It is usually not worth the effort of refuting the levels upon levels of bullshit that appear in the crowdsourced internet genealogies (seriously, though - is it really so antithetical to have blank fields that one must invent precise birthdates and
places for people only found in the historical record in a patronymic?), but I came across a new variation on the Aboazar situation discussed here in detail previously that is probably worth sorting out just to clarify how deep the rot goes. Both obsure
and exotic, this line combines the inability of the average reader to independently evaluate it (if they even cared to do so) with a desparate desire it be true, an often unfortunate combination.

First, to summarize. In the 14th century, a Portuguese prince and genealogist recorded a family foundation legend (one of many in his work) that may have had its origin in a romantic chanson de geste. This during an era when Iberia families were
inventing exotic origins for themselves. There are Iberian families claiming to descend from Ecgberht of Wessex, from an Armenian pilgrim, the son of a Byzantine emperor, the brother of a Holy Roman emperor, and Breton immigrants seemed particualrly
popular for some reason.

Known as the Miragaia, this Arthurian-type tale tells a story of mid-10th-century king Ramiro II besieging a local Muslim landholder and through an absurd course of events, ending up in love with that man's sister (in later renderings called Ortiga),
murdering his wife to marry her, and becoming father of Aboazar, the founder of the Portuguese noble Maya family.

I am not going to repeat the extensive discussion of this that can be seen in the archives. The takehome is that Aboazar de Maya matches the historical Abouazar/Abunazar Lovesendes, not Ramirez as would be the case were he son of king Ramiro. The Maya
genealogist traced back as far as they could, then followed the common trope of deciding a man of (to them) obscure parentage must have really been the child of a king's illicit love, and this being on the al-Andalus frontier, via an inter-faith
relationship (itself a common frontier romantic trope - the lost Cancion de los Siete Infantes de Sala and a chanson de Geste about William of Gellone likewise invoke such a liaison or marriage).

As is almost always the case, when faced with clear evidence refuting the desired traditional connections, the response has been various ad hoc 'repairs'. The most prominent of these was a paper by Portuguese academic historian Antonio Rei. I won't go
into detail, but it is wishful thinking run wild, at odds with the onomastic forms of the time as well as common sense, but it concludes that Abouazar and Lovesendo are two names for the same person, a son of the 'rescued' ancestors, Ramiro II and Ortiga.

What have the online pedigrees made of all this? Just within the past few years, a fusion/confusion has been gaining popularity. It shows a line that runs as follows:

[Note: This is nonsense - do not enter it into your database]
Ramiro II married Onega ibn de Gaya
Lovesendo Ramirez married Zayra ibn Zayda, daughter of Zayda ibn Zayd
Aboazar Lovesendez

Let's break this down. First, who is Onega ibn de Gaya. It is Ortiga in disguise. Onega is a Pamplona name, not in use on the Portuguese frontier at this time, but it is a clear misreading of Ortega, a common variant given for the legend's Ortiga, itself
a name found on the Portuguese frontier outside of this tale. The remainder of her supposed name 'ibn de Gaya' is itself nonsensical. Ibn means 'son of', not 'daughter of' (bint), so right from the start we have gender dysmorphia. 'De Gaya' is a
toponymic, so the combined translation woudl be 'son (sic) of of (sic) Gaya', with Gaya being an alternative representation of the toponym embedded in the name of the legend, the Miragaia. It is all absurd, but clearly a reference to the heroine Ortiga
of the Miragaia tradition.

How about Zayra ibn Zayda. In addition to the same gender problem, this is again a confused rendering of the same Ortiga. Zayra has no basis in any of the source material, seemingly having arisen through a typo ('r' is right-above 'd' on the standard
keyboard) of the name given her father, Zayda. That in turn is a corruption of the legendary Ortiga's father, Çadan/Zadan, converted into a female name Zayda (i.e. Zaida - a derivative of the Arabic 'Sayyidah' - Lady) and probably not coincidentally a
name associated with a historical instance of a Leonese royal having a lovechild by a Muslim noblewoman.

