Tracing Family Trees
Guide No. 19
Association of Amateur Heralds
Heraldry for Genealogists
Proving
you have an ancestor who bore arms is a major research accomplishment, for to trace an ancestral line
back through several centuries into the mists of antiquities is no small feat. Beyond certain dates (usually
the early 1500s) it is almost impossible to find historical evidence of our ordinary ancestors because
written records simply do not exist. However, often one can find information on armigerous (bearing arms
by lawful authority) ancestors. Sometimes it is accurate; sometimes it is not. Modern firms (and they
are numerous on the Web and elsewhere) that advertise coats of arms, shields of arms, family crests, etc.
"associated with your surname" are not averse to selling armorial insignia to people not entitled to them.
Caveat emptor.
Heraldry, or
armory as it is more properly called, became established during
the second half of the 12th century in Europe. The devices displayed on shields and later as crests, on
surcoats, bardings (armor and trappings
for horses) and banners (square or oblong flags emblazoned with the arms and sometimes fringed with the
livery or armorial colors — personal flags used throughout the Middle Ages by the nobility down to the
knights banneret), served to distinguished armored combatants in war and in tournaments. At first arms
were the sign of the greater nobility, but by the mid-13th century they were also extensively used by
lesser nobility, the knights, and those who later came to be called gentlemen. See: Glossary
of Terms
Gentil was an Old French word meaning noble, and originally a man of gentle
birth was one born — legitimately — into the nobility. Eventually the term gentleman came to
designate a position between knight and yeoman. In 1429 an English act of parliament used les gentiles
to describe men holding freehold property of 40 shillings a year or more. From the 16th century on, gentleman
usually refers to those who were not required to labor physically and who employed servants. By the middle
of the 14th century English courts upheld the principle that no man could use arms already adopted by
another and eventually the Crown forbade the bearing of arms without authority.
Arms and armorial insignia are granted only by the Kings of Arms in England, by Lyon
King of Arms in Scotland and Ulster King of Arms in Northern Ireland. See also Heraldry
in Ireland. The College of Arms holds the official
register of all coats of arms or heraldry in England and Wales. Other countries have different customs
and laws pertaining to heraldry. Examples: Sweden,
Australia and The
American College of Heraldry. In England, the College of Arms is unsupported from public funds and
access to its records is therefore limited. However, the heralds do undertake searches in the records
on payment of professional fees, and if an enquirer wishes to consult a particular manuscript appropriate
arrangements can be made. Enquiries should be addressed in the first instance to any individual herald
or to the Officer in Waiting, College of Arms, Queen Victoria Street, London EC4V 4BT.
Details and pedigrees of important English families often appear in local histories. Some British periodicals,
such as Gentleman's Magazine (1731-1907), provide excellent biographical details. American academic
libraries are usually the best source for such publications, and some can be found at the
Family History Library. Details about the pedigrees of armigerous ancestors of the 16th and 17th centuries
can usually be found in the manuscripts known as the heraldic visitations, many of which have been
published by the Harleian Society. Numerous university and 
genealogical libraries have these publications. They are the records of official surveys made on a county
basis in England by the heralds whose duty it was to see that arms were legally and correctly being used.
The printed versions often contain additions to the originals, and sometimes continue the pedigrees into
the 19th century. However, the last heraldic visitations were in 1680s, and from then until the present,
there are many families who have used or have assumed arms to which, strictly, they are not entitled.
To be entitled to arms by inheritance in England, a family of today must be able to prove a direct legitimate
male line descent from an ancestor who is on the official record of the College of Arms as being entitled
to the same arms. The descents of many armigerous families can be found in the
Heralds' Visitations volumes published by the Harleian Society, and in Burke's Peerage,
Baronetage and Knightage and Burke's Landed Gentry.
Information from these sources is secondary evidence and requires checking.
The wrongful assumption of arms in Scotland is punishable by fine and imprisonment. The regulation of
Scottish heraldry differs considerably from the system in England, and all persons using arms are required
to register or "matriculate" their right to arms in the Court of Lord Lyon King of Arms. No "Visitations"
were made in Scotland, and the records of grants and matriculations of arms commence only in 1672. The
shields of arms (but not the crests) are all listed for the period 1672-1973 in Sir James Balfour Paul,
An Ordinary of Arms contained in the Public Register of all Arms and Bearings in Scotland (2 vols.
1903 and 1977).
An Ulster King of Arms was first appointed in 1552, and records of grants in Ireland exist from that date.
