Legitimizing bucket-shops

 
Jeremy Keith Hammond
 
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Jeremy Keith Hammond
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06 July 2012 09:43
 

Could time and usage combine to legitimize the use of arms acquired through bucket-shops?

If an ancestor, maybe about 100 years back, adopted arms illegitimately, but it was so heavily utilized by the false-armiger and subsequently proudly adopted by descendants, could that potentially be acceptable use by the descendants in congruence with AHS guidelines?

 

No doubt history is full of medieval families usurping arms. Why else pay to have visitations? Some must have gotten away with it. Aren’t there families that (incidentally or not) use the same arms?

 

There is this section in the guidelines:


Quote:

5.2.4. If it is clear that one of the parties concerned is using the arms without having made a good faith effort to ensure their uniqueness (as discussed in section 2.1.1.2) before adopting the arms, or if one of the arms was clearly usurped at the time it was assumed, then obviously the party without a bona fide right to the design should alter his arms with a sufficient difference to make clear that they are the arms of an unrelated person.


However, the guidelines state that duplication of arms in the US can be tolerated if there is no proximity between two families bearing the same arms. Would use of these arms be "acceptable" so long as they can "get away with it?"

 

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not advocating one way or the other. But lots of things - even crowns - have been taken through illegitimate means, but as time passes they seem to auto-legitimize.

 
Michael F. McCartney
 
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Michael F. McCartney
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06 July 2012 12:21
 

Recognizing that the AHS Guidelines are just that—guides, not legally enforceable rules—one should look at the spirit & intent.  We weren’t looking to create "loop-holes"- rather, recognizing that two families might, each in good-faith ignorance of the other, have settled on essentially the same design and used it, again in good faith, for an extended period of time.

Note the key points—good faith and long useage.

 

Part of our AHS mission—IMO anyway—is education; which if successful should over time lessen the likelihood of widespread good faith ignorance of the nature of heraldry and heraldic inheritance, especially over an extended period.

 

Neither criteria would, in my mind, serve to legitimatize the recent heraldic misdeeds of those selling "your arms" to those who don’t know better.  (Or for that matter, of new assumptions of duplicative arms, whether or not there’s a bucket-shop in the woodpile.

 

Ironically, the only bucket shop products that would IMO make the grade (leaving artistic merit aside for the moment) would be those who, in attemptng to copy existing arms, got it sufficiently wrong as to accidentally have created an heralkdically distinct new design—but even then, if they only sold the resulting arms to one customer & his/her extended family, not to future same-namers with no family connection beyond the name.

 
Jeremy Keith Hammond
 
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Jeremy Keith Hammond
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06 July 2012 12:25
 

My intention wasn’t to find a loophole and defend bucket-shops themselves.  I would never suggest someone use bucket-shop heraldry knowing that 100 years from the time of assumption, that their ancestors could legitimately use it.

Rather, if I knew an American family that had used the wrong coat of arms for nearly 100 years, should they be advised to adopt new ones or abandon what has essentially become tradition? In this case and certainly by the modern descendants, the arms are being used in "good faith" with "long usage," right?

 
steven harris
 
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steven harris
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06 July 2012 12:42
 

When I was just a kid, my father purchased just such a set of ‘bucket shoppe’ arms.

Through some of the resources that I learned about from this Society, I was actually able to find the first bearer of these arms.

 

Arms – Az. a chev. betw. three hedgehogs or, of a chief ar. as many cinquefoils pierced gu.

Crest – A demi-lion ramp. or, holding betw. the paws a cinquefoils pierced gu.

Motto – Industria Veritas et Hospitalitas

 

The arms hanging in my parents’ living room were originally granted to William Prittie Harris, Esq. of County Cork in the name of his grandfather, Richard Harris.  I could not find a date for the grant, but William Prittie Harris was married in 1837.

 

Under Jeremy’s scenario, if my father had used these bucket shoppe arms, and if I had used them, and then I passed them on to my son – then they would not be any more my arms, nor any less William Prittie Harris’ arms than they are right now.

 

Undoubtedly, as Jeremy noted, some medieval families illegitimately assumed arms.  IIRC the point of the Visitations was to attempt to record arms as they were being used, so as to regularize the practice of granting arms.

 

Ignorance of heraldic practice does not excuse its misuse – ignorantia iuris non excusat.  Part of the reason that I (we?) learn heraldry is so that we can help educate others, right?


Jeremy Keith Hammond;94527 wrote:

Rather, if I knew an American family that had used the wrong coat of arms for nearly 100 years, should they be advised to adopt new ones or abandon what has essentially become tradition? In this case and certainly by the modern descendants, the arms are being used in "good faith" with "long usage," right?


Yes, you should advise them (gently) of their heraldic situation.  If they are interested enough to be using arms, then I’d think that they’d be interested enough to use them correctly.

 
Jeremy Keith Hammond
 
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Jeremy Keith Hammond
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06 July 2012 12:56
 

I’m almost convinced! Just playing the Devil’s advocate here. If two to four generations before had born a specific shield - I could sympathize with someone wanting to use the same shield, to identify with those ancestors, even despite knowing the unsavory origins of the arms. I would agree with you, Steven, if they had only been assumed by parents.

