Cindy Crawford Who Do You Think You Are? USA

Supermodel Cindy Crawford is unravelling

the mystery behind her Midwestern family's origins.

So he ditched his kids and, as far as we know, never returned.

She travels to England...

What's in this scroll?

..where she finds a family torn apart by civil war.

If you don't surrender, you'll all be massacred.

And then to Germany...

You are getting back to something very august.

..where Cindy uncovers an extraordinary connection

to early European royalty.

Are you kidding me?

One of the first true supermodels, Cindy Crawford transformed

the image of fashion models from mannequins to superstars.

Discovered in her small Illinois home town at the age of 17, Cindy's

career quickly soared, making her the highest-paid model in the world.

She's graced the covers of more than 400 magazines,

strutting the catwalks for designers from Chanel to Ralph Lauren,

and been at the helm of several successful beauty and design brands.

Cindy lives in Malibu with her husband and their two children.

I grew up in DeKalb, Illinois, which is

about 60 miles straight west of Chicago.

And it's not really... People think maybe it's suburban, but it's not.

It's small town Illinois. And that was a great place to grow up.

I consider myself just like the kind of Midwestern,

next-door neighbour girl.

Kind of made a career on that, so I'm sticking with that story.

But, yeah, that's how I see myself.

Just kind of simple life, a house you didn't lock the doors,

but surrounded by family and cousins and extended family.

I mean, I'm lucky because when I was born,

I had all four great-grandmothers living and two great-grandfathers.

They lived in Minnesota,

and we would go and visit them, like, two or three times a year.

Between Illinois and Minnesota,

that's as far back as I've ever gone with my family.

I have no idea how they ended up there.

I always say I'm just an American mutt

because I know all of my grandparents were born here,

and I'm pretty sure all my great-grandparents were born here.

So, you know, I'm just like... We're, like, you know, Midwestern potato-eating people.

So I guess it would be cool to have some person that

was, like, historically relevant.

Like, that would be kind of cool. But the main thing for me

is just having that sense of connection to history.

I'm excited about doing this for myself and also for my family.

I'm especially excited to share it with my kids.

You know, I have a daughter who's in sixth grade, her name's Kaya,

and I know that she has to do a big family history project.

So I figure, OK,

this is my daughter's project right here and it'll be really cool.

It'll, you know... Because my family, we...

I mean, being American is great,

but we all came from somewhere, and I don't have any of that.

I don't have any of those pieces to the puzzle.

Cindy is starting with her father's side of the family,

following the line of her paternal grandmother, Ramona Hemingway.

So this is me and Grandma Ramona, and I'm pretty sure this was taken

at a Hemingway family reunion, probably in Mankato, Minnesota.

And that's a name that I've always been really curious about.

Like, are we related to Ernest Hemingway, or not?

Other than just it being family rumour, I don't know.

This is Ramona's parents. Hazel Brown Hemingway,

my great-grandma, and Frank Hemingway.

I knew both of them very well.

We would go up there every summer when I was a kid.

And Frank was a popcorn farmer, and all he wanted was one son,

because all farmers want sons, yet he had eight daughters.

Now this picture is Frank's parents, my great-great-grandparents.

Grandpa Lou, and they called Grandma "Lou", too,

but I'm sure they both weren't named Lou.

But I never knew him, and I don't know anything about him.

So I guess that's where I'm going to start my search.

And so I am going to search for "Lou", assuming that that's Louis,

a short name for Louis.

L-O-U-I-S Hemingway, and my great-great-grandpa.

Minnesota...

And the search.

OK, so I have a lot of Louis Hemingways.

So then I'm going to click on Vernon, Blue Earth, Minnesota.

That's right where...near where my great-grandparents lived.

Let's see what it says.

It says "1880".

OK, Louis Hemingway.

He was 13 when this census was taken. He was born in Minnesota.

His father's name was Frank.

The census reveals that

Louis Hemingway named his son

after his own father,

making Frank Hemingway Sr

Cindy's three times great-grandfather.

His father was from New Hampshire. Wow, I had no idea.

As far as I knew, everybody on my dad's side was Minnesota.

So, the next step would be to look up this other

Frank Hemingway in New England and see where that leads me.

And I don't know if that would be closer or further

away from my fantasy of being related to Ernest Hemingway.

Cindy has discovered a clue about her family's

origins before they arrived in the Midwest.

