Dear Bruce, That the cross channel trade involved the Carpenter/Carpentier family is of no doubt. From the 1200s into this century the Carpenter family has been involved (one way or another) in trade. Current Carpenter Companies involved in shipping and finances still exist today. A Private shipping company! CARPENTER SHIPPING LIMITED 20 HONEY CLOSE CHELMSFORD ESSEX CM2 9SP A Financial group! CARPENTER BOWRING (UK)LIMITED THE BOWRING BUILDING TOWER PLACE LONDON EC3P 3BE There is no doubt that Carpenters from France came and went into England. This still goes on based on the number of Carpentiers in the UK directories. That Carpenters from England had help in Leyden in the mid to late 1500s is no surprise either. These families keep up their "family" and "financial" ties because it was a part of economic and physical survival in the religious and political trials of the times. John R. Carpenter La Mesa, CA Bruce E. Carpenter wrote: > > John: > It might have very much the case for Carpenter history > from the early the early 1200s to well into the 1300s that a great many > Flemish Carpentiers came to settle in England. If we continue to > conceptualize in terms a small nuclear group of Carpentier trader-settlers, > like the Carpenter group that went to Massachusetts, we may have an utterly > erroneous picture of what truly happened. I say this because too much > evidence has passed my eyes that points to maintained contact with the > original family groups and places. For a hundred and fifty years all manner > of relatives must have come and gone. There must have been Carpentiers among > the traders who were known too reside in England only part of the year. As > late as 1557 the Flemish Carpentiers were still trading in England. Note > this 3 and 4 Philip and Mary, Part VIII, May 13,1557 > account of a dastardly crime: > > Whereas it appears by the tenor of a record of George Crofte, one of the > coroners of the town and liberty of Dartmouth, co. Devon, 22 March, 3 and 4 > Ph. and Mary, that it was presented by 12 jurors upon the view of the body > of Guy Carpenter then lying dead in the house of Thomas Mounsey at Dartmouth > that it befel on 21 March between 10 and 11 oclock at night that a foreign > (extraneus) man called Skoenne Mychell, captain of a barke of Flusshyn in > Flanders and the said Carpenter, also of Flanders, were in the said house > and Carpenter made an assault upon Mychell with knives and in self-defense > Mychell drew his dagger (pugionem) and with it (price 12d.) struck > Carpenter. > > This I am sure was all over a beautiful women, and Guy certainly did not > strike the first blow. We cannot say the Flemish Carpentiers were alive and > well in England in 1557, but the fact of their continued trade activity, is > a certainty. > As I mentioned earlier, titled Carpentiers were sought after > for marriages as late as mid 1400s. > > Bruce Carpenter