Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Oldest Belgian families


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was Delete. If the article's creator or anyone else wants a copy for some reason, let me know. I'll be happy to userfy it.. ~  ONUnicorn (Talk&#124;Contribs) problem solving 15:03, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

Oldest Belgian families

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We don't have any similar article (list...?) for another country. Setting aside that more than half of the entries here are not referenced, I don't see how this topic passes GNG or LISTN. Some families are notable, but listing them by oldest recorded date seems trivial, just like Foo families by region or so on would be. Thoughts? Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 12:37, 21 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here  12:37, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Belgium-related deletion discussions. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here  12:37, 21 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Keep As mentioned in the article, most entries do not have a source because they all come from the same book, which itself is very well sourced. They are also published on the website of the Genealogical and Heraldic Office of Belgium. The ones not included in either of those places are all sourced independently. I believe that this list being included in a book of national importance as well as on the website of a renowned institution in Belgium is enough to pas the General notability guideline. I am not sure what LISTN is so cannot comment on that. I am all for creating such lists for other countries if reliable sources back them. --Brookford (talk) 13:56, 21 January 2020 (UTC) EDIT: I would understand that the format of this article would need to be re-organised, I simply took the same format as the French article, which may not be appropriate for the English Wikipedia. Also maybe the title needs to be changed to: "Chronological list of Belgian families"--Brookford (talk) 14:59, 21 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Delete, extremely incomplete and subjective list. First entry, "de belgique", leads to the article Monarchy of Belgium, with a family who only entered what is now Belgium in 1831, they come from Germany before this. Second entry; House of Limburg-Stirum, " which adopted its name in the 12th century from the sovereign county of Limburg an der Lenne in what is now Germany" They entered "Belgium" in 1068? No idea where that comes from, House of Limburg-Stirum doesn't mention that year. Third entry, House of Arenberg? "who took their name from Arenberg, a small territory of the Holy Roman Empire in the Eifel region", again Germany. On the other hand, there are 1000s of families who can trace their roots back to the 18th century, most genealogies which are created go back at least as far and show some members of the family to be in present-day Belgium in the 1700s. And that's even only taking into account the rather outdated idea of a "family" being father-to-son only, e.g. there are many descendants of Peter Paul Rubens alive today, but all through female lines, so no "real" Rubens is alive and they are missing from this list. Even when people and families are well-known and old, they are missing, e.g. Moretus has living direct male descendants. Of course, they are not nobility, unlike most or all of this list, which seems to be maintained by a rather snobbish group (not the editors here, the Genealogical and Heraldic Office of Belgium). Fram (talk) 14:19, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I suppose it is incomplete and subjective in that it only lists entries that can be sourced... Regarding your point on some of these families not having Belgian origins, first of all Belgium didn't exist until 1830, and second of all, the article states that it includes families that were Belgian during the 20th century, I will admit that it should be extended to the 21st century too. Yes it is true that many families can trace their ancestry to the 18th century, but in this case, as in all Wikipedia, it needs to be properly sourced by secondary sources. Regarding the concept of a family, that is certainly a debate to be had but until then I believe that the notion that has been used in most of the world for most of recorded history should be used. --Brookford (talk) 14:28, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Also, are you saying that families can't be Belgian if they only entered Belgium a year after its creation? Which brings another question, are you saying immigrants and their descendants cannot be of the nationality of their host country?--Brookford (talk) 14:33, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Regarding the Moretus family whose ommition you claim to be because of snobbery from the Genealogical and Heraldic Office of Belgium, you will be happy to know that it is listed in the book and on the website under the date 1539... --Brookford (talk) 14:51, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm saying that "oldest Belgian families" is rather meaningless if you include any family which lives now in Belgium, but didn't live here at the time stated in the article. The absence of e.g. any of the oldest Antwerp Jewish families, which often have published genealogies going back many centuries, is remarkable as well. And thanks for adding Moretus, but the 1539 date is wrong, as that is the year the eldest child (brother of Jan Moretus) was born, but we have the marriage contract of his father, dated to 1537. This is easily findable, so if whoever wrote that book doesn't even know this, then the reliability of that source is dubious. Fram (talk) 15:26, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
 * That is your opinion but I do not think it is meaningless. You are more than welcome to contribute to this list with reliable sources. I do not know if the families you speak of are included in the book or website. You can check yourself here. The fact that "whoever wrote that book doesn't even know" that a specific family has another documented proof 2 years earlier does not make this source dubious. I am not familiar with this specific case but maybe there is no link between the marriage certificate and the rest of the family. Thus it may not be definitively proven that the family alive today is linked to that certificate. Even if it can this isn't making the case against the existence of this article. --Brookford (talk) 18:37, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Well, the marriage certificate is for the father of Jan Moretus, and is kept at the Plantin-Moretus archives, so it seems well proven... But let's look at another example from the list. "1639: Goethals". What an utterly meaningless entry. There is also a "1550: Goethals de Mude de Nieuwland". Now, one can easily dispute the oldest entries in this book on that family, but the Biographical Index of the Benelux at least agrees with entries dating to 1217 for the Goethals Mude family. Basically, the list is a minor subset of families, heavily slanted towards nobility, and is obviously incorrect. Fram (talk) 08:24, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Well, I don't think Houtart suggests a relationship with the old Goethals de Mude family, on the contrary: the current Goethals family of which ancestors never were lords of Mude and Nieuwland and their addition to their family name in 1967 to Goethals de Mude de Nieuwland is based on the arms of the old family, not on a relationship, according to Houtart, so more an usurpation of arms and family name. Houtart dates the current family back not later than 1550, and so I am not sure that you are right in your assumptions. Paul Brussel (talk) 23:12, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
 * My point is that entries like "1639 : Goethals" are utterly useless and meaningless. There are many "Goethals" families in Belgium, and one of them, according to one source, can be traced back to 1639, perhaps, if that source is right. For another family, "Goethals de Mude", this source claims 1550, other (also reliable) sources go back a lot further. The page up for deletion is presenting one source, which is contradicted by others, as if it is "the truth", and presents the information (by necessity) in a format which gives the readers no context, no background, to judge even what is being discussed here (Goethals? Is that the family of Christian Goethals, Henry Goethals (born ca. 1217!), Lucien Goethals, Raymond Goethals, ...? Presumably it is the "noble" family from Kortijk (because, let's face it, you can't be an old Belgian family without being nobility of course), which dates apparently to 1638, not 1639? Looking at e.g; 1383: Della Faille, I can't find any sources confirming this date, and the very exhaustive published genealogy of the family finds no one before ca. 1400, and no definite dates before 1448 apparently Entry 1587: van den Berg, is another example of a completely random name / date combination, not giving any useful information to readers. Fram (talk) 08:29, 4 March 2020 (UTC))