Her three times great-grandfather, Frank Hemingway,

was born in New Hampshire in the 1800s.

So Cindy is heading to the New England Historical Genealogical Society in Boston.

To see how far back she can trace her family tree,

Cindy has asked genealogist Chris Child to do some research.

I thought that this was a good place to start to try to figure out

where Frank Hemingway came from,

and is there any connection to Ernest Hemingway.

Well, I took the research from Frank Hemingway,

and I was able to trace the Hemingway family back beyond him.

-Wow.

-And I have some good news.

You do have a distant connection to the writer, Ernest Hemingway.

That's really cool.

Your grandmother, Ramona Hemingway,

is an eighth cousin to Ernest Hemingway.

That is amazing. I don't know if she knows that. I can't wait to tell her.

And then to you, we're going two generations down,

so we are once twice removed.

-So you're...

-Eighth cousins twice removed.

-Yes.

Awesome.

In the course of researching this family, I was actually able to find

another one of your ancestors that was even more impressive.

Oh, really? OK.

And that's this Trowbridge family.

So, you can see here where I'm showing

the line from Frank Hemingway to Ebenezer Hemenway.

So this is five-times great-grandfather named Ebenezer Hemenway. OK.

-And his wife is Ruth Gates.

-Right.

And she's the daughter of Amos Gates and Mary Trowbridge.

OK, and what's the deal with the Trowbridges?

It's her who we're following back.

So she's born 1728, and then we go back to her father John,

grandfather Thomas, great-grandfather James,

and great-great-grandfather Thomas.

-Thomas. Oh, and this goes back to England.

-Yes.

Wow. My ten times great-grandfather.

This is the first relative that I found that wasn't

-born in the United States.

-Yes.

So Thomas is the one who made the big voyage.

That's really cool.

So it's actually a very well-known family, and this is one

genealogy that we have here in our library, if you want to...

-Wait, this whole book is just about Trowbridge?

-Just Trowbridge.

-Wow.

So this is Thomas Trowbridge, "the first of his family to come

"to America, was the son of John Trowbridge,

"a wealthy merchant and prominent citizen of Taunton, Somersetshire.

"His father had long been identified with the woollen trade in Taunton,

"and it was natural that the son, when he grew up,

"should turn his attention to some branch of that industry."

The book reveals that in 1627, Thomas married a woman named

Elizabeth, and while they were still in England,

they had four children, the youngest of whom was born in 1633.

So from looking at this genealogy book and this chart,

that's where my nine times great-grandfather

James Trowbridge shows up, born in Dorchester, Massachusetts, in 1636.

-Right?

-Yes.

-So this is a child that was born to them

-after they moved to the New World.

-Yes.

Between 1633 and 1636.

-That's when they made the move.

-Yes.

So, give me, like, a historical background, what's going on?

And also, like, in comparison to the Mayflower and all of that,

like, where are we in time?

Sure. So this is the period known as the Great Migration.

-OK.

-And they're coming primarily for religious reasons.

There was a whole lot of social and political upheaval going on.

In 1620, the Mayflower set sail from England

to the American colonies,

sparking a 20-year movement of some 20,000 Puritans,

including the Trowbridge family, known as the Great Migration.

Many Puritans were fleeing religious persecution,

including imprisonment and torture sanctioned by King Charles I.

Disgusted with their monarch and the Church of England,

idealistic reformers like Thomas Trowbridge

left England hoping to find a fresh start in the colonies.

So they were coming mostly for religious freedom and opportunity?

-Yes. The Puritan ideal is to come here sort of to escape religious persecution...

-Right.

..but also to establish their idea of what they considered to be a more pure church.

So they were in Massachusetts Bay in 1636.

This is the only record I was able to find at this point.

I looked at a number of records from some of the other colonial

New England settlements, and I was able to find this history,

The New Haven Colony.

The New Haven Colony.

If you want to read there.

"Quickly grasping the vision of a kingdom of Christ on the shores

"of Long Island Sound, a colony settled by kindred souls...

"In the Bay Colony, pressure of population was beginning to be felt."

-Meaning...?

-The Boston area of Massachusetts Bay.

-It was just too populated?

-It's getting too populated, but also there's dissentions.

There's differing opinions about the church.

So there was a group that settled in New Haven that said that the

church was not strict enough, so this...

-So this is the group that wanted to be more strict?

-Yes, so...

Like, more Puritan values, or...? Yeah, OK.

