General Notes

Below is part of Betty's e-mail (full e-mail is under Somerled) with my response as a note:
Jim
Thought you might be interested in what was in British Kings & Queens by Mark Ashley (sic. Mike Ashley) on pages 433-434 regarding Somerled:
"Somerled was the son of Gillebride, thane of Argyll, and was descended from Ragnall, the Danish king of York. He was born in Ireland (where his father had been exiled by the Scots king Edgar) perhaps around the year 1105. His mother was Norse, the daughter of Sigurd II of Orkney, and she named the boy with a typical Norse nickname, which means "summer voyager". We know little of his early life, but he seems to have regained his heritage sometime before 1130, because he was already styled thane of Argyll when his sister married Malcolm, the illegitimate son of Alexander I of Scotland. . . .
This raised a question in my mind regarding the mother of Somerled (that you have indicted as Agatha Hadonsdottir). Can you double check this and let me know what you find out?
Thanks
Betty
Jim Weber notes: "Checking with The Complete Peerage, Vol X, Appendix A on the Jarls of Orkney, I came up with the following Sigurds: Sigurd II 'Digri' Hlodvesson was Jarl of Orkney, but he died in 1014, which makes any daughter of his (b. in or before 1015) impossible as a mother of Somerled. Sigurd Jorsalafari 'Jerusalem Goer/The Crusader', was b. circa 1089, and was made King of Orkney by his father Magnus 'Barelegs' King of Norway. He married as 1st wife a daughter of the King of Ireland in 1099/1102 (at the age of 13) and left Orkney and his first wife (who stayed in Orkney) in 1105. I believe he was 'married' 2 or 3 times more (CP only concentrates on his Orkney activities in this Appendix). A daughter of that early marriage could have been mother of Somerled, given that Somerled was born, say, in or after 1117."