How about the male line. There isn't any historical source, medieval or modern, that makes Abouazar the grandson of Ramiro, via Lovesendo or anyone else. Those few renderings that give sources or reasoning cite the fact that Abouazar was son of Lovesendo
for the first generation, then refer to Rei for the second generation, but this is classic 'pick and choose' use of sources since Rei did say that Lovesendo was son of Ramiro, but only because he said that Lovesendo was identical to Abouazar. You can't
have it both ways - either Lovesendo was father of Abouazar, as is the clear implication of the historical record, or you naively follow Rei's revisionist 'rescue' and Lovesendo is the same as Abouazar, son of Ramiro. There is no way to make Lovesendo
son of Ramiro independent of him being the same as Abouazar - well, there is a way, but it is called 'making it up'.

This confused reimagining of the pedigree also explains how we have doppelganger representations of Ortiga in both generations, one as Zayra, mother of Abouazar, simply swapping out the husband of legend for that of history as if that were reasonable,
the other as per the legend as wife of Ramiro but then replacing the legend's son with Lovesendo because f a misapplication of Rei, both obscured by sloppy changes to both their names.

What are we left with as genealogists who care whether their pedigree matches reality?

Lovesendo (known definitively only from hhis son's patronymic) Abouazar/Abu-Nazar Lovesendes

which is not nearly as desirable for the name-collectors out there.

(I don't mean here to be dismissive of Chico Doria's speculation about the true identity of Lovesendo - it is just outside of the scope of this already over-long post.)

taf

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Monday, March 6, 2023 at 3:48:00 AM UTC+1, taf wrote:

It is usually not worth the effort of refuting the levels upon levels of bullshit that appear in the crowdsourced internet genealogies (seriously, though - is it really so antithetical to have blank fields that one must invent precise birthdates and

places for people only found in the historical record in a patronymic?), but I came across a new variation on the Aboazar situation discussed here in detail previously that is probably worth sorting out just to clarify how deep the rot goes. Both obsure
and exotic, this line combines the inability of the average reader to independently evaluate it (if they even cared to do so) with a desparate desire it be true, an often unfortunate combination.

First, to summarize. In the 14th century, a Portuguese prince and genealogist recorded a family foundation legend (one of many in his work) that may have had its origin in a romantic chanson de geste. This during an era when Iberia families were

inventing exotic origins for themselves. There are Iberian families claiming to descend from Ecgberht of Wessex, from an Armenian pilgrim, the son of a Byzantine emperor, the brother of a Holy Roman emperor, and Breton immigrants seemed particualrly
popular for some reason.

Known as the Miragaia, this Arthurian-type tale tells a story of mid-10th-century king Ramiro II besieging a local Muslim landholder and through an absurd course of events, ending up in love with that man's sister (in later renderings called Ortiga),

murdering his wife to marry her, and becoming father of Aboazar, the founder of the Portuguese noble Maya family.

I am not going to repeat the extensive discussion of this that can be seen in the archives. The takehome is that Aboazar de Maya matches the historical Abouazar/Abunazar Lovesendes, not Ramirez as would be the case were he son of king Ramiro. The Maya

genealogist traced back as far as they could, then followed the common trope of deciding a man of (to them) obscure parentage must have really been the child of a king's illicit love, and this being on the al-Andalus frontier, via an inter-faith
relationship (itself a common frontier romantic trope - the lost Cancion de los Siete Infantes de Sala and a chanson de Geste about William of Gellone likewise invoke such a liaison or marriage).

As is almost always the case, when faced with clear evidence refuting the desired traditional connections, the response has been various ad hoc 'repairs'. The most prominent of these was a paper by Portuguese academic historian Antonio Rei. I won't go

into detail, but it is wishful thinking run wild, at odds with the onomastic forms of the time as well as common sense, but it concludes that Abouazar and Lovesendo are two names for the same person, a son of the 'rescued' ancestors, Ramiro II and Ortiga.

What have the online pedigrees made of all this? Just within the past few years, a fusion/confusion has been gaining popularity. It shows a line that runs as follows:

[Note: This is nonsense - do not enter it into your database]
Ramiro II married Onega ibn de Gaya
Lovesendo Ramirez married Zayra ibn Zayda, daughter of Zayda ibn Zayd Aboazar Lovesendez

Let's break this down. First, who is Onega ibn de Gaya. It is Ortiga in disguise. Onega is a Pamplona name, not in use on the Portuguese frontier at this time, but it is a clear misreading of Ortega, a common variant given for the legend's Ortiga,

itself a name found on the Portuguese frontier outside of this tale. The remainder of her supposed name 'ibn de Gaya' is itself nonsensical. Ibn means 'son of', not 'daughter of' (bint), so right from the start we have gender dysmorphia. 'De Gaya' is a
toponymic, so the combined translation woudl be 'son (sic) of of (sic) Gaya', with Gaya being an alternative representation of the toponym embedded in the name of the legend, the Miragaia. It is all absurd, but clearly a reference to the heroine Ortiga
of the Miragaia tradition.

