Month: February 2019

Copyright Problems

Copyright Problems

by Justin Durand

One of the truly alarming things in life is stumbling across something you’ve written that has been re-published by someone else without attribution.

I run into that all the time because I’ve been doing this so long.

A while back, I had someone contact me through Findagrave.com to suggest I add a biography to Katharine (Helvey) Roberson. The text they gave me was word-for-word identical to something I wrote a dozen years ago. Errors and all. I haven’t responded yet. I just can’t figure out how to say it politely.

I’ve been working on scanning my old paper files. The other day I ran across a manuscript history of the Howery family by Shirley Danz. She carefully and considerately cites Virginia Howery throughout the document. Except that it was my research. I sent it to Virginia. Virginia sent it to Shirley. It didn’t have my name on it so Shirley gave the credit to Virginia. Future generations will never know it was mine. It’s discouraging.

But for shear ballsy grabbing, I don’t suppose I could ever beat my husband’s experience. His entire gedcom was downloaded and republished by Steve Graber without even changing the name (Statik). Now, because of the interchange between Geni and MyHeritage, there are hundreds of Mennonite profiles on Geni that cite Steve as the source for the Mennonite obituaries originally extracted by Tim. I’m guessing Steve doesn’t mind taking credit for the body of work he didn’t actually do.

On one hand, I would like to see that my lifetime of work survives me and that future genealogists are able to build on it. But on the other hand, I would like to get credit for the work I’ve done, and perhaps also not get blamed for the mistakes of others.

Update May 13, 2020: As requested, I added that biography of Katharine Roberson to her Findagrave entry a few days ago. Slightly edited.

Hyperborean Apollo

Hyperborean Apollo

by Justin Durand

Yesterday I wrote a bit about Doggerland, and that led to mentioning Hyperborean Apollo, and that led to a bit more research because Apollo is one of my enduring interests.

I have a bit about Hyperborean Apollo at Greco-Roman Lore. primarily taken from Robert Graves, Greek Myths § 161.4.

I think it might be worth quoting Diodorus Siculus’ passage about Hyperborea.

“Now for our part, since we have seen fit to make mention of the regions of Asia which lie to the north, we feel that it will not be foreign to our purpose to discuss the legendary accounts of the Hyperboreans. Of those who have written about the ancient myths, Hecateus and certain others say that in the regions beyond the land of the Celts there lies in the ocean an island no smaller than Sicily. This island, the account continues, is situated in the north and is inhabited by the Hyperboreans, who are called by that name because their home is beyond the point whence the north wind (Boreas) blows; and the island is both fertile and productive of every crop, and since it has an unusually temperate climate it produces two harvests each year. Moreover, the following legend is told concerning it: Leto was born on this island, and for that reason Apollo is honoured among them above all other gods; and the inhabitants are looked upon as priests of Apollo, after a manner, since daily they praise this god continuously in song and honour him exceedingly. And there is also on the island both a magnificent sacred precinct of Apollo and a notable temple which is adorned with many votive offerings and is spherical in shape. Furthermore, a city is there which is sacred to this god, and the majority of its inhabitants are players on the cithara; and these continually play on this instrument in the temple and sing hymns of praise to the god, glorifying his deeds. The Hyperboreans also have a language, we are informed, which is particular to them, and are most friendly disposed towards the Greeks, and especially towards the Athenians and the Delians, who have inherited this good-will from most ancient times. The myth also relates that certain Greeks visited the Hyperboreans and left behind them there costly votive offerings bearing inscriptions in Greek letters. And in the same way Abaris, a Hyperborean, came to Greece in ancient times and renewed the goodwill and kinship of his people to the Delians. They say also that the moon, as viewed from this island, appears to be but a little distance from the earth and to have upon it prominences, like those of the earth, which are visible to the naked eye. The account is also given that the god visits the island every nineteen years, the period in which the return of the stars to the same place in the heavens is accomplished; and for this reason the nineteen-year period is called by the Greeks the ‘year of Meton’. At the time of this appearance of the god he both plays on the cithara and dances continuously the night through from the vernal equinox until the rising of the Pleiades, expressing in this manner his delight in his successes. And the kings of this city and the supervisors of the sacred precinct are called Boreades, since they are descendants of Boreas, and the succession to these positions is always kept in their family.”

