Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2010 October 6

= October 6 =

Writing games with video game characters
Since childhood, I dreamed up fantasies, uniting the characters (well, mostly enemies) in video games/ movies into one world. they were part of this world, and the enemies were combined in an army, in a world ruled by a character of my creation. I'm thinking of putting my ideas onto paper, and possibly publishing. I won't take the video game characters name for name and detail for detail, but I'll give them different names. But, the description of the looks characters in the book will make me think of those in the video game. Other than that, that's where the similarities end. Is this a good idea? This seems like a motivation to keep me going forward, but is this legally and "politically" a good idea? thx -- Last  Lived  02:34, 6 October 2010 (UTC)


 * You may want to look at Archetype and Intellectual property. Many video-games have a hero that has some details that are original, but are based on, say, Beowulf or any Savior. If you create an orginal story with characters who have a not-so-original personality, then it is your intellectual property. It sounds like a fine idea to me; it may turn out well for you :) schyler (talk) 02:52, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * This is very misleading. Beowulf is in the public domain. Video game characters are not. That is a crucial difference. Writing something based on copyrighted characters means your work is a derivative work. Whether that is infringement or not depends on a lot of other factors. But it is not the same thing as basing your general story on something in the public domain. --Mr.98 (talk) 12:23, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I think he meant that both Beowulf and Christ have also been video game characters, as have Robin Hood, Peter Pan, etc. Not that it helps. The question asker is clearly asking about characters that are primarily game characters, not free characters that have also been in games. APL (talk) 14:56, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I read it as saying, "everything is derivative to some degree, don't worry about it too much," which is probably true from a cultural/artistic standpoint, but not at all from a legal one. --Mr.98 (talk) 16:19, 6 October 2010 (UTC)


 * You may also want to look at fan fiction, which describes the gist (not exactly, but close) of what you are working on. -- Jayron  32  02:54, 6 October 2010 (UTC)


 * See also Legal issues with fan fiction. If you are doing this just for fun and learning and not sharing it with anybody other than a close personal friend or two, knock yourself out. That's clearly allowed in the same way that you're allowed to draw your own pictures of Mario and post them on the refrigerator. If you are going to be posting it on the internet in a fan fiction forum, probably nobody will care, but the copyright owners could probably get it taken down if they wanted to. If you are going to try and monetize it and publish it as a book or something, you will run into legal issues. This is not legal advice, just a rough overview of how this has usually happened in the past, and where the legal issues come into play. The actual resolution of the legal problem would depend on a more fine-grained understanding of exactly what you were writing, a broader legal background, and your jurisdiction (something which is itself complicated if you plan to publish online, which makes you liable in basically all jurisdictions). --Mr.98 (talk) 12:23, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Be warned that there have been some high-profile fan games that, despite a tremendous amount of work that went into them, were forced to disappear. The late, lamented, Chrono Resurrection comes to mind.  (I was going to give The Silver Lining (video game) as another example, but I see now that that story has a happy ending!) APL (talk) 14:54, 6 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Note that within fanfiction communities, changing a work of fanfiction to disguise it as original fiction is known as filing off the serial numbers. It is considered far less ethical (within these communities) than simply writing fanfiction, because it is pretending to be original, and hence plagiarism. It is, in effect, failing to cite your sources. Straight-up fanfiction at least acknowledges where it came from, and does not claim to own the borrowed characters or universe. It should also be noted that there are some published authors whose work is widely considered to be fanfiction with the serial numbers filed off, and people hold them in some contempt. Selling any fanfiction, disguised or otherwise, will put you in a legally vulnerable position. And finally, if the story you are telling needs these characters in this setting, it will not work properly with different characters in a different setting: filing off the serial numbers will spoil the story. If it will work with different characters in a different setting, then write this original work with these different characters and setting, not using anything from the other work.
 * I also strongly recommend that you find a nice bit of the online fandom and start exploring it: you will find that you are not alone in your behaviour, and will probably enjoy yourself. 109.155.37.180 (talk) 16:47, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Origin of "Going to the john"
John Harington has been credited as having invented the flush toilet in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Could this fact be the origin of the slang phrase Going to the john? Back in medieval times the word for latrines was the jakes, hence Harington naming his toilet Ajax. --Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 15:13, 6 October 2010 (UTC)


