h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Islendingabok - The Book of Icelanders - A994601
Author: ismarah -Keeper of Volcanoes - U199022

I think this is ready for PeerReview...
Something quite interesting...
cheers ismarah

Then a review it well get ... Erms ..
1st i gotta read it lol
and then i'll see if it has what it takes to get a recomidation

I had actually, very oddly, forgotten to put the link to the Iceland entry in there. So I´ve fixed that now, and we shall never speak of it again.
cheers ismarah

There's an edited entry about Norway as well: A803422 and probably the other countries you've mentioned
But that's perhaps a job for the editors?

Do you know why Islendingers are so interested in this kind of lore?

Hmm, one thing that might be a little problem with this is the BBC's dislike of linking to foreign language sites... it might be better not to include the direct link, or ask the italics if you can do it.


Whisky

Bumblebee I´ve updated this with the added links. I also wanted to add something about Leifur Eirikson, but Google isn´t cooperating at the moment.

Why Icelanders are so interested in this? No idea - I think this is a Norse thing.

Whisky you´re right, but there isn´t yet a site for this in english. So what I´ve done instead is add a footnote to explain this, we´ll see if it will be allowed...

cheers ismarah

Perhaps you should also mention that the name of the database is borrowed from the saga (by Ari) of the same name, which is a history of the Icelandic people.

A very good point, Anhaga. I´ll add that to the entry, thanks

cheers ismarah

Interesting article Comments copied from a conversation on Icelandic names which I meant to put in Peer review I think I had heard something about Iceland's excellent genealogy history in relation to genetic research. One thing I thought might make genealogy in Iceland tricky was the difficulty of tracing a family purely by surname: I think it is still the case that people are named after their father's forename in Iceland. So a daughter of Ragnar Olafsson could be called Elin Ragnarsdottir, while a son be named Magnus Ragnarsson. This is a small part of the information about Iceland I gained reading Desmond Bagley's 'Running Blind', a spy thriller set in Iceland first published early in the 70's. Has Iceland changed much since? Because of this naming practice the icelandic phone book is arranged alphabetically by forename first. Try it at "http://www.simaskra.is/control/" (a simple Google search on "Iceland Telephone Book" found this site) A little hootoo (why hootoo not h2g2?) reseach shows you and Gnomon have already covered naming in the article on Iceland that is already linked. Engage brain before speaking. Nevertheless it may be worth adding a mention of Icelandic naming to this article too, as it is of some relevance to other people interested in genealogy, who might be as short-sighted as me in not researching further, and not realise this interesting aspect existed.

You know what? I´ve thought about this and I fail to see why it should be any more difficult to trace Icelandic lineages because of the naming tradition, than say, English lineages.
For every Jón Jónsson, there will be many more John Smiths...

If anyone here is a geneologist, or an enthusiast, could you explain why it is more difficult?

cheers ismarah

ps. note that there is an english version of the icelandic phonebook, online.

One has to be so careful, but you don't learn except by making mistakes.
Google search of "iceland phonebook" will give
http://www.phonebookoftheworld.com/phonebookoficeland.htm as a site and choosing white pages will give (for me anyway) an Icelandic phonebook in English, which is what I thought I'd linked to with my previous link.

As far as genealogy goes I suppose it isn't any more difficult with different naming traditions to trace your ancestors - what matters is the quality of the records stating who was born to whom, hence Islendingabok.

Maybe some scope for a h2g2 article on traditions of naming individuals around the world. A quick search has only found this:
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Park/4741/surnames.html, which again is rather parochial and short on examples - no mention of Sikhism for instance, see A816923, with its naming traditions.

Sorry I seem to have wandered off the subject somewhat.

I do like this entry.

However I have nothing else consturctive to add to the conversation.

My only complaint is that I thought it was going to be about the saga. I don't know that a succinct title could make the distinction clear. I also don't know that anyone else would ever get excited about finding an entry on the saga.

I suppose I could change the name to include something about a database, as opposed to a book... but then again the name was a translation so as to not cause confusion about the icelandic word...

Any votes on this?

Íslendingabók - A Database

Íslendingabók - The Book of Icelanders

then I suppose I´ll have to start writing about the Sagas! (maybe at some point... when I´ve worked up the nerve...)

cheers ismarah

I suppose it all depends under what categories the edited article will be filed (is it Life, Human; or Everything, History & Politics or Culture)?
There don't appear to be any edited articles on Genealogy, but if that were a sub-heading it would be clear what the thrust of the article is.

Personally I prefer The Book of Icelanders.

I'd also be interested in something on the Icelandic Sagas and Eddas- the only one I've heard of is the Saga of Burnt Njal(?)/Neil (yep, that's one in Running Blind) Is it true that you read all your literature in translation?

Pimms

1. Define literature?
2. translation into what?
3. Translation from what?

My points on this:
I read anything I want to, while defining none of it as literature. This includes Laurell K Hamilton, JK Rowling, Toni Morrison, Sophocles, Shakespeare, Julie Garwood, Kay Hooper etc.

If you´re asking whether we read the sagas in translation, then no, we don´t. We read them with modern typesetting and spelling, possibly editor's remarks, but not in translation as such.

Personally I read mostly in english and sometimes in Icelandic. I rarely, if ever, read in other languages.

Books do get translated into icelandic from a (big) number of other languages, such as english, german, portuguese, spanish, italian, french, japanese, chinese, danish, swedish, russian, greek etc.

Books by icelandic authors also get translated into other languages (see above list), where they´ve met (some) acclaim.


So that´s one vote for The Book of Icelanders then...

There are many Sagas published in english, Penguin has a number. A look on amazon would probably give dozens of hits...

cheers ismarah

(and since I forgot to answer this when you first asked: yes, Iceland has changed a lot since the seventies)

The discussion is interesting but I fear diverting away from Peer review of Islendingabok, so I'll message you at your home space with my reply

Pimms

The title is fine as it is, Ismara.
I saw on the telly the other day that there has been some dispute about the Islandic genes. Some medical research-firm had put forth evidence about a particular genetic trait in Island, to use to get access to medical information. I think they have found out that this was not correct..

Has anyone anything else to add to this?

cheers ismarah