 
Kenneth Mansfield
 
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Kenneth Mansfield
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06 July 2012 13:20
 

It begs the question, too, of what is "use". If someone through ignorance usurped arms two hundred years ago and actually used them it would have meant having to pay a reasonable sum of money even to have a bookplate made much less to have one’s silver engraved. Today it is nearly free to grab a "family crest" off the Internet and use it as stationery printed from one’s home computer. So I think even the issue of "use" requires some consideration as to when it started and not simply how long it continued.

 
 
Arthur Radburn
 
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Arthur Radburn
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06 July 2012 13:46
 

steven harris;94530 wrote:

Under Jeremy’s scenario, if my father had used these bucket shoppe arms, and if I had used them, and then I passed them on to my son – then they would not be any more my arms, nor any less William Prittie Harris’ arms than they are right now.

No, they woudn’t.  Someone, I forget who, has described usurping arms as "telling a genealogical lie", as it amounts to pretending to be a descendant of someone who was not an ancestor and, at the same time, denying one’s own actual ancestors.


Quote:

The arms hanging in my parents’ living room were originally granted to William Prittie Harris, Esq. of County Cork in the name of his grandfather, Richard Harris.  I could not find a date for the grant, but William Prittie Harris was married in 1837.

According to the National Library of Ireland’s online inventory [ http://sources.nli.ie/Record/MS_UR_037494 ], the arms were confirmed to William Prittie Harris and other descendants of his grandfather in 1875.  As it was a confirmation rather than a grant, it indicates that the grandfather, or even an earlier ancestor, had originally self-assumed the arms in or before 1775.

 
Richard G.
 
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Richard G.
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07 July 2012 03:25
 

Arthur, using the example at hand, if say Steven during his family research discovered he is distantly related to William Prettie Harris, and if that branch of the Harris family has now died out, would it then be acceptable to assume these arms with a difference?

 
Kathy McClurg
 
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Kathy McClurg
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07 July 2012 05:45
 

Richard G.;94547 wrote:

Arthur, using the example at hand, if say Steven during his family research discovered he is distantly related to William Prettie Harris, and if that branch of the Harris family has now died out, would it then be acceptable to assume these arms with a difference?


Although I’m not Arthur, that’s never stopped me from jumping in before rolleyes

 

When you say "related" would there be any effect on related how?  Via maternal line, say?  I’m thinking this hypothetical may need more detail for an accurate answer.

 

I would also think some rather extensive due diligence would have to be done to ensure Steven doesn’t have other distant cousins who have done the same and his chosen differences (probably best to have two - tincture and division or tincture and charge or something) aren’t stepping on toes elsewhere.

 
steven harris
 
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steven harris
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07 July 2012 10:28
 

or Steven could just assume arms for himself of a new, unique design - which he has smile

 
Arthur Radburn
 
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Arthur Radburn
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07 July 2012 11:00
 

I agree with Kathy on both points.

Being "distantly related" doesn’t seem a very sound basis for a claim.  The ownership of the arms, according to the terms of the confirmation (as quoted by the NLI), is quite clear : descendants of Richard Harris.  By now there might be seven or eight generations of descendants, through William Prettie and whatever brothers and paternal cousins he had.  The exact nature of the "distant" relationship would have to be established and proved in order to assess whether there’s any claim to the arms.

 

Interestingly, according to Fox-Davies’ Armorial Families (1905 and 1929), at least one of the descendants moved to the USA : William Prettie Harris’s grandson and namesake lived in Cleveland, Ohio (and he had brothers in England and Tasmania too).

 

An alternative to differencing the arms, if the claim to them wasn’t rock-solid, would be to design new arms, incorporating hedgehogs (which are commonplace in Harris arms) and cinquefoils as a nod to the original.

 
steven harris
 
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steven harris
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07 July 2012 11:31
 

Arthur Radburn;94550 wrote:

An alternative to differencing the arms, if the claim to them wasn’t rock-solid, would be to design new arms, incorporating hedgehogs (which are commonplace in Harris arms) and cinquefoils as a nod to the original.


unless that particular Harris has no affinity for hedgehogs - considering them a rather silly animal…

 
Kathy McClurg
 
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Kathy McClurg
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07 July 2012 13:49
 

steven harris;94551 wrote:

unless that particular Harris has no affinity for hedgehogs - considering them a rather silly animal…


Heck - You could always shoot an arrow thru a few of them…

 
Richard G.
 
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Richard G.
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07 July 2012 16:45
 

I think the questions have been adressed Kathy. wink It would of course be the paternal line and I agree, if a family connection were to be established it would have to be well researched before giving any consideration to using the arms of William Prettie Harris, even with differencing.

 
StarScepter
 
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StarScepter
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09 July 2012 16:57
 

Not that I agree with this, but it seems to me that since personal heraldry is not regulated in the US, then ‘bucket-shops’ are, by default, legitimized.

 
cachambers007
 
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cachambers007
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09 July 2012 18:16
 

That is probably true in the sense that there is nothing stopping anyone from doing a quick Google image search for "{surname} coat of arms" and then using the one that they think looks best. Or at the very least nothing legally stopping them.

It is however to be hoped that anyone who was seriously interested in learning about heraldry would recognize that they didn’t have the traditional right to use such a "family crest" and would therefore prefer to assume new arms or at least properly difference existing ones.