Thanks to John Carpenter and John Chandler for Suffolk and clarification of Godwin. The insight of continental origins and name usage is very useful. The text I am reading now renders Galfridi or Galfridus as Geoffrey. This leads me to the substance of this letter, which is to announce that the three volume history of St. John the Baptist Hospital in Oxford is going to prove a very, very important parcel of Carpenter family history. Hospitals in the Middle Ages had a wider role of activity than modern hospitals. They could act as inns for example. With these books the Carpenter line can seemingly be traced back to the early 1200s. One of the founders of the charity (along with the King) was a Galfridus Carpentarius. Many, many family members are mentioned with dates, and the personages seem the same as those found in the Curia Regis Roles. Was it the case the Carpenters first settled in the coastal trading cities (set up shop) and then moved to Herefordshire, Oxford and then London. This should have been no surprise to me given the extensive mid 1300s data on Stanton St John (Oxford) Carpenters (Sir John Carpenter and others) and their connection to the London Carpenters. Here again all the names and dates are the same. According to the editors of the St. John Baptists books, these charitable trusts were very much family (clan) charities with later members of a family renting land and homes from the hospital. As you look through the books the Carpenters used St John Baptist through to the 1700s! The first Carpenter in Oxford was a Radulfus Carpentarius in the very first years of the 1200s. As I looked through the Curia Regis Rolls the first Carpenter who showed the common pattern of land aquisition (in this case in Suffolk) was a Radulfus Carpentarius. Was Ralph the father of Adam? The Curia regis Rolls says Adam was the father of Galfridus. Same people? A major problem now is Mediae Latinitatis. Does John Chandler read Medieval Latin? BC