"Among those who undertook either to advance to the frontier with

"the original company or to follow soon after were...

"Thomas Jeffrey, Thomas... William Preston."

Hey, there it is - "Thomas Trowbridge". Wow.

It's so fascinating moving from England to the wilderness, really,

to set up this ideal religious community, right?

-Like a kind of Utopia for Puritans. I mean, was that...?

-Yes.

All of these indications would indicate he was a committed Puritan.

Would this be, like, Quaker, or...?

It's primarily Congregational.

It's funny, because my family...

The church that I grew up going to was Congregationalist.

-Kept the same religion all those years.

-Yeah, isn't that amazing?

Religion has always been an important part,

especially of, like, the Hemingway family.

I remember staying with my great-grandparents and, I mean,

everyone went to church Sunday morning.

The church was really central to how they defined themselves as a family.

Seems like, in some ways, that those Trowbridge Puritan values

really trickled down all the way to my great-grandparents.

That's pretty incredible to go back that far on my first day,

really, on doing this. But where do I go next?

The Connecticut State Library is a great place to do

research on the New Haven colony.

They have a lot of original records.

OK, great. That will be my next stop, then. Amazing.

-Thank you, so much.

-Oh, you're welcome.

I knew my family were not Native American, so I knew

we got over here somehow, but I never really looked that far back.

I think this sets the bar really high for a first day.

I've already gone back to 1633, to find out where my family came

from England here, so I'm excited to see where this journey takes me.

Cindy is heading to Hartford, Connecticut.

To find out what happened to the Trowbridge family once

they moved to the New Haven colony some time after 1636, Cindy has come

to the Connecticut State Library to meet historian Judy Schiff.

Well, I've had a chance to do some research in the records here,

and there is a trail of information about Thomas Trowbridge

in the New Haven colony.

So what is this?

This is a court document that has a specific date on it,

so we can follow the progress of the Trowbridge family in New Haven.

November 3rd 1641.

It says, "It is ordered that an attachment be sent forth

"to distrain the goods of Mr Trowbridge,

-"to pay the town's rates..." Which would be taxes, right?

-Mm-hmm.

"..and to fulfil the demands of those persons to whom

"he is indebted." So what does this mean?

-In the 17th century.

-He owed people money?

So it shows, first of all, that he hasn't been paying his taxes

or certain bills.

They're actually going to go into his estate

and make these payments happen.

There's some problem here, because he's not paying his bills.

That's right.

We can move further along to another case that was held in April 1644.

-Trowbridge, right here.

-Very good.

-OK.

"For as much as the whole estate of Thomas Trowbridge of New Haven

"is to be sequestered for the payment of his debts.

"He absented himself in taking no course concerning the same.

"And his family...

"to be dissolved."

Wow.

And as far as we know, there's no records of him ever coming back?

No.

"Sergeant Jeffrey and his wife being willing to take the children

"of the said Thomas Trowbridge, provided that in case their father

"shall come over, that then he will refer himself to the court, to judge

"and determine what is equal for him to have, for the keeping of them."

So the court took it upon themselves to place the children

-with, like, a foster family.

-Exactly.

But what about his wife?

Mysteriously, there's no record of Mrs Trowbridge. So...

Oh. He lost his wife? Wow.

-..she has already vanished from the record.

-Wow.

So probably his wife died, even though we don't have a record.

Possibly, yeah.

And as far as you found in the New Haven documents, he never returned.

No.

We felt that it was pretty early on, probably, that

Thomas Trowbridge leaves New Haven.

-OK.

-And sure enough, we found a very interesting document.

In this area, you'll see Thomas Trowbridge.

-Yeah, I see Trowbridge right here.

-Right.

And this is weddings.

That's right.

Thomas Trowbridge married Frances...

So this wedding actually took place in 1641.

-But where?

-The same area that he came from.

So he went... He left his children in New Haven,

and went back to Taunton to find a wife.

Would it have been that difficult to find a wife in New Haven?

Yes, because each of these households had come over together.

And, presumably, any of the single women,

very often they were elderly, a grandmother, a great-grandmother,

or a servant of a certain category that would not maybe be suitable.

So he went back to England, ditched his kids,

and as far as we know, there's no records of him ever coming back?

-No.

-But there is records of the Trowbridge family

staying in New Haven.

So it seems that the children stayed.

