Hi everyone and happy holidays, I'm wondering if anyone can suggest effective ways to research any Huguenot ancestors of the Fay surname. We pretty much have the source traced to a probably large family with probably many branches that seem to be centered in Rochelle France or that general area. They are traced between about 1000AD to 1300 in France and England, by O'Hart. Prior to 1500 we can roughly trace them to Hampshire England and Meath Ireland. The Meath family remained in that area and descendants of that line exist today. The line of Hampshire England however lost their grant and returned to Normandy. I have received correspondence saying that the present day Hampshire England Fay's trace to a Huguenot refuge who came from Rochelle and settled in Hampshire by shear coincidence. He is said to have a brother that went to New England also as a refuge also in the mid 1600's. We also know that there are a total of at least five Fays in the 1600's that settled in the American colonies. In addition, there are numerous other lines that trace to the early days of Canada, some to Germany, one reported in Wales, one in Scotland, and one near Hungary. I am thinking that possibly many of these lines trace to the protestant exodus from France. There is one other family of Fay's in France reported by O'Hart and that is of the Tour de Maubourg line, which is titled nobility. If I understand things correctly, they would pretty much have to be Catholic to keep their title, and therefore would not be recorded as refugees or Huguenot. Does anyone have any ideas on how we could get a better handle on this? Just as a side note, we have our own active surname mail list, and have subscribers in France, England, Canada, the US and elsewhere that are interested in this issue and might be willing to research in the various areas to learn more. Thanks for your help and Happy Holidays, Bob Fay Robert W Fay Sturtevant, Wisconsin USA Researching FAY, DEAGAN, BURRITT Visit the Fay websites at: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~faywebsite/index.html http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~fayfamily/index.html FAY Mail list at Rootsweb.com: Subscribe by sending an email with the single word subscribe on the subject line to: FAY-L-Request@rootsweb.com