Diodorus Siculus, Histories II.47 (C. H. Oldfather transl. (1935))

For the mythologically inclined this is quite an interesting story. Hyperborea, an island behind the north wind, is the home of Apollo’s mother, and its inhabitants are connected to the Athenians. Apollo himself visits the island every 19 years. Other sources say the Hyperboreans sent gifts to Apollo’s temple at Delos. These gifts seem to have been amber; its yellow color made it sacred to the sun god Apollo.

I don’t want to leave the impression I have a particular belief that Hyperborea was Britain, or Doggerland, or the remnants of Doggerland. The trade that brought amber to Delos could have come from anywhere in the north, whether Britain, the North Sea, or the Baltic, although if I’m not mistaken, current thinking favors an eastern route south from from the Baltic.

Update Feb. 11, 2019

I came across this interesting piece from Tom Rowsell at Survive the Jive on YouTube: Real Hyperboreans – Ancient North Eurasians.

This channel is usually too racialist for my taste but I do listen from time to time because he’s well-educated.

Here, he sees some reasons from modern research to possibly rehabilitate the Arctic polar origin myth of the Proto-Indo-Europeans. I wouldn’t rush to judgment on this one, but it’s an interesting possibility.

Doggerland

Doggerland

by Justin Durand

There’s an area of land under the North Sea that was above water thousands of years ago, connecting what is now Great Britain and Denmark. The sea is relatively shallow in this area. Fishermen have dragged up remains of land animals and prehistoric tools. It’s been called the British Atlantis, but its formal name is Doggerland, after the Dogger Bank.

Now switch gears. Mitochondrial haplogroup V2, relatively rare in Europe, is a British group. And there’s a theory it originated in Doggerland. Pretty cool. This is my group, so also my mother’s, my maternal grandmother’s, my sisters’, my sisters’ children, and so on throughout my whole female line.

This is all old news. What has my attention today is that I was leafing through a book by Diana Paxson, and noticed she has a brief bit about Doggerland even though she doesn’t call it that.

“An interesting, if much debated, theory holds that during the earlier part of the Bronze Age a ‘northern Atlantis’ developed on islands off the west coast of Jutland that were known as the Electrides, or Amber Isles (Spanuth 1979), dominating the lands around the North Sea until it was swamped by a tsunami somewhere between 1500 and 1220 B.C.E. Some speculate that its people were the Haunebu, who traded amber to the Egyptians. After the disaster, the fleeing inhabitants may have displaced the Sea Peoples, whose attacks are described in Mediterranean records of the later Bronze Age.” (Diana Paxson, Essential Ásatrú (2006), 15-16.)

Paxon is citing Spanuth who believed Doggerland was not just the “British Atlantis” but also the original for Plato’s Atlantis. Probably not likely. A better candidate for Atlantis (in my opinion) is Santorini. And Paxson’s dating is quite a bit later than the current idea that Doggerland sank between about 6500 and 5000 BCE.

Nevertheless, there is probably more material to be mined here. The Greeks, or some of them, believed Hyperborean Apollo came from a land beyond the lands of the Celts, behind the North Wind. The traditional identification is Britain, but some writers now suggest the legend is old enough for it to have been Doggerland.

More Information

Revised July 16, 2019, Oct. 22, 2019, and July 13, 2020 to add additional sources.

Scotland to America, 1596

Scotland to America, 1596

by Justin Durand

“An entry in a late sixteenth-century register has revealed that a ship known as “William” of Aberdeen made a voyage to “the new fund land” (Newfoundland) in 1596. It is the earliest documented reference to a Scottish ship sailing to North America.“

This one catches my eye because it reminds me that somewhere in my files I’ve started to gather some notes for an article about genealogical claims to ancestry in Newfoundland before the Pilgrims arrived in Massachusetts in 1620.

I don’t credit the idea, but my thought is that it would be an interesting footnote to the standard genealogical advice — no British in America before 1607 Jamestown and 1620 Massachusetts.

I’ll leave the debates about Prince Henry Sinclair, the Newport Tower, and the Westford Knight for another day.