 * etymonline.com says: John, "toilet," 1932, probably from jack, jakes, used for "toilet" since 16c. (see Jack). 24.16.154.46 (talk) 15:24, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The folk etymology of the "john" being named for a guy named John who invented an Elizabethan flush toilet is as amusing as the "crapper" being named for Thomas Crapper who was a Victorian plumber and fixture manufacturer. Edison (talk) 19:29, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Or of Otto Titzling having invented the brassiere. -- Jayron  32  19:32, 6 October 2010 (UTC)


 * This question would have been more appropriate to Reference desk/Language. Will add anon.--Shirt58 (talk) 11:50, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Gift man
A hypothetical scenario: An adult person, perhaps an artist or poet or "spiritual advisor" or something, lives entirely off the non-monetary largesse of a benefactor (or a community of benefactors). Although he lives comfortably, even opulently, he doesn't really have any "income" in the sense of money. He may not even have a bank account. My question is this: Assuming he and his benefactors are in all other respects model citizens, what sort of relationship will he have with the taxman? I understand that if a contest-winner "wins" something like a massive yacht, he often can't assume ownership of it because he can't afford the taxes on it. But if our hypothetical man receives only quiet, casual gifts, it seems unlikely that he would have to pay tax on any given item, even if they collectively amount to a luxurious existence. (My interest isn't confined to U.S. tax law. Any perspective would be interesting.) Oh, and this isn't legal advice. L ANTZY T ALK 19:25, 6 October 2010 (UTC)


 * All gifts are technically taxable. In order to avoid taxing small gifts (birthday party, etc), in the US, the first X dollars of value from each person is not taxable. This is a lifetime limit, not per year. Ariel. (talk) 19:35, 6 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Citations, please; this is a reference desk. Here is the IRS's FAQ on gift taxes, with the helpful comment that "The laws on Estate and Gift Taxes are considered to be some of the most complicated in the Internal Revenue Code."  The most familiar rule is the annual exclusion; as an individual, you can give someone up to US$13,000 per year, tax-free; but amounts above that are taxable.  Subject, as mentioned above, to some of the most complicated tax laws in the US.  In your example, the gifts are not monetary; but they are assessed at fair-market value as though they were.  Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:35, 6 October 2010 (UTC)


 * In Canada, on the other hand, most gifts are not taxable. As far as I can tell, in the scenario described income tax would be payable only if it was decided that the artist was conducting a de facto business and was in effect being paid for his work.  (In which case, the fact that the payment was non-monetary would not save him).  --Anonymous, 20:55 UTC, October 6, 2010.


 * In the UK the main implication of gifts is for inheritance tax. One may give up to £3000 away in any tax year (plus various allowances for smaller gifts) without a problem; above this limit a gift is a "potentially exempt transfer", and if the donor dies within seven years of making it there will be tax implications for their estate, and potentially for the recipient.  However, regular gifts made out of surplus income, that do not diminish the value of an estate, are exempt from this rule.  Theoretically therefore, your artist or guru could do very nicely out of a group of benefactors giving him £3000 a year each, or one multimillionaire keeping him in luxury with the spare change from his back pocket.  However, the taxman is not stupid, and has the power to audit your affairs and examine your means of support.  If you are awash with donated cash but declaring no income, and you are not a registered charity or other approved gift recipient, he might look closely at what your donors are receiving in return for their gifts.  If, for example, they receive spiritual guidance or nice paintings, he is within his rights to attempt to reclassify your relationship as a business one and the "gifts" as payment for goods or services, no matter how you argued otherwise.  He would also look at what state benefits you are claiming.  Since these are mostly means-tested, and would take account of your gifted income in any calculations, it is likely that an artist or spiritual advisor supported by benefactors would avoid claiming state benefits in order to escape accusations of benefit fraud, which is a serious offence.  The taxman would almost certainly regard a failure to claim unemployment benefits, coupled with your lack of any assets that would generate an investment income (which would be taxable), as supporting evidence that gifts from your admirers could be taxed as income.  Ka renjc 21:44, 6 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Very interesting. Let's assume for the sake of argument that the guy is not an artist who produces anything tangible or measurable, but a freelance guru whose contribution to his benefactors is invisible, unquantifiable, arguably illusory, but (as far as the benefactors are concerned) indispensable. He and his benefactors would certainly bristle at the suggestion that he is a businessman peddling a trade. Also for the sake of argument, let's assume that his teachings are innocuous and his police record nonexistent. I imagine that such cases must arise from time to time. In certain immigrant communities, for instance, a religious official may be imported from the metropole and supported essentially by charity. My uninformed intuition is that such a person would be accorded some special tax status, since he closely resembles a dependant, except that he's an able-bodied adult not necessarily related by blood to his benefactors. I wonder, could a wealthy man adopt his priest/rabbi/swami as a dependent? L ANTZY T ALK 04:23, 7 October 2010 (UTC)