Heraldic jurisdiction over Northern Ireland was transferred to the College of Arms in 1943, the office
of Ulster King of Arms being joined to that of Norroy King of Arms. In the Republic of Ireland, an official
Genealogical Office was established in Dublin, with the Chief Herald of Ireland at its head, and his authority
is the primary one in Eire. Photocopies of the old records of Ulster King of Arms are deposited in the
College of Arms, the originals being retained by the Chief Herald.
Do
not assume that a present-day family is descended from a person of the
same surname to whom the arms were originally granted or confirmed, without generation-by-generation evidence.
There were many people who insisted upon having a coat of arms, whether they had a right to them or not,
and there were also a number of pretenders calling themselves heraldic artists, who were more than willing
to supply anything for a price. A coat of arms does not necessarily belong to a person just because someone
of the same surname bore it. He must prove descent from the owner. See
The Right to Arms (Leaflet No. 15 by Society of Genealogists.
There simply is no such thing as
a family (as in surname) Coat of Arms. They were granted
to individuals, not families. See the following articles by Joseph C. Wolf:
While only a few North American, Australian and New Zealand families are entitled to bear arms, most of us are fascinated by the wonderfully elaborate devices that can be found on coats of arms, often erroneously called family crests. You will find many of them used as colorful illustrations on family home pages on the Web. See examples at:
Walsh Family
Genealogy & History
Mottoes are often associated with heraldic devices and may provide a useful clue in the identification
of arms. However, there is no monopoly on the use of a particular motto, and the same motto may therefore
be used by many different families. Numerous mottoes are listed and identified (and foreign
ones translated) in C N Elvin, A Handbook of Mottoes (1860, revised edition 1971).
One major misunderstanding about Coats of Arms is how descendants can claim it. While the Coat of Arms
is inherited, it is also changed to reflect the new sons who have inherited it. Each son has a different
cadency added to the coat of arms. The oldest son drops his cadency when his father dies (reverting the
coat of arms back to the original format). That is why you will often see that a coat of arms is given
from oldest son to oldest son. All others must have a modified version. See: A
Primer of Blazonry.
Heraldry is the practice of devising, blazoning,
and granting armorial insignia and of tracing and recording genealogies.
An essential principle of heraldry is heredity. In England, arms are obtainable solely by grant to an
applicant and his male heirs from the College of Arms, acting for the Earl Marshal of England (the Duke
of Norfolk). At the time of the grant, the applicant registers the pedigree of those of his family who
are personally known to him. To register earlier generations, the College of Arms will require that the
evidence be checked and will do so for an additional fee. Descendants of the grantee later may register
details about themselves to add to the pedigree.
Suggested Reading: A Complete Guide to Heraldry by A. C. Fox-Davies, revised by J. C. Brook-Little
(1969).
The COLLEGE OF ARMS is the corporation of heralds responsible for controlling, granting, and confirming
arms in England under the general supervision of the Duke of Norfolk in his capacity as Earl Marshal.
It was incorporated by Richard III* (1483-1485) in March 1483 or 1484. The Official Registers of the College
include the armorial bearings granted or confirmed to English and Welsh families from the fifteenth century
until today, and family trees of thousands of families of English and Welsh origin. See many persons mentioned
in: Commoners' Arms in England
Armorial bearings were originally marks of identification
for
knights in armor in war and in tournaments. The earliest known are those of Geoffrey of Anjou, father
of Henry II* (1154-1189) and are described in a chronicle of 1127.
From the reign of Richard I* (1189-1199) onward, armorial bearings became numerous and appeared
on the seals of private families, remaining unchanged in the same families, and passing from father to
son.
In Europe in the Middle Ages, genealogy was concerned with the hereditary aristocracy and the laws of
inheritance, especially relating to land, and the emphasis was on royal and noble pedigrees. The heraldic
Visitations, which began in England in 1529-1530, recorded pedigrees as well as coats of arms. After Henry
VIII* (1509-1547) caused the English church to break with Rome, English parishes were required, starting
in 1538, to keep registers of baptisms, marriages, and burials, which marked the beginning of record keeping
for all English people regardless of class.
ARMS were first used for identification on the shields and banners of 
knights in battle and in tournaments. Beginning in the reign of Henry
III* (1399-1413), arms were used also on surcoats (a surcoat was
an outer coat or garment worn by people of rank of both sexes and often worn by armed men over their armor,
having the heraldic arms depicted on it), which gave rise to the term coat of arms, which today might
refer to a shield of arms bearing certain distinctive emblems in definite fixed colors or to the complete
achievement of arms including the shield, crest, supporters, and motto.
