There are already blog posts like the ones here
and here
out there this morning on the WDYTYA episode from last night that touched on
heraldry and coats of arms. So, why not
add one more eh?
I will be the first to admit to you that I am a bit of a heraldry
geek. Love the stuff, have dozens of
books concerning it, and in another hobby of mine I take it very
seriously. Now I also realize that not
everyone in the general US population actually cares about it. If they did all those family crest manufacturers
would be out of business.
One thing, that I hope many of you realize, is that just because
someone in your family (or a surname you descend from) has a coat of arms
associated with it does not mean that it is yours. Cause unless you specifically inherited it, it’s
not. Really. It belongs to that person and that person’s
heirs, which you may not be.
Now, most of these posts, and the show last night,
featured the College of Arms. They are the body that registers arms in
England. I would like to point out to
you that over the centuries many different countries had similar governing
bodies and that they didn’t necessarily follow the same rules. Keep your eyes open when you are researching and
make sure to locate the rules for bearing arms for your ancestor’s time frame and
place.
I really, really wished that the show would have touched on that. They didn't and it was a great teaching opportunity missed in my opinion. Last night’s show (which I thoroughly enjoyed BTW) made
me realize that I never finished my heraldry series that I started over a year
ago. Well, I may just need to pick that
back up huh?
If you want to see my previous posts on heraldry click
the “heraldry”
tag or the individual posts below.
Obviously I need to finish with the parts and then move
onto more complicated posts about inheritance and display. Yep, adding one more thing to that to do
list!
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