 * In the US, your "religious guy" proposal falls into a special category because the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment provides for a separation of church and state, which has been interpreted as meaning that a valid religious organization isn't taxed by the Internal Revenue Service. Here is the IRS's FAQ index page for churches; a "religious organization" has to qualify as a particular type of charitable organization in order to qualify for tax-exempt status.  Your "religious guy" might well not qualify, though; these bureaucratic hoops exist in order to reduce fraud from people trying to avoid paying tax by just claiming they are priests or swamis or shamans.  Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:39, 7 October 2010 (UTC)


 * ... and the treatment of religions and charities is very similar in the UK. Interestingly, the Druids have just been recognised as a religious organisation by the Charity Commission and so qualify for tax exemption.  Any organisation that exists for the benefit of others (and does not significantly benefit those who run it) can register as a charity, or can qualify for tax exemption without registration if its income is below £5000 per year.  An individual receiving large donations would not qualify and might be investigated by Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs.    D b f i r s   22:56, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Looking for sci-fi novel set on the moon in a socialist society
I've been racking my brain for the title of sci-fi book I read in the 80s, which I think was pretty old then, going by the state of the book, so I would guess that it was maybe from the 1960s. It was set on the Moon, where a number of people had left Earth to set up a socialist society. The main character was born there, in a sort of kibbutz, and was raised with a group of children, only occasionally seeing his father and never his mother, until he was an adult. He grew up to be a mathematician, and there was a famine, but because they needed him to be able to work, he got more food than other people, which made him feel terribly guilty. He eventually travelled to Earth, but was disgusted by their profligacy and waste. Any ideas? Snorgle (talk) 21:13, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm sure I've read this novel too, but cannot remember the title. However, it does sound like something Robert A. Heinlein might have written, perhaps The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress or Stranger in a Strange Land.  Alternatively, this page may provide you with additional hints.  Astronaut (talk) 23:14, 6 October 2010 (UTC)


 * You may be thinking of Ursula K. Le Guin's award-winning 1974 novel The Dispossessed. She gave it the subtitle "An Ambiguous Utopia" -- it is often categorised as anarchist, but I can see why you might think it socialist. The main character, Shevek, is a physicist, who travels from his moon Anarres to the mother planet Urres, divided in a Cold War-like situation between a hedonistic, materialistic "West" and a dour, authoritarian "USSR"-substitute. There is a famine, you remember correctly, and he has to allocate workers to tasks, making him feel responsible for their deaths. BrainyBabe (talk) 00:01, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm fairly sure you're right -- the description definitely sounds like The Dispossessed, one of the few sci-fi books I've ever read (and therefore not one I'd forget). -- Mwalcoff (talk) 01:01, 7 October 2010 (UTC)


