Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/William de la Pole (Jr)

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. Ron Ritzman (talk) 01:40, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

William de la Pole (Jr)

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Two and a half years back, I successfully nominated a similar article to this for AFD. The reason is that the person whom this article seeks to deal with never existed. The surname would be modernised as "Pool". There is no evidence whatsoever for a dynastic link between a family of Hull merchants who took their name from a nearby village or a pool in it and the Princes of Powys Wenwynwyn, who took their surname from Welshpool - so named today to distingusih it from Poole, Dorset. The alleged link, which is the sole purpose of this article, is a figment of the overactive imahgination of certain genealogists, who assume that two people of the same name and same period must be related. As the article on William de la Pole of Hull makes clear, his ancestry is not known. This is based on good published genealogical reliable sources, not the tittle-tattle of websites. Peterkingiron (talk) 18:01, 22 December 2010 (UTC) The previous discussion referred to is at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/William de la Pole the Elder. An article of the present name cannot be retained (even as a redirect) for the simple reason that a Junior can only exist where there was an "elder" or senior; in any event, "Jr" is an Americanism and inappropriate to a British hisotrical subject. Peterkingiron (talk) 18:10, 22 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. —Peterkingiron (talk) 18:14, 22 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of England-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 18:33, 22 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 18:33, 22 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete There's no additional information to be usefully merged into William de la Pole of Hull, and the existence of the redirect would be intrinsically misleading and perpetuate and incorrect genealogy, as Peter has pointed out. See also my comments at the older AFD. Choess (talk) 20:04, 22 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete There is nothing in this article that is both accurate and not better provided in William de la Pole of Hull, thus there is nothing worth merging. As to preserving the name-space in the form of a redirect, it is not worth preserving, as it is inaccurate (there was no known Sr), anachronistic (not used at the time) and not likely to be used by anyone doing a search (in fact, Jr forms are almost never used for this place and period) I only say almost and not likely because obviously someone used it, but we needn't cater to the whim of every possible misuse. Agricolae (talk) 00:41, 23 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete This article just confuses those trying to understand family relationships. --Auntof6 (talk) 08:33, 23 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Merge/Delete Just two doubts: is the Sir of Sir William's father William accurate, and is the year 1302 and place Linby, Nottinghamshire, of birth also accurate? Konakonian (talk) 17:01, 23 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

None of it is accurate - the Sir isn't accurate, the birthdate isn't accurate, the birthplace isn't accurate, the father's name isn't accurate. It is all made up, not by the editor(s) but by generations of overzealous genealogists. The Sir William Jr (sic) is the man in William de la Pole of Hull. That article says everything known about his origin. Some genealogist at some point decided it would be nice of the de la Pole family, Earls of Suffolk, could be made into heirs of Owain ap Gruffydd ap Gwenwynwyn, alias Owen de la Pole, ruler of Powys Gwenwynwyn. It is known that this Owen had no male-line descent, his heiress being his daughter Hawise, but why let reality stand in the way of a really good pedigree. Thus was invented a son, the entirely mythical Sir William de la Pole (the Elder), to be father of William of Hull, who then is called 'the younger' or 'Jr' to distinguish him from his non-existent father of the same name. Given that missing information is anathema to genealogists, someone then estimated a birthdate, and decided where such a William might have been born, or maybe assumed that a later landholding must have been his birthplace. It is all nonsense. Of all of the information in the article, the year of death and the names of two (out of five) children are the only accurate items, and they are already in the superior William de la Pole of Hull article, so there is no point in a merge. The only viable question is convert to redirect or delete, and that depends on how likely someone is to search for William de la Pole of Hull under the name "William de la Pole (Jr)" and I find it extremely unlikely that anyone would use this precise syntax in searching for the man. Agricolae (talk) 18:45, 23 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

For the sake of accuracy, I think I should say that a person might be described as "junior" (in Latin) or "the younger" (even occasionally "junior") in English, but only in his father's lifetime if he shared his father's name. I do not recall seeing this abbreviated to J^r and certainly not to Jr in any historical document that I have seen. Peterkingiron (talk) 13:13, 24 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I am aware of the article, since I was the one who suggested the merge. I was only unsure if those elements that apparently are false could just have been forgotten from the article, as sometimes I've seen happening. Some articles miss full dates of birth and mentions of Knighthood. But the article of William de la Pole of Hull still presents as a possibility that his father was named William. That part, apparently, is not part of the forgery. Konakonian (talk) 17:18, 27 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The content of another Wikipedia page is insufficient evidence to demonstrate anything. That statement could be nothing more than a recognition that the (forged) claim is out there. Agricolae (talk) 05:43, 28 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

WP requires WP:RS, not guesswork. The name of the Hull merchant's father is not known. Even if it was William (which cannot be proved or disproved), there is no scintilla of evidence of a relationship to the Princes of Powys Wenwynwyn. I carefully researched this issue before the previous AFD (for his alleged father). There really is nothing worth merging. Peterkingiron (talk) 18:52, 27 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment (by nom). There is nothing verifiable in the subject article to merge. Any attempt to do so would render the "target" article inaccurate, by adding information that only exists as the WP:OR of some unreliable genealogist, whose construct is essentially the result of fantasy. All this was dealt with in the previous AFD. Peterkingiron (talk) 13:06, 24 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, per nomination. bobrayner (talk) 23:04, 28 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. 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.