How about Zayra ibn Zayda. In addition to the same gender problem, this is again a confused rendering of the same Ortiga. Zayra has no basis in any of the source material, seemingly having arisen through a typo ('r' is right-above 'd' on the standard

keyboard) of the name given her father, Zayda. That in turn is a corruption of the legendary Ortiga's father, Çadan/Zadan, converted into a female name Zayda (i.e. Zaida - a derivative of the Arabic 'Sayyidah' - Lady) and probably not coincidentally a
name associated with a historical instance of a Leonese royal having a lovechild by a Muslim noblewoman.

How about the male line. There isn't any historical source, medieval or modern, that makes Abouazar the grandson of Ramiro, via Lovesendo or anyone else. Those few renderings that give sources or reasoning cite the fact that Abouazar was son of

Lovesendo for the first generation, then refer to Rei for the second generation, but this is classic 'pick and choose' use of sources since Rei did say that Lovesendo was son of Ramiro, but only because he said that Lovesendo was identical to Abouazar.
You can't have it both ways - either Lovesendo was father of Abouazar, as is the clear implication of the historical record, or you naively follow Rei's revisionist 'rescue' and Lovesendo is the same as Abouazar, son of Ramiro. There is no way to make
Lovesendo son of Ramiro independent of him being the same as Abouazar - well, there is a way, but it is called 'making it up'.

This confused reimagining of the pedigree also explains how we have doppelganger representations of Ortiga in both generations, one as Zayra, mother of Abouazar, simply swapping out the husband of legend for that of history as if that were reasonable,

the other as per the legend as wife of Ramiro but then replacing the legend's son with Lovesendo because f a misapplication of Rei, both obscured by sloppy changes to both their names.

What are we left with as genealogists who care whether their pedigree matches reality?

Lovesendo (known definitively only from hhis son's patronymic) Abouazar/Abu-Nazar Lovesendes

which is not nearly as desirable for the name-collectors out there.

(I don't mean here to be dismissive of Chico Doria's speculation about the true identity of Lovesendo - it is just outside of the scope of this already over-long post.)

taf

Thanks taf, your posts on Iberian genealogy are always very valuable.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Monday, March 6, 2023 at 1:56:57 PM UTC-5, lancast...@gmail.com wrote:

On Monday, March 6, 2023 at 3:48:00 AM UTC+1, taf wrote:

It is usually not worth the effort of refuting the levels upon levels of bullshit that appear in the crowdsourced internet genealogies (seriously, though - is it really so antithetical to have blank fields that one must invent precise birthdates and

places for people only found in the historical record in a patronymic?), but I came across a new variation on the Aboazar situation discussed here in detail previously that is probably worth sorting out just to clarify how deep the rot goes. Both obsure
and exotic, this line combines the inability of the average reader to independently evaluate it (if they even cared to do so) with a desparate desire it be true, an often unfortunate combination.

First, to summarize. In the 14th century, a Portuguese prince and genealogist recorded a family foundation legend (one of many in his work) that may have had its origin in a romantic chanson de geste. This during an era when Iberia families were

inventing exotic origins for themselves. There are Iberian families claiming to descend from Ecgberht of Wessex, from an Armenian pilgrim, the son of a Byzantine emperor, the brother of a Holy Roman emperor, and Breton immigrants seemed particualrly
popular for some reason.

Known as the Miragaia, this Arthurian-type tale tells a story of mid-10th-century king Ramiro II besieging a local Muslim landholder and through an absurd course of events, ending up in love with that man's sister (in later renderings called Ortiga),

murdering his wife to marry her, and becoming father of Aboazar, the founder of the Portuguese noble Maya family.

I am not going to repeat the extensive discussion of this that can be seen in the archives. The takehome is that Aboazar de Maya matches the historical Abouazar/Abunazar Lovesendes, not Ramirez as would be the case were he son of king Ramiro. The

Maya genealogist traced back as far as they could, then followed the common trope of deciding a man of (to them) obscure parentage must have really been the child of a king's illicit love, and this being on the al-Andalus frontier, via an inter-faith
relationship (itself a common frontier romantic trope - the lost Cancion de los Siete Infantes de Sala and a chanson de Geste about William of Gellone likewise invoke such a liaison or marriage).