As far as we know, and I think to find out more,

you're going to have to have to go to some sources in England.

OK. That'll be my next stop, then.

'When I first started looking at the documents today,

'and most of the time Thomas Trowbridge's name appeared,'

it was because he owed money.

So at first I'm thinking, like, deadbeat dad, or something like that.

That didn't make me go, "I really want to get to know this guy."

Maybe there's something else going on.

There must be a reason, good or bad, we don't know yet,

but it doesn't really fit his pattern.

He came to New Haven and he moved his whole family there,

so that doesn't seem like a thing someone would do

if their intention was just to abandon them there.

I'm sure losing his wife could have... You know,

some people go crazy when something like that happens.

I don't know.

All I know is that he did go back to England,

and that's what I want to figure out - what happened from there?

Cindy is heading to Taunton in Somerset,

Thomas Trowbridge's home town.

She's meeting historian Susan Hardman Moore

at the Somerset Heritage Centre.

Susan has been trying to find out why Cindy's ancestor never

returned to his family in Connecticut.

I found out that my ten times great-grandfather, Thomas Trowbridge,

moved to the New Haven colony, but it looks like his wife died

and he came back to England to get a new wife.

But it doesn't look like he ever went back to New Haven.

Thinking generally about a period, it wasn't that unusual for people

to come back from New England, either temporarily or for good.

-OK.

-There was a lot of tension in England at that time with

King Charles I. He ruled for 11 years without a Parliament,

but in 1640, he had to call Parliament because he needed money.

He was at war with the Scots, and so news that Charles had called

a Parliament would have come over to New England.

Taken several months to get there, of course,

but we do see in 1640, '41, just at the time

when Thomas Trowbridge comes back,

a great sort of surge of people coming home,

because all kinds of new possibilities seem to be opening up.

OK, so what do you have? What have you found?

So let me show you what I've found.

Oh, this is a white glove, a white glove...

-It's a white glove activity, yes.

-OK.

-You need to put these on.

-Thank you.

-Yeah.

-Wow.

Isn't it amazing that the ink and the paper still stays?

Wow.

-Just to explain what this document is.

-OK.

It's from the Taunton quarter session rolls,

that's the technical name for it.

The quarter session is a local court.

One of its roles was to award pensions to people who had

been wounded in war.

This document comes from October 1652.

Taunton. Does that say Taunton Borough?

Taunton Borough, yeah.

Wow. I can only read about every third word.

Oh! Trowbridge, right there. So, not much here.

-I've got a transcript here...

-OK.

-..if that would help?

-Yes. Let me see, and then maybe I can...

-Take a look at that too.

"These are to certify all whom it may concern that Richard Hillard

"of Taunton, during the several sieges thereof, was

"a faithful soldier under the command of Captain Thomas Trowbridge."

OK, that's new information.

"In the regiment of Colonel Robert Blake."

Wow, so he was a captain in... What would he...? In what?

What was that considered?

OK, well, it says in the document that he served under

the command of Colonel Robert Blake.

-Right.

-And that places him in the Parliamentary Army.

-In the Parliamentary Army.

-This is written in the time of Oliver Cromwell, when England was at war.

And Taunton became a real centre of resistance to the King.

We're talking about the English Civil War here, 1644, '45.

Wow, he came back to fight.

So once he got back here, found the wife, he ended up staying.

Well, that's right.

I mean, when he first came back, the civil war hadn't broken out.

He got remarried in 1641.

In 1642, the civil war breaks out.

In 1642, years of conflict in England erupted into civil war.

Instead of fleeing from Charles I's religious oppression,

as he had done back in the 1630s,

this time Thomas Trowbridge chose to stay in England and fight.

Trowbridge joined the Parliamentary Army, of which Oliver Cromwell

was a leader, hoping to defeat the King's Royalist forces and finally

put an end to what Trowbridge saw as the rule of a brutal tyrant.

Taunton was a real hotspot in the English Civil War.

And so it was a real centre of resistance to the King's forces.

-Trowbridge would have been one of the key people in the castle...

-Right.

..defending the castle and the town, and holding it for Parliament.

So this petition says,

"Showeth that your petitioner during the several sieges of Taunton was

"a faithful soldier under the command of Captain Thomas Trowbridge."

So this guy also was wounded in battle under

Captain Thomas Trowbridge, and he's petitioning also for a pension.

-Wow, seems like Thomas really looked out for the guys that fought under him.

