is disguised under the name of Aubegeys. The Norman princess Ellen, Countess Hussey, sounds equally apocryphal. But the story of the gallant knight-errant crowned King of an unknown kingdom; and the valiant monk, who fought the Soldan single-handed and slew him; with their ten brave brothers, 'all of them knights;' has the true ring of the chivalrous age in which it was written."

And, it's worth noting that in the entry for Senclere, the Duchess of Cleveland doesn't mention Waleran de St. Clair and his supposed wife, because his name did not appear on any surviving copy of the Battle Abbey Roll.

Battle Abbey Roll, Senclere: http://www.1066.co.nz/library/battle_abbey_roll3/subchap59.htm

I have a reprint of another edition of the Battle Abbey Roll, prepared by Burke (1848). It is also before Horace Round. The annotations are different than the Duchess of Cleveland edition, but the information is generally shorter and less helpful. It doesn't contain anything that contradicts the Duchess.

Martin, English genealogists did not try to erase French ancestry. Just the opposite. For 900 years in England, one of the highest marks of aristocracy was that the first ancestor in England "came with the Conqueror". If they couldn't prove it, they invented it.

That's why the Battle Abbey Roll is so controversial. Families that did not come with the Conqueror paid to have their ancestors added to the list. The original roll is lost, so there is debate about which names are original and which names were added later.

If you disconnect the people from the original sources, then anyone can believe anything. You can say you know it's true, even if there are no records or even if the records disagree, but how will you prove it to someone else who knows something else is true?

The Anglo-Norman curators already know these two lines are wrong. They have been slow to fix it because they don't think it's important enough. There is too much work to do elsewhere. That doesn't mean it won't get fixed someday.

Whoa, Martin! When the picture is THIS fuzzy, it has to be original sources - or nothing.

No second-hand information.
No "family traditions".
No books published centuries later.
No website trees.
No Geni paths (using Geni as a source is, pardon the vulgarity, a circle jerk).

I know you want this to be so, but you gotta *prove* it. Preferably with her signature or seal on a legal document that attests who she is, whom she married, who her father was (mothers are very rarely documented this early), or who her children were (you're lucky to find anything beyond eldest son, if that), etc. (You probably won't find all of the above on just one document, either.)

There's a lot of bushwah on Geni, as well I know, and more keeps getting added faster than people can sort it out. (Some of it probably never will be.)

Don't start with me, Martin. Yes I know that original charters are hard to find - however, if the records were important enough, they got copied and transcribed and eventually printed up in collected record books. Someone who was (supposedly) the daughter of a Duke of Normandy and the wife of another noble *should* have been important enough to leave some kind of record - if not in her own right, then a memorial by a bereaved husband or son, or a citation of a bequest in her name, or a notation of marriage or parentage, or etc.

Right now you have nothing.

New profile: Helena "le Bon"

Why?

I have just finished reading thrue this thread, and I can't
understand why anyone would defend so much a cousin
who were merried with a woman who didn't had any
own children, for almost a millenia ago. If she's the
person who correspond with the name Helena, or N.N
it doesn't matter, her genes was wasted, blood does not
pass over to stepchildren and certainly not backwards to
brothers fathers fathers etc... did I misunderstand something?

Martin is Hélène de NORMANDIE, Le bon's husband's second cousin 24 times removed!
http://www.geni.com/path/H%C3%A9l%C3%A8ne-de-NORMANDIE+is+related+t...

Ulf, Helene is my 26th, 29th & 31st ggm - depending on which of the featured profiles you read, she had 6 children with Waldron de Sant Clair ; a "bunch" with Hubert Huse & 1 "le Bigod" child with someone.
I don't really care if she descended from Richard, Duc De Normandie, as much as I would like to sort out to whom she was married.
So, the issue of her motherhood (or, not) is of interest, along with her paternity.

Ok, correct me if I'm wrong, you say that these two women are both the
same married to Waldonius, count of Saint-Clair, whos son is
Hubert Huse?

This has to be one of the silliest discussions anyone has ever had on Geni. Unless one of the curators takes an interest and cleans up the area, it's just going to sit there as proof that many of Geni's users prefer fantasy to real research.

There is NO CONTEMPORARY EVIDENCE of either Helena. They are just later inventions to inflate the ancestry of two different families. Originally, they were said to be different women, but 20th century amateurs combined them because of the similarities. I've done some fairly extensive searches. I can't find any expert who thinks either Helena was a real person or that they are same person.

The earliest evidence of one Helena in an undated manuscript found in the 16th century, where Hubert Huse is said to have been a "cousin-german" (1st cousin) of William the Conqueror. The original French says Hubert's mother was Helena, daughter of Duke Richard. This would have to be Richard III if Hubert was a 1st cousin of the Conqueror. A bad English translation of the original French said that Hubert was married to Helena (instead of being her son).

The earliest evidence of the other Helena is an 18th century manuscript history that said William "the Seemly" Sinclair was a "cousin-german" (1st cousin) of William the Conqueror. His mother, NOT NAMED, is said to have been a daughter of Duke Richard. This would have to be Richard III if William the Seemly was a 1st cousin of the Conqueror. In later publications this unnamed daughter was sometimes called Helena, sometimes called Margaret.

The two women were originally separate stories. To keep them separate, some 20th century sources have said that Hubert Huse's mother was daughter of Richard II "le Bon", not Richard III. This is where the name Helena le Bon comes from. It's a modern invention.

