I suppose I am arguing for a higher standard than current foreign practice - but to be honest in my own mind, I’m criticising what I see as a lack of reasonable due diligence by heralds with their feet firmly planted in the pre-airflight, pre-electronic past.
If I were e.g. a Brit paying thousands in costs and fees for newly devised arms, and then found that my "new" arms already belonged to others elsewhere that could & should have been found with reasonable due diligence, I’d feel cheated; and doubly so if as an American my "new" arms were an Honourary grant infringing on those of some other American.
Plainly put, I should be able to reasonably expect the same level of research that my college would expect of me to avoid the appearance of plagiarism. They wouldn’t accept as a defense that the material copied was published in Canada or overseas… neither should I.
End of rant.
I’d like to add to the rant. Not only do the granting authorities not check or care re: grants or assumptions elsewhere, they could give a smidge for other national symbols and the propriety of using them.. In other words, the granting authorities appear very insular in all things… and many of the heraldry "followers" in jurisdictions also follow their lead and remain rather… insular in how they think of heraldry.
However, unless and until there is a central international database of some kind, due diligence re: all possible armorials is impossible. But some "looking" should be accomplished. HECK, we don’t even have the ability to check all registrations within our own region - the United States because not all registration services are open and online… or very search friendly.
I’d think some concentration on how to "solve" the problem within the US would be/is in order and is a proper pursuit of this organization. (as this thread appears to be doing - or discussing at least)—Except there are a number of people here who choose to believe that registration is more or less useless.
Heck, it’s 4 AM - I don’t know if I’m being clear.. but.. I’ll blame it on the lack of my first cuppa coffee…
"Due diligence" doesn’t mean looking under every stone in the world for shreds of evidence and then running down every shred to exhaustion, nor does it mean proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that a new coat of arms doesn’t duplicate a previous one (a logical impossibility in any case).
"Due" means "reasonable." With so much heraldry online, it is easier than ever before in history to check the standard sources, Google different versions of the blazon in different languages, etc. As our guidelines say, some duplication is inevitable, but anyone who’s serious about his or her own arms should want without being compelled to minimize the probability.
Ditto what Joe says re: "reasonable" due diligence. We’ll likely never be 100% sure we aren’t unintentially infringing on arms used by some clan of Balkan goat herders or even some guy down the street who has not shared or published his armorial creation; but we still owe ourselves and others a reasonable attempt to avoid infringing on existing arms that have been published or shared places we could find if we tried.
<sigh> misunderstood again… I think. When I said "...due diligence re: all possible armorials is impossible…" means
reasonable diligence ‘in the matter of’, ‘referring to’, ‘regarding’, or ‘about’ all possible armorials is impossible
In Other words.. you can’t be reasonable with respect to all possible armorials unless you have a central database of some kind… so don’t sweat the small stuff…
Geesh.. be a little obtuse and people disagree with exactly what you were saying… <chuckle>
- so long as the (inevitable) lack of an unabridged universal database is recognized as a fact of life, but not as an excuse to fail to do reasonable due diligence in whatever published or online rolls or records are available. Just within the last week or so we’ve had links posted here & in the HSS forum, to several published sources.
While it certainly wouldn’t constitute the dreamed-of universal database, it would certainly be helpful if a listing of the various sources available online were added to the tools listed on our home page; and updated when some new heraldic research jewel comes to light, as when Seb posted the online records of the Spanish cronista. (Apologies if such a list is already there!)
Joseph McMillan;102732 wrote:
I published an article on these acts in the Heraldry Society journal, The Coat of Arms, last year. I’ll see if I can find a way to upload the text.
ADDITION: It’s now on academia.edu at https://www.academia.edu/8345995/The_Maryland_Name_and_Arms_Acts_Heraldic_Law_in_the_United_States
Hi Joe,
I finally read your article…it is great! Have you had any luck tracking down Thomas Whetenhall Rozer’s tombstone in the time since you wrote your article?
snelson;103207 wrote:
Hi Joe,
I finally read your article…it is great! Have you had any luck tracking down Thomas Whetenhall Rozer’s tombstone in the time since you wrote your article?
Seb, sorry I missed this earlier. No, although I haven’t tried very hard. If it’s still there, it’s on private property with a prominent no trespassing sign, and my query to the local historical society met with a "we’ll get back to you," but they never did.
Quote:
Seb, sorry I missed this earlier. No, although I haven’t tried very hard. If it’s still there, it’s on private property with a prominent no trespassing sign, and my query to the local historical society met with a "we’ll get back to you," but they never did.
Too bad :(
Joseph McMillan;102781 wrote:
As far as I know, none of us with arms we have adopted unilaterally are embarrassed to display them appropriately, i.e., in the same ways anyone would display granted arms in a country where arms are granted.
