Bruce wrote: > Karl Martel or Charles Martel was King of the Franks. Charles Martel was famous for turning back the Moorish invasion, saving Christendom, etc., but he was not King of the Franks. His title was "Mayor of the Palace". It was his son Pepin the Short who capitalized on the growing power of the Carolingian family to depose the last of the Merovingian kings and seize the throne for himself. > His grandson was > Charlemagne. Thus with a little work we may eventually be able to establish > what is called "Charlemagne descent" for the Carpenter family. I won't hold my breath. Descent from a cousin of the grandfather of Charlemagne doesn't provide a "head start" on descent from Charlemagne himself. For that matter, have you checked the *latest* edition of "Ancestral Roots" (it's up to at least 8 by now)? There are so many erroneous lines in the early editions that those books might as well be discarded (which is why so many copies are available dirt cheap at used book sales). John Chandler