 * It sounds like you've got it, but on the off chance that that isn't it, Michael Swanwick's excellent Vacuum Flowers features a socialist Mars, which this review entertainingly describes as "People's Mars, an unappealing collectivist state based on classical Sparta". But that's much later than your timeframe. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 01:07, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure that the Dispossessed is right, but it was a while ago that I read it, so I may have misremembered certain aspects. It's available cheaply enough second-hand on Amazon, so I may buy it to check as it looks like a good read anyway. It's definitely not the Moon is a Harsh Mistress or Stranger in a Strange Land. If anyone else has any more suggestions, feel free to chip in! Snorgle (talk) 13:24, 7 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Sounds like "The Fury From Earth" (1963 or 1964 novel) by Dean McLaughlin, except for "the Moon" read "the planet Venus." Otherwise, it matches, though "socialist" might not be perfectly accurate for the deprivation-based society on Venus in the novel. 63.17.65.17 (talk) 04:08, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Thirteen Original Colonies
Okay, I've got a question...

I have to find the order in which the 13 colonies were founded, their founder,  the date they were founded,  their first town,  why it was settled (either religion or profit),  and the nationality (like dutch,  english,  etc.).

So, I'm stuck on the order and the dates. You find the dates, you find the order,  right?

Well, I've been to so many different websites and so many different books (yes,  oh my god someone still reads books) but all of them have different dates! I've even looked here, but it says Massachusetts was founded in 1691,  and thissays it was founded in 1620,  and my history book says it was founded sometime between 1620 and 1630! And whenever I try to find the specific founder, like for Virginia,  I get John Smith, John Rolfe, or London Company.

I haven't even tried searching for first towns yet, or anything else...

Can anybody tell me WHERE I can find ACCURATE answers for this?! I'm going insane! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pokegeek42 (talk • contribs) 21:22, 6 October 2010 (UTC)


 * The problem is that there may not be a single answer. If you look at our article Massachusetts, you find:


 * "The first English settlers in Massachusetts, the Pilgrims, established their settlement at Plymouth in 1620"
 * " ... Puritans who established the Massachusetts Bay Colony at present-day Boston in 1630"
 * "In 1691, Massachusetts became a single colony, combining Plymouth Colony and Massachusetts Bay Colony (along with present-day Maine)"
 * So which is the date of foundation, 1620, 1630 or 1691? --ColinFine (talk) 23:19, 6 October 2010 (UTC)


 * It's all in how you define "founded." For example, was a given city founded when it was first settled, when it incorporated as a village or when it attained city status? Massachusetts celebrated its "Tercentenary" in 1930, so that indicates they chose to use 1630 as their year of birth. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:32, 6 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately, your teacher is making something of a mistake. The number of English colonies in North America, or even on the east coast of North America, varied over time as colonies were founded, merged, and divided. The case of Massachusetts is a perfect illustration of this.  It started out as at least two colonies, Plymouth Colony and Massachusetts Bay Colony. (Before Massachusetts Bay Colony was founded, there were the earlier colonies of the Dorchester Company.)  Likewise, what later became Connecticut was originally three separate colonies:  Saybrook Colony, New Haven Colony, and Connecticut Colony.  On the other hand, Delaware started as part of the colony of Pennsylvania and only formally separated during the 1700s.  However, the area that became Delaware was settled by Europeans (before it was Delaware) much earlier, in fact by Swedish colonists.  However, that Swedish colony had little or no relation as a continuous entity to the much later colony of Delaware.

So, it doesn't make sense to ask when each of the 13 colonies that subscribed to the Articles of Confederation in the 1770s was founded, as if each of them had a united and unbroken history from the time of their first settlement or the first founding of an English colony on their 1770s soil. (Incidentally, those "original" 13 colonies were not the only English colonies in eastern North America in the 1770s. Quebec, Florida, and Nova Scotia were all English colonies at the time.  Nova Scotia in particular was no different in status other English colonies in North America as of, say, 1770, so it is a mistake to refer to "the 13 colonies" at any date earlier than about 1775.)  Marco polo (talk) 01:34, 7 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Actually Florida was two colonies at the time, East and West Florida. Nova Scotia, on the other hand, then included what was later the separate colony (and now Canadian province) of New Brunswick.  As Marco said, merging and dividing.  Incidentally, if you look at the Articles of Association (1774), you will see that Delaware is called "the three lower counties of Newcastle, Kent and Sussex on Delaware".  That terminology is a relic of its separation from Pennsylvania earlier the same century: see Delaware.  --Anonymous, 08:15 UTC, October 7, 2010.