Those who want arms and would find unilateral adoption insufficient have other alternatives, including not using arms at all.
I defer to our British colleagues as to whether people wear tie pins with their arms on them to garden parties at Sandringham. Wearing a tie pin with white tie at the International Debutante Ball at the Waldorf would be more than a little bizarre, but let’s say armorial cuff-links (a little over the top to my taste, but for those who like to skirt the edges of outrageousness).
Theodore Roosevelt and even more so his cousin Franklin were both big into armorial adornment and decoration of their possessions. It’s not at all out of the question that they or members of their families might have worn armorial cufflinks to a debutante ball or other high society occasion. In fact, FDR regularly wore a signet ring engraved with the arms and tie pin with his crest. Moreover, he and Eleanor gave photographs in frames decorated with the Roosevelt three-feather crest as house gifts to various courtiers who came to the White House with George VI in 1939. He also used the feathers from the crest and the roses from the arms to decorate the border of his White House china.
The Roosevelt arms were assumed. Does it sound like FDR was embarrassed to display them in front of royalty?
Now to be sure the Roosevelt arms were assumed a couple of centuries before FDR’s time as President. But everything has to start somewhere. Do you suppose FDR would rather have had a grant of new arms from a government authority—American or otherwise—than a 200-year-old coat assumed by his ancestors? I don’t.
I don’t presume to be able to commune with FDR’s disembodied spirit, so I’ll have to take your word that’s what he would have wanted.
If it were me, however, I would have preferred 2-day old "sanctioned" (whether granted or registered) arms over 200 year-old assumed arms, if for no other reason than it would create a record of permanence and help enhance the survivability of the ams, rather than vesting the entire armorial continuity on a once-every-25-years dice-roll that they’ll be preserved with each new family generation. (Of course, even better would be if my 200 year-old assumed arms were legitimized instead of starting from scratch.)
But, again and as I have repeatedly said, digging up confidence-boosting examples of assumed armigery from yesteryear is the fantasy playground of those determined to self-legitimize and a bit of a distraction to the crux of the topic.
zebulon;103816 wrote:
But, again and as I have repeatedly said, digging up confidence-boosting examples of assumed armigery from yesteryear is the fantasy playground of those determined to self-legitimize and a bit of a distraction to the crux of the topic.
Given that all arms were assumed before the king decided he could use some tax revenues (yes, a bit flippant, but not horribly far off the mark), what exactly do you consider the crux of the topic?
Kathy McClurg;103821 wrote:
Given that all arms were assumed before the king decided he could use some tax revenues (yes, a bit flippant, but not horribly far off the mark), what exactly do you consider the crux of the topic?
If you scroll to the top of the page, within the blue band is a subject line, identified by the word "Thread" followed by a colon, and the thread’s subject.
Best - Max
zebulon;103816 wrote:
If it were me, however, I would have preferred 2-day old "sanctioned" (whether granted or registered) arms over 200 year-old assumed arms, if for no other reason than it would create a record of permanence and help enhance the survivability of the ams, rather than vesting the entire armorial continuity on a once-every-25-years dice-roll that they’ll be preserved with each new family generation. (Of course, even better would be if my 200 year-old assumed arms were legitimized instead of starting from scratch.)
The generational die roll doesn’t go away just because some royalists penned something on vellum. Nothing stops a generation from abandoning arms of any origin. Arguably, there’s more record of permanence from 200 year old assumed arms adopted and used by family than a multi-thousand dollar document issued a couple of days ago.
I think family tradition and heritage stands a stronger chance at preservation than the indulgence of one individual.
As it stands - more evidence of the importance of armorial bearings is found in their use - not in records. Engravings on buildings and silverware, jewelry, etc… This is especially true for Americans.
zebulon;103816 wrote:
I don’t presume to be able to commune with FDR’s disembodied spirit, so I’ll have to take your word that’s what he would have wanted.
<snip>
But, again and as I have repeatedly said, digging up confidence-boosting examples of assumed armigery from yesteryear is the fantasy playground of those determined to self-legitimize…
So, although you cannot communicate with the dead, you do have the power to read the minds and motives of those of us still among the living?
In that case, I guess I’d better rely on the disembodied spirits to make my points for me, since you admit you can have no possible basis to question that they meant what they said.
Here’s William Barton (principal designer of the U.S. national arms), writing in about 1815.
* On Arms as Identification. "Such devices [coats of arms] ... have been found very useful, by long and extensive experience, in designating and identifying particular families; discriminating, at the same time, between many persons of a different lineage yet bearing the same or similar names. It is probable, that no means which could be now devised, would more effectually answer the valuable purposes to which family coat-armour has been, during many centuries, almost universally applied, throughout the various countries of Europe: for it serves not only the desirable end of designating our kindred—thus gratifying a natural and laudable curiosity, but it affords, when properly attended to, an useful mean of investigating descents and alliances—thereby aiding, very considerably, in determining the rights of property."
