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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;+VGO.DVCKS, post: 4694933, member: 110504&quot;]This is all from memory, but C. S. Lewis is supposed to have said at some point that (<i>at least</i> in the British Isles) the main difference between commoners and the aristocracy was the aristocracy <i>knew</i> who their ancestors were.</p><p>(Again from memory, Lewis, Anglo-Irish by birth, was descended from the Anglo-Norman Warenne earls of Surrey, giving him easy descent from Charlemagne.)</p><p>Regarding Donna M.&#039;s observations, citing the esteemed online genealogist Charles Cawley (<u>Medieval Lands</u> website), one possible line of descent from Charlemagne back to 4th-c. Gallo-Romans was first proposed in an article in the <u>American Genealogist</u>, c. 1948.&nbsp; The English herald and genealogist A. L. Wagner noted this in a book over a decade later, saying, in effect, &#039;Boy, wouldn&#039;t that be great,&#039; with the diplomatic but unmistakable implication that in its present form, the argument was irreducibly speculative.&nbsp; </p><p>...Sorry for the pontification, but speculative genealogy, while not necessarily oxymoronic, must always be acknowledged as such.&nbsp; ...Methodologically, it can be a little like starting from Wikipedia.&nbsp; From there, the job is to find anything you can cite with a straight face.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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