Our Norman and French Ancestors

aunt minerva collection
The Foster Family by W.T. Foster, cont.



OUR NORMAN & FRENCH ANCESTORS

Before continuing the account of our Norman-French ancestors in England I will take up another line of our ancestors of Continental Europe, the Carlovingian dynasty of the Franks who were the ancestors of the French. They include very prominent ancestors, of noble characters.
This line of kings had grey eyes, brown hair, were very large and powerful men and women, fierce and successful warriors and I have traced them from that great Asiatic race, who, after they reached Europe, were called the Wends, meaning the wandering tribes. They left Asia not far from 600 B.C. The Seythians was a southern tribe of the Wends. This Wend nation at the beginning of the Christian era was north of the Cuacassian mountains and the Caspian and Black seas, were divided into many tribes. The northern tribes of this nation organized a vast and populous kingdom that extended 900 miles along the southern coasts of the Baltic sea and 300 miles southward. They overran Denmark and southern Sweden. Anacher, one of their very ricy robles was our ancestor.
Other tribes moved more to the southwest overrunning parts of the country now known as Germany, Austria, southern France, Spain, Italy, Sweden, parts of Greece, the Balkan states and all of northern Africa. They were very large men and women, most of them grey-eyed, shading towards the blue and the brown because of mixing wtih their own more northern and southern tribes. These tribes were the Goths, Visigoths, Ostrogoths and various others. After they had conquered northern Africa and most of Europe they did not organize a great empire. Each tribe fought and conquered independent of the others then fought each other. The Romans called them Vandals. The men had much heavier beards than the Romans.
In the sixth century Arnulf was Bishop of Metz, now on the fighting line between Germany and France. He was a descendant of one of these Wend tribes, grey-eyed, heavy beard, large and powerful man, mentally and physically. See full account of the line of French Kings, of whom he was an ancestor, in Cosmopolitian Magazine No. 2 Vol. 48. His grand-son Depin was mayor of the Palace of the King of the Franks. These mayors were the real rulers of the Frankish Kingdom, the kings being mere puppets.
Pepin's son was the famous Charles Martel the greatest general of his time. He successfully defended all Christendom form the invasions of the Saracens. His son Charlemagne was one of the four greatest generals the world has ever produced. The other three being Alexander, Caesar and Napoleon. He was King of France and Emperor of the Western Roman Empire, saved Christianity from destruction and checked the invaders of Rome. He is also known as Charles I of France and Charles the Great. Before Charlemagne organized the French kingdom the Frankish Kingdom had four capitols, Scissons, Orleans, Paris, and Metz. The queens of this line of kings were among the world's greatest women and each of them has a brilliant history.
Charlemagne's son and successor was Ludwig, Louis I, King of France and his son Charles II, King of France and Emperor of Rome who was father of Princess Judith, whom Baldwin II, The Great Forrester, our ancestor, married. From this it will be seen that our ancestors came down from the great Wend nation-the real conquerors of the Roman Empire-along two lines at least. Before continuing the history I will give the complete genealogy, of my ancestors as I have, after fifty-six years effort, worked out.