Hi folks Sad to hear that Nick has died, I did some work with him a couple of years ago - there seems to be a Nick in every country that has a strong genealogical hobby/research base, certainly a couple in UK and one in France, into just about everything genealogical. Was Luther a Huguenot - well, obviously not. For a start he wasn't French and he wasn't Calvinist so two out of two against ain't bad. I think the 'was Jesus a Christian' analogy is the best one - course he wasn't and neither were his followers, like Calvin and Zwingli, followers of the Reformation, weren't Lutherans. It's sort of like the people that invent the firework then light the first blue touch paper and then stand there waiting for the fireworks - they may be the people that invented the firework but usually they're too close or dead when their followers see the final outcome 10 years on after somebody invented the coloured bits to replace the big bang. Well, that's how I see it anyway fizzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz ............ Regards Tony Fuller

Thank you, Tony, I hadn't come across that one before. The Big Bang theory of Christianity - would this be a variant on TS Elliot's "This is the way the World ends - Not with a whimper..." - or does it derive from astronomy ? Makes a change from Creationism anyway. Another heresy to write up for Wikipedia... I have checked Martin's article. Very interesting. I'm not too sure about the bits on the Cathare attitude to recreational sex - can't quite see how this fits in with the Huguenot world-view as promulgated by Geneva. Nor with genealogy in the strict sense, taking yourself out of the gene pool seems a bit contradictory, but there you go. I have a vivid image of the deacons of Calvaria Calvinistic Methodist in Twynyrodyn trying to get their heads around this one :-$ . Should keep them out of mischief for a while. So some Cathares were weavers, some weavers spread protestant ideas several hundred years later... therefore... Therefore nothing. This is another "silly-gism" - it looks logical at first sight but means nothing. Some cats are black, my dog is black... so my dog is a cat ? Non-French readers won't have come across this one - the socialist candidate for the next presidential elections, Mme Ségolène Royale, was recently attacked with the damning phrase : "Being a woman is not a political programme". I would suggest that not being a Catholic doesn't make you a Protestant and that being a weaver is not proof of any particular belief-system. There, I feel better for that. Have a nice day everybody, Peter (the Younger)