 * Comment -- We cannot retain the article under this name. Every family is in fact old.  When the 14th Earl of Home renounced his peerage to become British Prime Minister the quip was made that his opponent was the 14th Mr Wilson, though nobody would have traced who the first was or how many generations had had the surname.  What is involved here is families with the longest traceable genealogy.  Basically this is families recorded in a certain genealogical dictionary, I am not sure that is an adequate basis for a WP article.  I recall a discussion many years ago about a British book listing the greatest landowners in Britain in about 1870, a book which when published was a pioneering piece of research; we deleted it.  Peterkingiron (talk) 13:57, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank your for the constructive comment. What would you suggest renaming it? I was thinking of “chronological list of Belgian families” or “chronological list of families of Belgium”. Any other ideas? Brookford (talk) 14:42, 22 January 2020 (UTC) EDIT:You said that "this is families recorded in a certain genealogical dictionary", but that was only the start of the article, but quite a few entries do not come from that book and all genealogical books and studies are welcomed additions to the list. --Brookford (talk) 18:40, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Missvain (talk) 16:23, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete Cannot pass WP:LISTN since the only source for most of this information is WP:PRIMARY and there is not evidence of reliable coverage in secondary sources or independent sources. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 23:09, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Incorrect, it is mainly based on a secondary source, which itself uses primary sources.Brookford (talk) 02:31, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Taking information and slapping it into a new format does not convert sourcing from primary to secondary. A secondary source is characterized by editorial and authorial activity such as transformation, commenting, evaluation, synthesis, analysis, or other such activities, none of which are evident in the source given here.  In context, this is still a primary source.  Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 03:09, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I am aware of what makes a source secondary. This book didn't just take information and "slap" it into a new format. It was an extensive research project with a lot of source analysis involved. As my discussion above showed, it is not just taking the earliest mention of a family, the links between all these records have been extensively researched, analysed and assessed. It is also very conservative in its process. What evidence do you have to say that it doesn't meet all the criteria you listed? --Brookford (talk) 17:07, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   21:34, 4 February 2020 (UTC)  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus. Relisting comment: Ritchie333 closed this as "no consensus" but at Deletion review/Log/2020 February 14 there is a consensus that this discussion was defective due to off-point comments; so relisting for further debate.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 22:06, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete. I'm usually a fan of such articles but I cannot see how the sources support it. A lot of the references are just explanations, but if you actually look at the others, they all come from the Genealogical and Heraldic Office of Belgium, which has a very specialized interest in this area. Other sources are self-published genealogy websites. Lists of political families or noble families make sense, a list of families with no social distinction doesn't make sense. This is essentially a list of people we have records of. —МандичкаYO 😜 02:58, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
 * —Мандичка, I agree that neither this article/list nor its sources are perfect, but do you really think it should be deleted rather than improved?--Brookford (talk) 13:22, 27 February 2020 (UTC)