-Right, yeah. Mm-hmm.

OK, wow. And this is signed "Thomas Trowbridge, Captain."

-That would have been his...

-That's his signature.

-..actual signature?

Wow.

It still seems a little bit strange to me that you could

just leave your children in the New World and come back to England.

I admit, it does seem strange to us now, but it wasn't actually

that unusual for families to be divided by the Atlantic.

Maybe Thomas Trowbridge intended to come back temporarily,

maybe send for the children to come over, but shipping was disrupted,

the sending of letters was disrupted during the civil war.

OK, so I won't... I'll give him a break.

Right!

So, knowing that he stayed in England,

what did Thomas do during the siege at Taunton?

Well, I think it would be lovely for you to visit Taunton Castle

and meet my fellow historian, Bernard Capp, who would be able

to tell you all about the history of the battle that took place.

So if you wanted to, you could go and take a look

and actually see where Thomas Trowbridge fought.

Absolutely. That sounds amazing.

-Well, thank you so much.

-Oh, my pleasure.

Usually when I travel, I do try to take in some cultural experience.

And here, I get to do that, but added in with a direct connection to me.

To think that my ten times great-grandfather was here in Taunton,

fighting during the English Civil War...

it just humanises history.

Cindy is heading to Taunton Castle to find out more

about Thomas Trowbridge's experience during the Siege of Taunton.

Historian Bernard Capp is an expert on the period.

-How are you?

-Hi, Cindy, very good to meet you.

Yesterday, I found out that Thomas Trowbridge was

a captain in the English Civil War.

So I guess I'm curious - how does a siege work?

-Set the stage for me a little bit.

-OK.

What was happening in Taunton in 1641 or '42?

So Blake came in and got Trowbridge and these others involved,

the first task was to dig trenches, put up barricades,

all sorts of things.

So the castle was the ultimate stronghold and defence bastion.

In October 1644, Taunton was the only Parliamentarian enclave

in the county of Somerset, so it was targeted by King Charles I.

His Royalist forces surrounded the town

and left the citizens with no access to help or supplies.

Thomas Trowbridge played a vital role in the siege.

As captain, he was responsible for protecting the people

of Taunton during the brutal attack that lasted seven months.

To begin with, the garrison only had supplies of food or ammunition,

gunpowder and so on, for three months,

so there's a real stress there.

-How are they going to last out?

-Yeah.

And in the last two or three months of the siege,

it was tighter than ever before, which meant no food getting in.

And there was desperate hunger.

They were down to their very last supplies.

Almost out of food, they had to take thatch from the roofs

of the houses to feed the horses.

And they were down to the last two barrels or so of gunpowder.

So they were very close, I guess, to having to give up the town.

-Wow.

-The Royalists did break through these barricades,

so they got through most of the town.

They burnt a lot of the houses, and the commander sent this final

challenge, or summons, to Blake, saying, "Surrender now, and I'll

"spare your lives, but if you don't surrender, you'll all be massacred."

Wow.

The siege was maintained over quite a long period, and the

town is literally desolate and destroyed, and they're half starved.

But they held out and, in the nick of time,

the Royalists have to withdraw to go and face Cromwell.

So the siege is lifted and the garrison and the people survive.

-They managed to hold on.

-Yeah.

But at great cost to the community, correct?

It's a huge cost, yes.

And we have an account from the force coming into the town.

This is an extract from it.

"On the 12th, Colonel Weldon entered the town,

"the inhabitants being joyed beyond expression."

-I bet they were thrilled.

-Yes!

"The country people, to the number of about a thousand,

"came in from their hiding places in the woods,

"and with 'broad eyes of wonder' gazed upon the works which

"had defended the place, and upon the soldiers who had defended

"the works, looking upon them as giants rather than men."

So, Thomas Trowbridge would have been considered a giant

by the country people who came in, because he was one of the soldiers...

-Yes, yes.

-..that defended them.

-He's one of the leading giants.

Yeah, yeah.

To me, it seems like Taunton was a very decisive victory

in the English Civil War.

Well, Taunton was just one action, one siege.

The war still goes on, there are big battles to be fought,

but it's... Parliament is now on the upper hand.

And a year later, in 1646,

Parliament does finally come out on top,

the war ends, the King has to surrender.

-What happens next?

-Trowbridge stays in Taunton.

