Thanks Roy, First I was mistaken and you are absolutely correct that it is Auverge. My knowledge of French geography is limited at this point but I'm fortunate to have French and English cousins much more adept at it. From the website it mentions Tour de Maubourg and there was a marriage of Jean Fay to Cha rlette la Tour Maubourg in 1480, and that established one of the five known branches of the Fays in France. It is generally referred to as Fay Tour de Maubourg, apparently right about the time place names were being adopted as surnames, so it's a bit confusing. Yes, the locations are very difficult. Here is an excerpt of a geographical description from a cousin: <snip> "all the places he quotes are in a beautiful area south west of the city of Lyon. Le Puy-en-Velay, Fay-sur-Lignon, and Maubourg form an almost equilateral triangle. Yes! Maubourg is a tiny village about 10k south west of Sainte Sigolene, across the river Lignon from Grazac. These places are all in the Michelin Motoring Atlas of France, scale 1:200,000, pages 128/9. Le Puy is on the headwaters of the Loire, which has its source south of Fay-sur-Lignon. The Lignon flows into the Loire just north of Maubourg. <snip> Is it possible that "la Tour" is in fact the little village of Fay-la-Tour a couple of kilometres east of Le Puy on the N88?" <snip> We were finally fortunate enough to obtain reasonably specific geographical information on several in the 16th century. But probably the easiest to locate is Hector as he is noted to have been seneschal of Puy so perhaps he or his children or grandchildren or nieces or nephews were involved in t he religious wars/emigration. Here is what we have on him thus far: FAY TOUR MAUBOURG, Hector Sexe : Masculin .Naissance: vers 1558, Ardeche Tour Maubourg .Note: VILAIN p.379 : Hector de FAY seigneur et baron de LA TOUR MAUBOURG, senechal du PUY, marie le 5/2/1588 a Marguerite de la ROCHE NEGLY d'ou : Jacques pere : F A Y TOUR MAUBOURG .Jean Mere : PELOUX. Marguerite Famille 1 : ROCHE NEGLY. Marguerite There are four other known major branches and probably many other minor branches, and at least on a preliminary basis they also appear to be in this general area. When we get them translated and geographically located we can look at the potential Protestantism in those families. Does this help locate them better? Thanks, Bob Fay <snip> The Protestant records for Languedoc are vast with some 811 records listed for the department although very few cover your time scale. The records for Haute-Loire are poor with none covering the period you require although the introduction does mention three places where Protestants were active in the 16th century and these are Annonay, Puy and St-Voy-de-Bonnas. If you could give me pointer to the precise location I will check if any of the Languedoc records could be worth a look. Roy.