IS IT REAL, OR JUST A LEDGEND?
Brenda Kellow[1]
2007
Sometimes it is difficult to discern good writing from the totally counterfeited. Legends have traveled down to us through the ages. Our parents read fairytales to us as bedtime stories when we were only children. Even as children we could detect that Peter Pan probably was not a real little boy who could fly in his magical world or that the old woman and her many kids lived in a shoe. But did we know whether or not the nursery rhyme about Mary’s little lamb following her to school one day was written about a real little girl’s early experiences, or just written to entertain the wee folk? Today we still find it hard sometimes to determine and separate what is real from fake. Sometimes we adults find it difficult to separate the factual from the legend. In genealogy, it is certainly difficult to learn and remember all the books, family histories, and other works that are legends have no factual information and contain no citations where these references can be proven. Unless legends are your chosen genre, then your writing must be factual, truthful, and well documented to be acceptable in the non-fiction field. Genealogy is non-fiction—or it should be. Here are a couple of examples followed by a list of some of the most notoriously fake genealogies and the people who wrote them.
LEGEND OR MYTH?
Born a righteous prince probably in Wales about 450, he lived until about the age of 45. He became king of England and an icon of British unity after he pulled a sword out of a stone. He conducted business when all his knights gathered together at the Round Table. He was a fair and beloved king ruling hundreds of loyal men from his favorite castle he named Camelot. Is this fact or is this a legend of a king residing in a mythical kingdom?
It is legend. Arthurian stories are written by creative writers who used actual events but twisted and replaced them in the period of Arthur’s magical lifetime
The stories of King Arthur, probably modeled after the warlord Ambrosias Aurelianus, is a romanticized story of a brave and clever British king reportedly to have lived in the sixth century. History cannot document his kingship or his good deeds, even though the area around Tintagel on the North coast of Cornwall abounds with his legendary history.
The 6th century monk Gildas described the many battles between the British and the Saxons in his work called On the Ruin of Britain. In it he attributes the British triumph of Badon Hill to the brave Lieutenant Ambrosias Aurelianus. Ambrosias and his victories may be the basis for the creation of Arthur some five-hundred years later. However, the name Arthur never appeared in his writings or in other writings of that time period.
It was yet another monk in the 13th century who immortalized Arthur for all time. Apparently Geoffrey of Monmouth invented King Arthur, his line of descent, his faithful knights, and his lovely but unfaithful wife while preparing to write History of Kings of England from 1139-1150. Geoffrey describes a brave lieutenant, Ambrosias Aurelianus, in his work, Concerning the Ruin of Britain. Ambrosias was a military figure who never had a kingship. However, it is generally agreed that Aurelianus’ name and his victories mutated into the legendary King Arthur character. Geoffrey used some fact but when there was no fact, or if the timing of the events did not work out, he made it up so everything fits nicely. Geoffrey’s writing immortalized the name King Arthur even though Gildas never mentioned the name Arthur in his descriptions of the time period. This legend of King Arthur dictated the history of Britain for a few hundred years until it was disproven.
Does falsified behavior carry over into the field of genealogy? Yes. The field of genealogy is not without its frauds.
FACTUAL—NO, FRAUD—YES
One particular man was a convict from Europe who came to America to benefit financially from working with clients seeking a connection to someone in the military, royal lines or famous political figures. This forger of mainly unpublished genealogies in the 20th century is Gustave Anjou (1863-1942) who always gave his client just what they wanted for a price. Sometimes his fee was as much as $9,000. The clients were elated to find their bloodlines went back to the rich and famous. These findings of Gustave Anjou are totally erroneous—inventions of the forger. Anjou was both prolific and most creative at twisting the truth and adjusting and inserting falsities within his work.
Anjou was a prolific writer, mainly of unpublished genealogies for people who entrusted him with documenting their family histories, but also of one published abstract containing valid Ulster County, New York probate files. His abstracting of the probates was sloppy, completely wrong in many cases, and totally pulled from thin air in others. It is impossible to prove his findings, and he offers no documental proof. Genealogical work must present proof, or else consider it as legend.
His fraudulent works appear in libraries all across the country. Some are aware that his works are fraudulent, others are not. If you find these in libraries, please determine if the librarian is aware of these made-up genealogies.
CONCLUSION
In reality, Arthur, the icon of British unity revived a shattered land for a brief time before it was disproven. Factual history including genealogies cannot be pulled from a rock. Gustav Anjou’s counterfeit genealogies continue to surface from time to time. Genealogies must be original histories complete with full documentation to be believable. Just because it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck does not guarantee it a duck.
For other genealogy frauds and for more on Anjou, read Robert Charles Anderson’s “We Wuz Robbed” and “Gustave, We Hardly Knew Ye” by Gordon L. Remington. Both are in the Genealogical Journal.
Go to America’s First Families home page on the Internet and scroll down to the long red bar labeled “Fraudulent Genealogies.” Here you will find a complete listing of Gustav Anjou’s unsupported and incorrect histories of families by the foremost genealogist, Mr. Robert Charles Anderson,[2] CG, FASG on the America’s First Families Home page on the Internet at http://personal.linkline.com/xymox/fraud/fraud223.htm [The listing of fraudulent genealogies was copied by the author on October 22, 2007 from the above Website. Mr. Anderson solely compiled the book list.]At the Website above Mr. Anderson describes Gustav Anjou, and lists the four recognizable features found within Anjou’s “work.” A listing of these frauds by Mr. Anjou is on the following pages.
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[1]Brenda Kellow has a bachelor’s degree in history and teaches and lectures on genealogy. Before retiring in 2007 to publish her family’s histories, she held certification as a Certified Genealogist and as a Certified Genealogical Instructor. Brenda publishes her weekly genealogy column Tracing Our Roots online at www.geocities.com/TracingOurRoots.
[2]Mr. Anderson is the Director of the Great Migration Study Project sponsored by the New England Historic Genealogical Society. He is a Certified Genealogist, a fellow of the American Society of Genealogists, a fellow of the Utah Genealogical Association, and has published numerous articles in The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, The American Genealogist, the National Genealogical Society Quarterly, and The Genealogist, as well as the Genealogical Journal.