As is almost always the case, when faced with clear evidence refuting the desired traditional connections, the response has been various ad hoc 'repairs'. The most prominent of these was a paper by Portuguese academic historian Antonio Rei. I won't

go into detail, but it is wishful thinking run wild, at odds with the onomastic forms of the time as well as common sense, but it concludes that Abouazar and Lovesendo are two names for the same person, a son of the 'rescued' ancestors, Ramiro II and
Ortiga.

What have the online pedigrees made of all this? Just within the past few years, a fusion/confusion has been gaining popularity. It shows a line that runs as follows:

[Note: This is nonsense - do not enter it into your database]
Ramiro II married Onega ibn de Gaya
Lovesendo Ramirez married Zayra ibn Zayda, daughter of Zayda ibn Zayd Aboazar Lovesendez

Let's break this down. First, who is Onega ibn de Gaya. It is Ortiga in disguise. Onega is a Pamplona name, not in use on the Portuguese frontier at this time, but it is a clear misreading of Ortega, a common variant given for the legend's Ortiga,

itself a name found on the Portuguese frontier outside of this tale. The remainder of her supposed name 'ibn de Gaya' is itself nonsensical. Ibn means 'son of', not 'daughter of' (bint), so right from the start we have gender dysmorphia. 'De Gaya' is a
toponymic, so the combined translation woudl be 'son (sic) of of (sic) Gaya', with Gaya being an alternative representation of the toponym embedded in the name of the legend, the Miragaia. It is all absurd, but clearly a reference to the heroine Ortiga
of the Miragaia tradition.

How about Zayra ibn Zayda. In addition to the same gender problem, this is again a confused rendering of the same Ortiga. Zayra has no basis in any of the source material, seemingly having arisen through a typo ('r' is right-above 'd' on the standard

keyboard) of the name given her father, Zayda. That in turn is a corruption of the legendary Ortiga's father, Çadan/Zadan, converted into a female name Zayda (i.e. Zaida - a derivative of the Arabic 'Sayyidah' - Lady) and probably not coincidentally a
name associated with a historical instance of a Leonese royal having a lovechild by a Muslim noblewoman.

How about the male line. There isn't any historical source, medieval or modern, that makes Abouazar the grandson of Ramiro, via Lovesendo or anyone else. Those few renderings that give sources or reasoning cite the fact that Abouazar was son of

Lovesendo for the first generation, then refer to Rei for the second generation, but this is classic 'pick and choose' use of sources since Rei did say that Lovesendo was son of Ramiro, but only because he said that Lovesendo was identical to Abouazar.
You can't have it both ways - either Lovesendo was father of Abouazar, as is the clear implication of the historical record, or you naively follow Rei's revisionist 'rescue' and Lovesendo is the same as Abouazar, son of Ramiro. There is no way to make
Lovesendo son of Ramiro independent of him being the same as Abouazar - well, there is a way, but it is called 'making it up'.

This confused reimagining of the pedigree also explains how we have doppelganger representations of Ortiga in both generations, one as Zayra, mother of Abouazar, simply swapping out the husband of legend for that of history as if that were reasonable,

the other as per the legend as wife of Ramiro but then replacing the legend's son with Lovesendo because f a misapplication of Rei, both obscured by sloppy changes to both their names.

What are we left with as genealogists who care whether their pedigree matches reality?

Lovesendo (known definitively only from hhis son's patronymic) Abouazar/Abu-Nazar Lovesendes

which is not nearly as desirable for the name-collectors out there.

(I don't mean here to be dismissive of Chico Doria's speculation about the true identity of Lovesendo - it is just outside of the scope of this already over-long post.)

taf

Thanks taf, your posts on Iberian genealogy are always very valuable.

Thank you, as always, taf. Your posts are valuable and helpful to me.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Le lundi 6 mars 2023 à 03:48:00 UTC+1, taf a écrit :

It is usually not worth the effort of refuting the levels upon levels of bullshit that appear in the crowdsourced internet genealogies (seriously, though - is it really so antithetical to have blank fields that one must invent precise birthdates and

places for people only found in the historical record in a patronymic?), but I came across a new variation on the Aboazar situation discussed here in detail previously that is probably worth sorting out just to clarify how deep the rot goes. Both obsure
and exotic, this line combines the inability of the average reader to independently evaluate it (if they even cared to do so) with a desparate desire it be true, an often unfortunate combination.