 * I'd also object to the requirement to classify colonies as founded for "either religion or profit". Certainly, the people who founded Plymouth Colony and Massachusetts Bay colony were motivated in large part by the desire for religious freedom.  However, why didn't they confine themselves to the eastern coast of New England?  Why did they go on to found the three colonies that came to be Connecticut?  They had already attained religious freedom in Massachusetts.  Although Connecticut is often classified as a "religious" colony because it was founded by Puritans, in fact a major motivation of the colonists who moved there from Massachusetts was to gain access to the lucrative trade in furs along the Connecticut River.  Likewise, Maryland was founded by Cecilius Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore both as a haven for Catholics and as a commercial venture.

North Carolina, another of the supposedly commercial colonies, was also a refuge for people fleeing religious persecution in Europe. Marco polo (talk) 01:47, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * And the people who founded Providence Plantations were fleeing the religious persecution in Massachusetts Bay Colony... The Pilgrim Fathers didn't go to America in search of religious freedom, they went in search of somewhere they could be the persecutors. DuncanHill (talk) 10:00, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree that there is no definitive way to answer these questions, so just pick whatever founding event you like best. There are many reasonable choices to choose from. Some of the colonies' origins are a bit tricky, with several reasonable "founding events" over long time periods. In particular, Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey, and New Hampshire could reasonably be said have been founded in many different ways.

I couldn't help but write an off-the-cuff list of founding dates/events, and first towns. It could be done in many other ways though.


 * Virginia: founded 1607 (Jamestown established); first town Jamestown.


 * New York: founded 1614 (as New Netherland); first town Fort Nassau (1614) (now Albany).


 * Massachusetts: founded November 11, 1620 (Mayflower Compact signed); first town Plymouth.


 * Maryland: founded June 20, 1632 (charter granted); first town St. Mary's City (1634).


 * Rhode Island: founded 1636 (Roger Williams establishes Providence); first town Providence.


 * Delaware: founded 1638 (as New Sweden); first town Fort Christina (now Wilmington).


 * Connecticut: founded January 24, 1639 (Fundamental Orders of Connecticut adopted); first town Windsor (1633). [alternatively, Fort Huys de Goede Hoop, founded 1623]


 * South Carolina: founded as Province of Carolina in 1663 (Lords Proprietors receive charter); first town Albemarle Settlements [alternatively, Charleston, 1670, first in what is now South Carolina--earlier settlements were in what's now North Carolina].


 * New Jersey: founded 1664 (Duke of York's grant to Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret); first town Pavonia/Communipaw (about 1630-1634) (now Jersey City).


 * Pennsylvania: founded March 4, 1681 (charter granted); first town Philadelphia.


 * New Hampshire: founded May 14, 1692 (Charter of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay inaugurated); first town Dover (1623). [alternately, founded 1629 (Council for New England grant to John Mason)]


 * North Carolina: founded 1729 (Lord Proprietors bought out by The Crown, royal colony established); first town Albemarle Settlements.


 * Georgia: founded June 1732 (charter granted); first town Savannah.