Something like two-thirds of the houses we've just seen

had been destroyed by fire or battered,

and they'd have to face the prospect of starting life all over again.

One of the things that really made me feel proud yesterday

was that after the war,

he petitioned the court on behalf of the soldiers who were injured

under his service in the war to help them get pensions,

to help care for their family.

Clearly, he was an officer who cared about the men who'd been

working with him, fighting for him.

It just goes back to, like, that is innate in all of us, that we want to help people.

-Great.

-Thank you so much.

-It's been a pleasure.

-'I think being here at Taunton Castle today'

helped me imagine what life was like for Thomas Trowbridge.

Things were hot and heavy here.

It was not easy, and that he would have been in the thick of it.

Thomas had already left his homeland to escape

the oppression of King Charles.

But when he had the opportunity to fight for his beliefs, he took it.

It's an honour to be descended from such a brave and committed man.

I'm definitely interested in looking even further

back into the Trowbridge family history, if that exists.

I mean, we're already very far back, so I don't know

if there's records beyond that, but that would be fascinating to me.

Cindy has now traced her ancestry back to the early 1600s, but

to see if she can go even further back, she's heading to London.

I've been in London a lot over the last, I don't know...

since I started modelling,

but never really come and thought about my connection to England.

Makes me more curious in a way, and looking at every building

and every landmark and thinking, "How am I connected to them?"

Cindy is meeting genealogist Charles Mosley,

who has been tracing her family tree beyond Thomas Trowbridge.

What did you bring for me?

What...? I'm excited to see, what's in this scroll?

Quite a bit. Let's try rolling it back and see where it takes us.

But overall, over, shall we say, the next ten generations,

your ancestors are stepping up in the world, as you'll discover

by just tracing their steps.

We have here Thomas Trowbridge, the one that we've mentioned,

son of John Trowbridge.

But John Trowbridge marries a member of the Prowse family,

the gentry, definite gentry status people.

And one of them, William de Mohun himself, II,

in the first half of the 12th century,

is created Earl of Somerset.

Charles has been able to trace Cindy's family tree back more

than 12 centuries, following her bloodline from England to

Continental Europe, where her distinguished ancestors

include counts, dukes and even a king of Italy.

So from Thomas Trowbridge, ten times great-grandfather,

all the way up here to 28, 29, 30,

31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40...

And then you're getting back to something very august.

SHE GASPS

Charlemagne. Are you kidding me?

-No, no, not in the least.

-So it's...

-Would I dare?

You are descended from European royalty, and quite a bit of royalty.

That's amazing. And Charlemagne at the top. Incredible.

-Charlemagne at the top, as he deserves to be.

-Wow.

This says Charlemagne was born on 2nd April in 748,

Aachen, Germany.

-It's a long time ago.

-Wow.

He is the first person since the Roman Empire to unify Europe,

and that is why his name has such resonance today

as the "Father of Europe".

And indeed he is the father of you many times back, of course,

-great-great-great-great-grandfather.

-41 times.

I never would have imagined anything about, you know...

I'm from, like, Midwestern, you know, farm people,

so this is just incredible. Thank you so much.

There's royal blood in the West, in the Midwest.

It's certainly something to put in your dining room wall.

I have to have a very long... very high ceiling.

You'll have to raise a ceiling, but that's not a problem, is it?!

-Off to Germany. I look forward to seeing you.

-OK, thank you.

-Bye.

I already thought going back to Thomas Trowbridge in the 1600s

was, you know...that was pretty impressive and pretty far back,

and then we jumped almost a thousand years to Charlemagne.

It's way bigger and further back than I even would have dreamed.

I really want to learn everything about Charlemagne.

I was a good student but, you know,

some of that stuff you learn for the test and you forget.

I mean, you listen differently when it's related to you,

when you have, like, a personal connection to it.

So just to give the historical context

and just to learn a little bit about the man.

Cindy is travelling to Aachen in Germany,

where Charlemagne lived in the early ninth century.

To learn more about Charlemagne's life and legacy,

she is meeting Prof Rosamond McKitterick at Aachen Cathedral.

Charlemagne's father took over

when he was about three years old, as king.

So this little boy of three was then brought up as a prince.

As a prince, a king of what, though? What was...?

-King of Francia, and it was what we would think of as France...

-OK.

..roughly speaking. So Charlemagne then inherited from his father.

And what he decided to do, he started to expand the kingdom.