To complicate matters, no one now believes that William the Seemly was son of Woldonius. Instead, he was "probably" son of Robert de Saint-Clair and Eleanor de Dreux. There is no contemporary evidence of Woldonius. He was probably fictional.

The best book about the family relationships in the family of the dukes of Normandy is Prof. Eleanor Searle's "Predatory Kinship and the Creation of Norman Power 840-1066". She examines in detail the relationships and power politics. According to her, Richard III's only known child was Nicholas (Abbot of Saint-Ouen). The Saint-Clair and Huse families play no role in Norman politics because they are not related to the dukes.

I could help sort out the problems, but I'm not going to make a career out of this one problem. I'd be happy to share my notes with a curator who is willing to take primary responsibility.

Private User, Pam Wilson (on hiatus), Private User, Private User, Erica Howton, Angus Wood-Salomon.

Martin, you need to be clear about this -- I don't enter fictional people, I label people already on Geni as fictional so other users won't get confused.

If you want to believe the two Helenas are real, I'll listen, but when the first record is 600 years later and contradicts the contemporary evidence I'm always going to be skeptical.

In this case I'm also very surprised that you are arguing the French got it wrong, but the English translation is right ;)

Justin wrote
"Eleanor Searle's "Predatory Kinship and the Creation of Norman Power 840-1066". She examines in detail the relationships and power politics. According to her, Richard III's only known child was Nicholas (Abbot of Saint-Ouen). "

I did find him, but not via Richard III profile.
( Richard III, King of England )

Nicolas Abbot of de Saint-Ouen, Abbott is Ulf Ingvar Göte Martinsson's first cousin 24 times removed!
http://www.geni.com/path/Ulf-Martinsson+is+related+to+Nicolas-de-Sa...

If one line is incorrect, maybe one of the others are correct.

Richard III's first cousin Judith 'Fausta' de Flandre (van Vlaanderen)
is my triple gm, or more?

Kjetil "Krok" Tostigsson AV Northumberland is Ulf Ingvar Göte Martinsson's 29th great grandfather!

http://www.geni.com/path/Ulf-Martinsson+is+related+to+Kjetil-Krok-A...

Heinrich IX 'der Schwarze' Welf, Herzog von Bayern is Ulf Ingvar Göte Martinsson's 30th great grandfather!

http://www.geni.com/path/Ulf-Martinsson+is+related+to+Heinrich-IX-d...

Skule Tostesen Kongsfostre is Ulf Ingvar Göte Martinsson's 29th great grandfather!

http://www.geni.com/path/Ulf-Martinsson+is+related+to+Skule-Tostese...

Sorry, misswrote, his her uncle.

The Sinclairs are an interesting family but a lot of crap has been written about them since they became the centerpiece of the Holy Grail books.

I have a ton of material about them, ranging from the academic to the woo-woo. I could never live long enough to get it all on Geni.

I first got interested in them in the 1970s because I was supposedly connected to them on both sides of my family. My father's family, the Howerys, supposedly came from Orkney. That turned out to be wrong. My Howerys were Swiss Hauris, not Scottish Howries. Now proved by DNA.

And there is a story that my mother's family, the Svanströms, were Sinclairs who went from Scotland to Sweden. That is almost certainly wrong. It has to be, even though my Swanström cousins have a yDNA match to one family of Sinclairs.

The Sinclair Silliness is so bad that the main study group for Sinclair DNA is private. Their results show that there are dozens of different Sinclair families. Even the different branches that have held the earldom are different families. There's a lot of disagreement about whether that's because of an unusually high number of "non-paternal events" or because the paper genealogies are fictitious.

It would be nice to get some of the information on Geni, but of course that's not possible if every discussion about them has to turn into a career.

Helene le Bon is your 28th great grandmother.
Didnt know I was even related. Here goes..
You
→ Henry LeRoy Swalley
your father → Vesta Grace Petrelli
his mother → Charles I Rogers
her father → Florence Palmer (Rogers)
his mother → Benjamin Franklin Palmer
her father → Daniel Palmer
his father → Daniel Palmer
his father → Samuel Palmer
his father → Daniel Palmer
his father → Margaret Smith
his mother → Lydia Smith (Winchester)
her mother → Alexander Winchester
her father → Elizabeth Winchester
his mother → Douglas Aungier
her father → Edward Fitzgerald, MP
his father → Gerald Fitzgerald, 9th Earl of Kildare
his father → Geroid Mór FitzGerald, 8th Earl of Kildare
his father → Thomas FitzMaurice FitzGerald, 7th Earl of Kildare
his father → John Fitzgerald, 6th Earl of Kildare
his father → Maurice FitzGerald, 4th Earl of Kildare
his father → Joan de Burgh, Countess of Kildare
his mother → Richard Óg de Burgh, 2nd Earl of Ulster
her father → Walter de Burgh, 1st Earl of Ulster
his father → Egidia de Lacy, Lady of Connacht
his mother → Margaret de Braose, Lady of Trim
her mother → William III de Braose, 4th Lord of Bramber
her father → William de Braose II, 3rd Lord of Bramber
his father → Philip de Braose, 2nd Lord of Bramber
his father → Agnes de Saint-Clair, de Clare
his mother → Helene le Bon
her mother