* On the Consistency of Armorial Assumption with American Values. "Nor can any possible disadvantages result from a due and regular appropriation of armorial bearings to American families of reputation and worth, in the assumption and use of them by their proper owners: because these heraldic ensigns confer neither privileges nor titles; and are, in themselves, as perfectly inoffensive to the community, as the surnames which denote different families."
* Assumed vs Inherited Arms. Those arms which are called assumptive, when they are once appropriated to a particular family, and do not belong to any other—at least in the same country—will serve to distinguish that family, together with their descendants, from others…. Arms recently assumed by a family will not, indeed, enable the original bearers of them to trace back their ancestors; nor will they be generally esteemed equally honourable with the arms of inheritance not being retrospective. But even these assumptive arms, in order that they may be rendered in some degree useful, must not only exhibit on the face of them a peculiar and distinguishing character; but they must also be appropriately used by the several contemporary branches of the same family, and their descendants."
* Self-Regulation. "Independently of the consideration, that no person of reputable character would wish to use, and thereby probably perpetuate in his family, any armorial insignia, which might evidently appear to be the right of another—every abuse of this sort tends to diminish the usefulness of coat-armour, in an important particular:—it thus loses its aptitude to serve as a permanent badge of discrimination between families of different lineage bearing the same name."
* On Public Attitudes. "Coats-of-Arms are now in pretty general use, in the United States. They are every where seen on coaches and other carriages, as well as on watch seals, plate, etc. They are to be met with also, and not infrequently, on tombs and other funeral monuments, in our churches and cemeteries…. The circumstance of their being thus generally used is an evidence of their being thought worthy of attention; for it will not be alleged, that thousands, who exhibit them in the various ways just mentioned, deem them of no importance, when the fair inference from the fact is, that their utility is thereby fully admitted."
And the Committee on Heraldry of the New England Historic Genealogical Society in 1914 (the members at that time are also all dead, so no fair trying to impute a hidden agenda to them, either).
* On the Status Implied by a Coat of Arms. "Our predecessors [on the committee] thought that the armiger was a sort of lesser noble and that a man who used a coat of arms pretended to a kind of rank created and bestowed on his ancestor by royal authority. Consequently they were horrified by unscrupulous assumptions, and were fearful of claims to arms which might look plausible but which might by any chance prove to be false… In accordance with the same general views in respect to the nature of arms they laid down the propositions that no arms could have been borne rightfully by subjects of the King in the American Colonies unless the arms had either been granted or confirmed by the Heralds… We neither entertain such views nor assent to such propositions."
* Heraldry and American Values. "There is nothing any more aristocratical or undemocratic in cherishing a family coat of arms, and in continuing to use it here in unpretentious ways as a mark or symbol of one’s family stock, than in cherishing a family name which is associated with historical events or with respectable social position."
* Distinction between Bucket-Shop Arms and Validly Assume Arms. "While it is inconceivable to us that the Society would ever sanction in any way the use of arms which were stolen or which were assumed here for no better reason than that they were once borne by a family of the same name, we are aware that strong arguments can be advanced in favor of recognizing and recording new coats which were heretofore or may hereafter be assumed in this country, and the use of which tells no genealogical lie. The frank and fearless assumption of arms has much to commend it."
As for the notion that obtaining a grant of arms from the English (or Scottish) heralds involves surmounting a barrier of any consequence other than the overdraft limit on one’s checking account, I refer you to Oswald Barron’s classic, "The Genuinely Armigerous Person" (1903). Mr. Barron is, alas, also no longer available for telepathic second-guessing of motives.
https://books.google.com/books?id=8jwj6r_YCusC&pg=PA155&lpg=PA155
Joe,
You make such good arguments! I’m thankful to have this group to bounce these ideas around with.
I need to sit down and read Barton again. I’m digesting the following bits:
Joseph McMillan;103846 wrote:
"Nor can any possible disadvantages result from a due and regular appropriation of armorial bearings to American families of reputation and worth,
Arms recently assumed by a family will not, indeed, enable the original bearers of them to trace back their ancestors; nor will they be generally esteemed equally honourable with the arms of inheritance not being retrospective.
...we are aware that strong arguments can be advanced in favor of recognizing and recording new coats which were heretofore or may hereafter be assumed in this country, and the use of which tells no genealogical lie. The frank and fearless assumption of arms has much to commend it."
This looks to be an interesting read, how do you find such gems?
Quote:
I refer you to Oswald Barron’s classic, "The Genuinely Armigerous Person" (1903).
https://books.google.com/books?id=8jwj6r_YCusC&pg=PA155&lpg=PA155