I realize this list is rather a hodge-podge, sometimes citing charters and sometimes settlements as founding events, among other things. It might be more sensible to use the dates the colonies were founded as English/British colonies, ignoring New Netherland and New Sweden. After all, there's quite a difference between New Sweden and the English colony of Delaware. Also, some of my "first towns" are more trading posts or forts than towns. There's definitely no single correct list (and don't trust my list anyway--I probably made some mistakes). As for where to find information, I don't know of a single source. Wikipedia's various pages on the subject are of mixed quality. This website has a lot of useful colonial charters and grants. The question about whether founded for "either religion or profit" is way to black-and-white for me to even want to think about. I'd want to say "some of both" for all 13 colonies. Pfly (talk) 08:32, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

SAT essay revisited
Hey, it's me again (again). I kind of tagged this on my last question (thnx for the responses btw) but I didn't really get a satisfactory answer, so I'll clarify. What if I am confronted with a question which is really boring and I cannot think of good examples to support either viewpoint? Also, would it be to my advantage to "lie" in the essay, i.e., fabricate personal experiences and books to create "ideal" examples supporting my argument, seeing as SAT essays are not graded on content. Thanks again. 23:32, 6 October 2010 (UTC)24.92.78.167 (talk) 23:32, 6 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Fake anecdotes are kind of pointless. They won't convince anyone, no reader would be dumb enough to care if they were real, and fake sounds fake. Personally I would wonder how effective a personal anecdote would be for arguing anything of that sort, even if it were real. Despite the predilection of modern educational systems to teach high schoolers that the entire world is interested in their "emoting", it really is not very interesting to read, because obviously most high schoolers have pretty uninteresting experiences at this point in their lives. (And if you don't actually have the experience of having saved everyone's life on your plane which crashed in the Andes, don't pretend that you did. Your faking it will just look silly.)
 * As for boring, it's as boring as you make it. You want it to be exciting? Push it to the extremes. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Boring? No way! What happens if you push it all the way as far as it'll go? "There are people in the world who like to be stepped on by women in high heels. Should those people step on others with high heels?" Generally speaking, not connected with the SAT, the trick in writing anything that is going to show strong reasoning ability is to push the logic as far as it'll go. Find the total boundaries of sense without going over them. Especially if it takes you into awkward territory, like concluding that the Golden Rule is ridiculous and a bad idea anyway, after all these years. The entire trick of the essays is for you to be able to see and find and argue the interesting point in what is probably a boring question. That's what separates you from the crowd. Try to always be arguing for something controversial. If the straightforward answer is obvious, see if you can push it entirely in the other direction. "Nuclear proliferation is a good idea, because..." At the very least, it won't be boring. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:03, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Honestly, I don't think what you write about really matters that much. Remember, the essay is to test how well you right write, not really how much you know about history, or whatever.  I read an article (when the essays were first introduced) that said that the length of the essays correlated very well with the score.  They also made the point that you should include "facts" to back up your points; it shows that you know how to form an argument.  The article made a point of saying that whether the facts were true or not did not affect the essay's score; it's to test how well you write, not to see how much you know about whatever the prompt is. Buddy431 (talk) 02:30, 7 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I do not disagree too much with either of the two comments already made. But if you are going to try to argue for the SAT that the Golden Rule sucks or that "nuclear proliferation is a good idea"... well, you had better present your argument extremely well in such cases as those.  But if you can take a boring question and develop it in an interesting or unusual way, and do so well, without crossing any boundaries that you shouldn't be in the context of taking that test, then that is certainly what you should try to do.  Do you have an example of a "boring" SAT essay question, and can you say specifically in terms of that example what approach you think you would try to take with it at this point?  Wiki Dao  &#9775;  (talk)  03:12, 7 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Personally, I think it is easier to come up with interesting arguments that are extremely counter-intuitive, than it is to take something straightforward and come up with a new way of arguing it. But that's just me. Play to your strengths. I don't know how the SAT essays are, but the GRE essays were pretty dull, things like, "Some people have suggested that all foreign travel will prove unnecessary because of the internet. What do you think about that?" I think when I took it I answered pretty conservatively, but that's also because the GRE essays are calibrated for engineers and people who aren't use to writing at length in such a fashion. If I were worried that I would need to stand out (rather than just not have any errors), I would have said, "indeed, travel is crap, let's all join the hivemind." --Mr.98 (talk) 15:08, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