So he went across the Alps, he conquered the Lombard Kingdom

and became King of the Lombards.

He had expeditions to Spain.

He conquered right down to the Pyrenees and even a bit beyond.

So by the time you would get to around 800,

Charlemagne is now ruler of most of what we would call Western Europe.

Wow.

And what can you tell me about Charlemagne as, you know, the person?

One of the famous poems by Alcuin, who was an Englishman from York at

the court, describes all the girls, the daughters, around the throne.

Charlemagne was so fond of them, he wouldn't let them get married.

-His daughters?

-His daughters.

But we do know that the girls were also as well educated as the sons.

And he had 20 children altogether.

From different women, I'm assuming.

-From different women, but there were...

-So 20 children in all?

..20 children altogether.

And, in fact, we do know of one person who wrote about him

in great detail, which was a man called Einhard.

And Einhard was actually at Charlemagne's court.

And after he died, he wrote a biography of him.

But have a look at this, because that's a description of what your super-granddaddy looked like.

"Charles was large and strong."

Charles, is that what they would have called him?

Carolus Charles, yes.

"His height is well known to have been seven times

"the length of his foot."

-That's a funny, um...

-Well, he was probably a very tall man.

-OK.

"The upper part of his head was round, his eyes very large and

"animated, nose a little long, hair fair, and face laughing and merry.

"Thus his appearance was always stately and dignified.

"His gait was firm, his whole carriage manly, and his voice clear,

"but not so strong as his size led one to expect.

"His health was excellent, except during the four years

"preceding his death, when he was subject to frequent fevers.

"Even in those years, he consulted rather his own inclinations

"than the advice of physicians, who were almost hateful to him

"because they wanted him to give up roast,

"to which he was accustomed, and to eat boiled meat instead."

So they already knew that then, that was healthier.

-You know, what's amazing about this is how personal it is.

-Yeah. Yeah.

How, like, you feel like you're getting to know the man,

-not this historical figure.

-Yes.

And what did the... Like, what did people think about him?

You know, were people happy to be kind of united under Charlemagne?

That's the part that makes him so different.

-He's not just a conqueror.

-Mm-hmm.

He's not just somebody who bullies people or rules them ineffectively,

which is all, if you're ruling by justice, that's good.

But he's also promoting culture and learning, really fantastically.

And the wonderful way that we know that peace is being retained

throughout this vast area is we know about a lot of the palaces,

but they weren't fortified.

-So it must have been peaceful.

-Wow. Huh!

You haven't got great big fortresses set up everywhere,

you have beautiful palaces.

People come to them. Assemblies are held.

You can travel throughout the kingdom.

So there is a great deal of effort to try and rule things,

to control things, to make sure that the king is in touch.

I mean, this space is so magnificent and beautiful.

What is the relevance of being here, for Charlemagne?

This is his palace chapel.

It's the place he wanted to express his commitment and achievement,

and his aims as a Christian ruler.

Wow.

It dates probably from around 796, with the marble, the arches,

the glorious mosaics.

You have to imagine that this is somewhere he was coming every day.

He would come to Mass.

For the last part of his life, he lived here more or less all the time.

I feel like, you know, I have more understanding about his legacy

in terms of, you know, the world.

But instead of it just being a name, Charlemagne,

that I have a connection to,

I feel now that there's a connection to a person, who was Charlemagne.

So, thank you very much.

-It's been a great pleasure, Cindy.

-Thank you.

I'm still digesting the fact that, you know, yes,

grew up a small Midwestern girl.

The connection to Charlemagne is very humbling.

My 41 times great-grandfather was living in the 700s.

And the world was very different then,

but in some ways it makes you realise time is elastic.

It can seem very long ago, but then it doesn't seem that long ago.

I can't wait to share this experience with my children

and my husband and the greater part of my family,

because I think everyone will be so interested. Not only for them

to kind of feel that they are a tiny little blip of this

part of history, but also just for them to learn.

If you would have said, like, to try to connect myself to

someone in history, I think the farthest back I would have

even thought was, like, 1600s, where we had Thomas Trowbridge.

I wouldn't have even imagined that you could go further than that.

And we went almost another thousand years beyond that.

Thomas Trowbridge, Charlemagne, they're real people.

So learning about that history, to me, that's a link,

that's a real, tangible link.

I feel so fortunate to have participated in this experience

because I think it's bigger than certainly I would have imagined.

It's been amazing.