Good Morning, Hazel and all- Michael CARPENTER first appears in the History of Bath County(KY) as the survivor of an Indian ambush in 1788 at Stepstone. At that time Stepstone was in Bourbon County, VA, and subsequently fell in the jurisdictions of Montgomery and Bath Counties, in order. So far I have found no record of where he came from. Family lore carried to Iowa, through second son Levi's family, is that the family is of Germannic origin, and that Michael spoke German. Michael's youngest son, Harvey, used the name ZIMMERMAN on an 1830 Bath Co. land transaction. When my grandfather James Breckenridge CARPENTER died in Illinois in 1940 his obituary noted that he had ... "two brothers and two sisters living in Mount Sterling, Kentucky." I'm just lurking out here, and in other places too, hoping to find some clue to Michael's and spouse Elizabeth's origins. Bob Carpenter