English noble families
It seem like almost all the noble families of England who held peers and land were of Norman French origin. Did any of the old Anglo-Saxon families or Danish families from the Viking Age survived pass the Norman conquest?--Queen Elizabeth II&#39;s Little Spy (talk) 23:39, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The Norman conquest of England article certainly makes it sound as if few, if any, did. (Whether any pre-conquest aristocratic line continued in any way at all in the aristocracy past that time seems possible, but would be for someone more knowledgeable about it than I to say).   Wiki Dao  &#9775;  (talk)  00:40, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * No doubt some of the families survived. However, William I dispossessed nearly all of the Anglo-Saxon nobility and awarded their lands to his Norman fighters.  So those dispossessed families would have survived, if they were lucky, as yeoman farmers, or else as bonded serfs. Marco polo (talk) 01:12, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Who were they? I never actually heard of any Anglo-Saxon noble familys besides the Godwins.--Queen Elizabeth II&#39;s Little Spy (talk) 01:17, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * That's because they lacked surnames. Their descendants would have been commoners who adopted surnames later in the Middle Ages.  Marco polo (talk) 01:53, 7 October 2010 (UTC)


 * You'd want to do some research into such anglosaxon titles/concepts as Ealdorman (originally equivalent to a Dux (duke), but later evolved into the title Earl (count)) and Thegn (the anglosaxon middle nobility, probably roughly equivalent to Barons). We even have a categories titled Category:Anglo-Saxon ealdormen and Category:Anglo-Saxon thegns which would give you some start into your research.  -- Jayron  32  01:54, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Okay, so unrelated to the original question - I saw "Ealdor" there and thought of Merlin (TV series). D'you think that's where the name of Merlin's homevillage came from?  184.97.159.46 (talk) 03:54, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Some Anglo-Saxon nobles who survived the battle were Edwin, Earl of Mercia and Morcar of Northumbria. There was also Edgar Atheling, pretty much the only member of the royal family left after the battle. There was resistance in the north from people like Hereward the Wake, but whether or not he was noble is hard to say. William's Harrowing of the North certainly reduced the number of families who could have held land. So, the short answer is basically yes, all the landowners were Normans because the Anglo-Saxon/Anglo-Danish ones were all killed or exiled. Adam Bishop (talk) 04:08, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * It wasn't only the North that was harried; see the Battle of Exeter (a bit of a muddled article - see the talk page). Alansplodge (talk) 16:28, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * There is a tradition that the Howards of Norfolk descend from a Saxon named Hereward; although the Howards didn't become the dukes of Norfolk until John Howard in the 15th century and by then had already intermarried with the Anglo-Norman aristocracy.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 06:05, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * This document prepared for a college-level course seems to give a good overview of what happened to the Anglo-Saxons after the conquest. It makes specific references to Gospatric, Earl of Northumbria, his successor Waltheof, Earl of Northumbria - described in our article as "last of the Anglo-Saxon earls" - as well as Edwin, Earl of Mercia and his brother Morcar as already mentioned.  It also makes the point that many of the Saxon noblemen left for exile, some to join the Varangian Guard in Constantinople.  Edgar the Ætheling, proclaimed as king by the English immediately after the Battle of Hastings, survived into old age under William and his successors, and his sister Margaret became queen of Scotland.  Her daughter Matilda in turn married William the Conqueror's son, who became Henry I of England.  Ghmyrtle (talk) 07:32, 7 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Clan Lindsay, and therefore the Earl of Crawford is said to be of Anglo-Saxon descent, though that is disputed. The Earl of Kintore through the title of Lord Falconer of Halkerton is said to be of Anglo-Saxon descent.  216.93.213.191 (talk) 22:32, 7 October 2010 (UTC)


 * According to James Lees-Milne, writing in the 18th edition of Burke's Peerage/Burke's Landed Gentry, three English families of the present day can be traced back through the male line to pre-Conquest Anglo-Saxons: the Swintons, the Berkeleys, and the Ardens. Many other families make the same claim, but usually can't back the claim up with convincing evidence. Antiquary (talk) 21:49, 11 October 2010 (UTC)