First, to summarize. In the 14th century, a Portuguese prince and genealogist recorded a family foundation legend (one of many in his work) that may have had its origin in a romantic chanson de geste. This during an era when Iberia families were

inventing exotic origins for themselves. There are Iberian families claiming to descend from Ecgberht of Wessex, from an Armenian pilgrim, the son of a Byzantine emperor, the brother of a Holy Roman emperor, and Breton immigrants seemed particualrly
popular for some reason.

Known as the Miragaia, this Arthurian-type tale tells a story of mid-10th-century king Ramiro II besieging a local Muslim landholder and through an absurd course of events, ending up in love with that man's sister (in later renderings called Ortiga),

murdering his wife to marry her, and becoming father of Aboazar, the founder of the Portuguese noble Maya family.

But it's a useful warning to unwary aspiring descendants of the prophet.
I always like to keep myself informed of the proposals formulated by Antonio Rei, or FA Doria (whose book I read) but the simple truth is that there is not the shadow of a proof or a document to back up any serious leads of Umayyad, or even just Moorish,
ancestry for Aboazar Lovesendes. Not even Mulladi that I know of (though not impossible).

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Tuesday, March 7, 2023 at 9:41:16 AM UTC-8, vizoi...@gmail.com wrote:

But it's a useful warning to unwary aspiring descendants of the prophet.
I always like to keep myself informed of the proposals formulated by Antonio Rei, or FA Doria (whose book I read) but the simple truth is that there is not the shadow of a proof or a document to back up any serious leads of Umayyad, or even just

Moorish, ancestry for Aboazar Lovesendes. Not even Mulladi that I know of (though not impossible).

I wasn't going to go there, but basically, the original descent is based on a legend that is inherently romantical rather than historical in nature, and demonstrably false in reporting the Aboazar was son of King Rmiro - he wasn't - by his queen Ortege -
not his queen. Rei makes an unfortunate attempt to rescue this disaster by claiming that Abouazar was a nickname meaning 'founder of the lineage' referring to Lovesendo - that Lovesendo and Abouazar were the same person, and hence the strightforward
reading of the historical record, that Abouazar was son of Lovesendo, can be set aside (because we don't want to lose the legendary Umayyad descent claim). The problem is three-fold. Arab-influenced onomastics didn't work this way. They were called by
their given name or by their kunya but I can't recall seeing a single case from the period where someone was known by both _at the same time_ as would be required for Rei's interpretation of Abouazar Lovesendes. Second, it is the rare person who
considers himself the 'founder of the lineage' in their own lifetime, such that they would take that on as their name in formal documents, as Rei would have it. And thirdly, this would entail him rejecting the use of the most important (in the eyes of
his contemporaries) genealogical connection, that he was _the king's son_ - that in a formal document he would pass up on the chance to mention this high status as infante of Ramiro in order to call himself 'founder of the lineage' that had yet to exist.
It is highly unfortunate that this credulous paper ever got pubished (this is the same paper where the author takes a 'I found it on the internet' claim and accepts it because 'what would be more natural' as if that was the appropriate standard for
scholarly historians).

As to Chico Doria's claims, they are bookended by two problematic assumtions. One is that, in a time and place with very sparse records, we can pick a person with a similar-looking name and have any degree of assurance it is not coincidental. The second
is that we can accept the tradition's assignment of not only Muslim religion but explicitly Umayyad ancestry based on a tradition whose central plot is abject fiction. That we can take a story about someone being the lovechild of Ramiro, remove Ramiro,
and still retain the more distant claims.

My view - the majority of the people in the relevant document collection were Mozarabs, who regularly intermingled traditionally-Christian and -Muslim given names. There is no basis other than a discredited romantic legend to suggest any of them were
Muslims unless explicitly stated in the record. Even were there a Muslim connection, it is surely wishful thinking to take the claim of Umayyad ancestry as 'the kernel of authentic history' within an otherwise deeply flawed tradition. And of course,
since you mentioned 'unwary aspiring descendants of the prophet', I will take this opportunity to stress that the Umayyad descent from Muhammad is itself based on a historical fabrication.

taf

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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