Talk:Princess Marie-Auguste of Anhalt

Marie-Auguste's adoptions

After this article was featured on /r/TodayILearned, it became apparent that the source cited for the 35 adoptions claim may not fully support that statement. Further, apart from her adoption of Frederic those may not be notable events. This article may need a second set of eyes. RexSueciae (talk) 22:06, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

• Thanks for pointing it out. The source https://www.nytimes.com/1990/04/29/world/evolution-in-europe-a-prince-his-castle-and-the-tenants.html referred to an Eduardo who was 42 years old in this 1990 article, so must've been https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduard,_Prince_of_Anhalt. Then he referred to

One of his sisters, for reasons not entirely clear, has adopted about 35 adults, all of whom now legally style themselves Princes of Anhalt, he said.

This Eduardo's father was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joachim_Ernst,_Duke_of_Anhalt, who have the same parents as this Marie-Auguste. This means Marie-Auguste was the AUNT and certainly not a sister of the Eduardo quoted by the NYT article. This is a rather clear case of original research/synthesis where an editor, while possibly well-meaning, synthesized multiple sources into some sort of an alternative fact through guess work. I have removed the paragraphs and sources as they're really not relevant to this article. Thank you for pointing this out. 108.30.97.151 (talk) 00:29, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

I added back the one confirmed adoption (that of Frédéric Prinz von Anhalt) since there's reliable sources for that one, at least. If any others surface, I guess add those too. RexSueciae (talk) 01:08, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

Yes thanks good call! that's actually a very notable adoption. 108.30.97.151 (talk) 02:15, 12 August 2019 (UTC)