Disproven Existence Notice: Maud d'Avranches [closed]

Question

Maud d'Avranches was supposedly the daughter, either legitimate or illegitimate, of Hugh Lupus d'Avranches, Earl of Chester, and the wife of Harold FitzRalph de Sudeley, during the years following the Norman Conquest.

While Maud (or Matilda) appears widely in popular genealogies, no documentation in reliable sources has been found for her existence.

This is the required one week notice before giving her "Disproven Existence" status.  If you can find evidence she was a real person, we will all congratulate you!

Comments

I added tags for medieval and pre-1500 since those would be the primary members interested.  Thanks, Jack.

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Having heard no indications to the contrary, Maud is now Disproven Existence.  They can be reversed at any time int he future if evidence is found of her existence.

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I know I've moaned about this before, and I don't know how the decision was made, but I still wish they would call it "unproven existence" not "disproven existence". A lot of the "disprovens" are just not sufficiently documented. We don't actually know for certain they didn't exist which is what the "disproven" implies. All we know is that we haven't yet found any corroborating evidence for them.

When something is labelled disproven, it discourages people from continuing to research, and if new information turns up, it could be discarded in the mistaken belief that we already know the answer. But unproven means that, though there's no reason to believe they existed, future research might possibly change that.

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There are many, many profiles on WikiTree that would rate the title "unproven existence";  they are simply waiting for a little bit of attention and research and adding the sources that can verify not only that the person lived, but that the person had parents, spouses and children.

We have commented time and again that we wished there was a better title than "Disproven Existence", and we acknowledge that technically, one cannot prove a negative.  But we have not come up with a better word.  Disproven Existence goes beyond what is suggested by "unproven existence".  It states that we have made an effort to prove that this person ever existed and have found no evidence.  Therefore we are quarantining the profile. It is not connected to other profiles.  It will not show up in any table of ancestors. Disproven Existence is a positive step to protect WikiTree users from imagining that this person ever lived.  That is why we don't take it lightly and we require a week's notification.  It goes beyond absence of proof.  It makes a definitive statement that in this case, we do think that the Maud d'Avranches described in the profile never existed.

But rather than discouraging research, the designation is a challenge.  Some of us embody that challenge in our disproven existence notices.  "Prove us wrong!  Find the documentation!  You'll be a hero!"

This is one of many reasons we don't even think of deleting disproven existence profiles.  They are sitting there waiting for us to be proved wrong, and when a hero steps up to accomplish that, it requires only a couple of key strokes and connections to restore the profile to active status.

Answer 1

There is a Maud/Margaret d'Avranches le Goz, born c. Caen, France  and died  in Chester, Cheshire, England in 1136.  She was the daughter of Richard le Goz 1025-1101 and Emmade Conteville 1029-1066, could this be the Maud you are talking about?  She married Ranulf de Briquessart 1050-1089.

Comments

So Richard d'Avranches le Goz is Avranches-2, who married Emma Conteville, Conteville-5.  They did have a daugher Margaret d'Avranches, Avranches-1, born 1054. but not a daughter Maud.  Matilda is another name for Maud, but not Margaret.  And Margaret married Ranulph le Meschenes, while Maud d'Avranches was said, without any evidence, to have married Harold FitzRalph, Earl of Hereford.