 * Delete somewhat per Wikimadia; the sourcing indicates no particular notability about this family other than that it is verified to have existed but with no long-term impact. ——  SN  54129  06:13, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
 * It was my understanding that the subject of the article/list was what was required to pass a test of notability, not every thing - in this case families - mentioned in it?--Brookford (talk) 13:19, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Hi, just to clarify: this article is going to be deleted, and you are currently WP:BLUDGEONing the discussion. It is unnecessary. Many thanks. ——  SN  54129  14:23, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I was unaware of this WP guideline, and can see how my actions appear to be similar to it. I will thus stop commenting on this page, even if I believed I was encouraging deeper conversations on the issue.--Brookford (talk) 14:33, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 07:27, 22 February 2020 (UTC)


 * Delete - Genealogical and Heraldic Office of Belgium does not really form a sufficient basis for establishing notability of this topic.--Staberinde (talk) 19:12, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
 * The study of this topic is also the subject of Jean-François Houtart's book Anciennes Familles de Belgique. --Brookford (talk) 13:21, 27 February 2020 (UTC)


 * Keep. given the wo books, and not challenge to their reliability ,there is no reason to delete.  DGG ( talk ) 08:49, 29 February 2020 (UTC)
 * DGG, I have challenged the reliability of the one book (not two) quite extensively above. The book seems to be a rather random collection, with equally random (i.e. often wrong) starting dates, and using a very old-fashioned definition of "family". Fram (talk) 08:13, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Weak keep. Given that the list is sourced to two published books, I don't see that there is any valid policy based reasoning for deletion. Calling these sources primary sources is a bit of stretch as we generally trust government generated content. 4meter4 (talk) 00:11, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
 * , what 2 books? The Houtart book is the same as the list on the website of the Genealogical and Heraldic Office of Belgium, and I don't see which other book you are referring to. Fram (talk) 08:11, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I hope I won't be accused of bludgeoning for this, but maybe 4meter4 was referring to Félix-Victor Goethals's book: Miroir des notabilités nobiliaires de Belgique as well as publications by the scgd and the anrb which are all in the bibliography. (I know two of those are nobility-related which you won't like) Btw your comment on DGG's post is a challenge to a source not to the validity of the article itself. --Brookford (talk) 11:33, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
 * DGGs comment was about the reliability of the book(s), so my reply was indeed a challenge to the source as well. Obviously, if your main source is not reliable, then the article may have issues as well (since the article is not about that source, but a summary of that source). I don't think using a mid-19th century book for a list like this is a good idea, the validity of such sources is by now very dubious (both wrt exaggerated claims, and with very incomplete research). And that book doesn't really concern itself with a chronological list of oldest Belgian families, it just gives an akphabetical list of noble families (with lots of information). Fram (talk) 12:20, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Houtart (2008) is in Belgium generally considered to be a notable and reliable source (but of course for some of the hundreds of families it may include mistakes). He is complemented by a series of articles by the notable genealogist Hervé Douxchamps, 'Les quarante famille belges les plus anciennes subsistantes', in: Le Parchemin, lastly in number 444 (Novembre-Décembre 2019). However, some family entries were not based on those but on outdated sources like Goethals and some of them I have corrected today. Also, Houtart doesn't list extinct families. Paul Brussel (talk) 16:24, 2 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Delete. I don't have much to add to the arguments of Fram and Wikimanida. Absent a secondary source defining the topic's boundaries and giving its some depth, I don't see how this article is possible. Mackensen (talk) 11:56, 4 March 2020 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. <b style="color:red">Please do not modify it.</b> Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.