Hi Peter What you say is true in part but there is evidence (good evidence as well) that many Cathares lived parallel lives, were registering their baptisms and marriages whilst worshipping outside the Catholic Church. I think that the paperwork isn't Cathare but those who persecuted them, Inquisition etc which is also the basis for a good deal of the material on the Knights Templar. So there is a good historical base for Cathares, names, locations etc - it's whether there is any PROPER genealogical information that is then the issue. As for the Madeleine, Grail and such: ggggggggrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr Regards and not wanting to be too contentious Tony Fuller

Hi Tony, I would be very interested to hear of a baptism or marriage register anywhere before the early 1500s - here in Brittany the earliest are in the 1520s. As for Inquisition sources on the Cathares, or the Templars - or Jews and Moors in Spain for that matter - they need to be handled with great care. About as reliable as Stalinist show trials... The idea that anyone could trace their family back to the early 13th century on the basis of this sort of evidence strikes me as exceedingly optimistic. Proving that a family name was current in a particular area is of course another and much simpler matter. Depends what you're after. BTW, Old Peter (Leroy) seems to think I said Luther was a Huguenot. That is of course not what I said - I merely suggested that the notion of Reformed Church/Protestantism before the time of Luther was nonsense. The logic that says "Cathares were heretics. Huguenots were heretics. Therefore Cathares were (proto-)Huguenots" is frankly garbage. I think it's called a "silly-gism" isn't it ? ATB Peter ;-)