SEAL; CREST; SUPPORTERS. The personal identifying device in the
Middle Ages, the equivalent of our signature, was the engraved SEAL. On this a knight or lord was usually
depicted fully armed and on horseback. Once armorial bearings came into widespread use they were soon
visible on the seal's shield and/or lance flag. Because they were more readily identifiable than the mounted
figure they soon came to form the whole of a seal's device, at least on one side. The earliest known English
seal showing arms is of 1136-8. Later in the century part of a knight's bearings also came to be displayed
on his helmet, and this gave rise to the CREST, of which the earliest known example is of 1198. In the
13th century, the application of armorial bearings spread to horse trappings and surcoats, from which
came the name "coat of arms." The SUPPORTERS that later became the privilege of peers were at first merely
decorative additions on the larger seals used by magnates.
SHIELDS OF ARMS might contain genealogical clues. For example, when an armigerous
person marries the daughter of an armiger, he may display a shield with his own arms on the dexter half,
"impaling" his wife's arms on the sinister half. DEXTER refers to the right side and SINISTER refers to
the left side of a shield when it is held from behind (as it would be held in battle). If the wife is
an heraldic heiress (that is, if she has no surviving brothers or brothers' heirs), her husband may place
her arms on a small shield in the center of his own; this device is called INESCUTCHEON.
An ancestress's arms will only appear on a shield if she was an heraldic heiress (she had no surviving
brothers or brothers' heirs) or became "an heiress in her issue" because of the extinction of her father's
male line (the extinction of a male line is commonly referred to by Americans as having "daughtered out"),
in which case her own male-line descendants are entitled to quarter her arms on the shield with their
own. If a person has more than one heiress in his male line, or if the arms of any of them were already
quartered with those of ancestresses in their female lines, he is likely to have more than four quarters.
In such a case, the ancestresses' arms are arranged in rows after his own, with the most recently acquired
one first, followed by any quarterings it had, and then by the next most recent, and so on.
This
is becoming more complicated than you had anticipated, isn't it?
Before computers and color printers: A
look at material and colors
used in heraldry See also A Primer of Blazonry
Since armorial blazons had a number of uses, it was not always possible to depict them in their true colors . . . such as when engravings of arms formed a die for impressing into wax seals. In heraldry, the word tincture is used, rather than color, and each tincture was provided with a line art or textural version, so that all remained legally accepted, whether colored or not. The illustrations above, place the black/white pattern, representing respective tinctures, below the corresponding colors.
Additionally, the heralds recognized tinctures such as furs
(ermine, for instance), and several others which were used only outside of Scotland. Tincture names are
often seen, but seldom recognized by Americans:
They are:
GOLD (appears yellow) = or
SILVER (appears white or light gray) = argent
BLUE = azure
RED = gules
BLACK = sable
GREEN = vert (or sinople)
PURPLE = purpure
The names listed are in order of their ranking. Gold/or is the most regal of tinctures; Purple/purpure,
the last color added to the herald's palette, is lowest in rank. In writing, the names of tinctures are
usually italicized.
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Suggested Reading & References |
The Augustan. A Journal of History, Heraldry, Genealogy and Chivalry is a publication of The Augustan Society, Inc.
Fairbairn, James (revised by Laurence Butters, Seal Engraver to the Queen for Scotland). Crests of the Families of Great Britain and Ireland. London, England: New Orchard Editions (imprint of Cassell PLC), 1986, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1992.
Friar, Stephen (edited by). A Dictionary of Heraldry. New York: Harmony Books, 1987.
Innes-Smith, Robert. An Outline of Heraldry in England and Scotland. Derby: Pilgrim Press. Ltd., 1990.
Stephenson, Jean, S.J.D., F.A.S.G., F.N.G.S. Heraldry for the American Genealogist. Washington, D.C.: Reprinted, with additions, from the National Historical Magazine of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Issued by National Genealogical Society, Special Publication No. 25, 1959
Summers, Peter, F.S.A., FHS How to Read a Coat of Arms. New York: Harmony Books, 1986.
Woodcock, Thomas and John Martin Robinson. The Oxford Guide to Heraldry. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1988, 1989.
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RootsWeb Guides to Tracing Family Trees are written & compiled by professional genealogists Julia M. Case, Myra Vanderpool Gormley, CG & Rhonda McClure |