Hi all,
I’ve been reading about Tomás Felipe Winthuysen, a gentleman who served as the governor of Spanish colonial Texas from 1741 to 1743. The author Antonio Gutiérrez Ruiz recently published a book about about Tomás and many other members of his family:
http://i1.wp.com/www.gentedelpuerto.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/los_winthuisen_vol_IV_puertosantamaria2.jpg?resize=250,351
http://mansionesylinajes.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/masnionesylinajes5portada.jpg?w=960
http://mansionesylinajes.wordpress.com/los-libros/
The back cover of the book appears to show a coat of arms…presumably of the Winthuysen family:
http://www.gentedelpuerto.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/los_winthuysen_vol_IVb_puertosantamaria.jpg
http://www.centrallibrera.com/index.php/los-winthuysen-primera-parte-mansiones-y-linajes-d.html
I think Governor Winthuysen’s ancestors came from the Low Countries, and there does seem to be an entry for Winthuysen in the Heraldische DataBank, but unfortunately I haven’t been able to get much farther than that:
http://www.heraldischedatabank.nl/databank/indeling/gallery?q_searchfield=Winthuysen
Does anyone have any information about what arms Governor Winthuysen may have used?
Many thanks!
I belatedly raised this in the International Heraldry Society group on Facebook and got a ton of assistance from various participants based in Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, and elsewhere (especially Derek Howard, Klaas Padberg Evenboer, Diana Le Garrec, and José Manuel Huidobro) and we determined that these are the arms of the Winthuysens of El Puerto de Santa Maria, near Cadiz, Spain, the family of which the governor was a member.
https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xfa1/v/t1.0-9/11043069_781117055297285_4608408778948825864_n.jpg?oh=730e26f460b9468a7a4eca37bf27b3d9&oe=55956F19&__gda__=1435095599_b2162f4c071680cc9694afabe13ad2b0
Azure a cross gringoly Or on a quarter Argent three [elm?] leaves Vert.
The family originated in the province of Limburg then settled in the territory of the Prince-Bishops of Liege in the 15th century. The original name was apparently Bex or Becx, the arms of which are "Azure a cross gringoly Or on an inescutcheon Argent three leaves Vert." The name Winthuysen seems to have been taken at some point from a fief that one of the Bexes owned. Three brothers from the family settled in El Puerto de Santa Maria in the 1600s and became prominent over several generations as officers in the Spanish Navy. There are a number of emblazonments of these arms, including quartered with the arms of other ancestral lines.
According to Klaas, crosses gringoly (the ends terminating in snake heads) are frequently found in the heraldry of Limburg.
Governor Tomás Felipe Winthuysen is known to have been from this town and was to a moral certainty a member of this family. (How many Winthuysen families could there have been in a small town in southwestern Spain?) He may, of course, have also quartered the arms of various maternal lines.
Very cool! Wow there is heraldry on Facebook!
