another heraldic familial quirk question 4 ya…

 
Donnchadh
 
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Donnchadh
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10 February 2010 13:01
 

another heraldic familial quirk question 4 ya…

say, for example,  a client presents herself to you and wanted arms for herself and her children. her arms would be based on what her father had/has/designs.

 

but, what if she wants her kids to have the same arms as she is divorcing her husband who is not the f.o.c. (father of child). the son does not want to use his now soon-to-be ex-step-father’s arms and would like to use his moms as well.

 

so, the son (non-armiger yet) of the mom (armiger via her father) would like to have his mom’s arms as his own because his f.o.c. is dead and would not like to use the arms of the step-father (armiger) to whom the mom (armiger) is divorcing. i hope that’s clear for ya.

 

is this kosher from a heraldry standpoint?

 

no this is not a real client, i’m just trying to wrap my head around how this would be done is all

 
George Lucki
 
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George Lucki
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10 February 2010 13:19
 

It seems simple - unless the step-father adopted the children they have no right to his arms simply because he married their mother. The arms would descend from their birth father.

The seperate issue about whether the children want to have their father’s arms because their parents are divorcing is completely silly. It really matters not at all whether they want their father’s arms - they either do or do not inherit them and that is all. In the world of assumed heraldry there is sometimes far too much emphasis on what people want and too little about what the traditions are. I’m not against innovation - but there has to be a sound reason beyond personal preference otherwise the traditions of heraldry become so diluted that we basically get armorial logos.

 
J. Stolarz
 
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J. Stolarz
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10 February 2010 13:48
 

Being as the child wouldn’t be related to the step-father in any genetic way, I wouldn’t see them as even having the right to assume his arms.  If the child wanted to adopt a similar arms to his (If I read that post right) grandfather, it’d be as you say, kosher I believe.  However, (Again, maybe I got confused by your post) wouldn’t the child have to adopt a similar arms from their biological fathers side, not their mothers?

 
Joseph McMillan
 
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Joseph McMillan
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10 February 2010 15:10
 

George is right.  Divorce and druthers have nothing to do with anything.  What makes heraldry heraldry and not just another system of signs is the hereditary element.  The AHS Guidelines already provide far greater leeway than tradition would allow; if people can’t live within such generous "rules," then perhaps they’d be better off choosing to represent themselves with a less traditional system than heraldry.

 
Donnchadh
 
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Donnchadh
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10 February 2010 18:38
 

perhaps i muddied the question too much. my apologies. i also didn’t see this in the guidelines before, sorry about that. i will check it again though. thanks Joe.

 

m.o.c. (mother of child) inherits her father’s arms naturally or by design assistance with her father in an assumption-system of armory.

 

m.o.c. has issue by f.o.c. (father of child) who is deceased and was non-armiger before death.

 

issue of m.o.c. wants to inherit his mother’s arms as his f.o.c. is deceased and was non-armiger.

 

 

in other words, is it kosher for a child to inherit his mother’s arms if his father was non-armiger and is deceased? or even in place of his father’s arms if his father was an armiger.

 

i ask this because it seems to me in the day we live in, tradition not withstanding (and George knows how important tradition is to me), that there are many cases of single moms with father’s out of the picture and if she and her kids came to me to design arms, or, if her dad (maternal granddad) did and either/both wanted the arms to go to the (grand)children that would make it a maternal inheritance, which i’m not sure on. only to further muddy the matter i wanted to know if a step-father, or soon to be ex-step-father, would come into play in the inheritance process.

 
Kelisli
 
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10 February 2010 18:57
 

I think that even in countries that allow the inheritance of arms matrilineally, you would need to quarter them or impale them with the patrilineal arms. That means that the father would have to be an armiger.

The only exception where you can inherit arms from either side of the family, is Portugal.  Even with that, there needs to be a difference/brisure that follows a particular system to indicate which line the arms descended from.  Portugal is the exception, in European heraldic systems.

 
Joseph McMillan
 
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10 February 2010 19:00
 

No, unless (per the guidelines) the children took the mother’s maiden name, they do not inherit her father’s arms.  (Traditionally, they would inherit a differenced version of her paternal arms only if the maternal grandfather or some other maternal ancestor had made legal arrangements for this to happen, such as through a name and arms clause in his will.)

Otherwise they’re free to collectively assume arms in their father’s name and memory and inherit them accordingly, or to assume arms of their own individually.

 
Donnchadh
 
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Donnchadh
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10 February 2010 19:34
 

thanks all.

i did not know that about Portugal, Hassan. thanks.

 

Joe, the name change and/or assuming individual or in the name of the f.o.c. is what i thought. assuming for the f.o.c. or for himself would be my first suggestion. i should’ve declared that at the beginning.

 

background: a part of what got me thinking on this is the arms and name clause of wills. i’ve seen this sooooo much in irish heraldry. so much so that the real, senior male descendant of O’Reilly Breifne could not get his recognition from MacLysaght because a maternal uncle had willed his arms and estate to them if they assumed the additional name of Nugent. i find that very odd because the man’s blood is what it is and what makes him him. it was his maternal uncle who made this happen and so they really are not Nugents at all, by blood/direct descent, and for me anyway that has always been hard to understand. i’m sure i’m too old school.

 

so i wanted to put a modern-day context to the question and see what everyone else thought. thanks all. smile

 
James Dempster
 
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11 February 2010 01:19
 

In Scotland there would be two possible, quite simple solutions.

1) would be for the child to obtain a grant for and in memory of his blood father. Once armigerous in their own right they could then petition for a quartering with the arms of their armigerous mother.

 

2) the child assumes his mother’s surname and rematriculate (possibly with differences) his mother’s arms.

 

AFAIK if the family were in Ireland it would be possible to do something similar to (1) and I believe (since it only goes back one generation) the same would also be true in England.

 

In England a variant of option (2) is also possible as there are many cases of "name and arms" clauses in wills which are resolved by a Royal Licence to take the surname (singly or double-barrelled) and either use or quarter the maternal arms. This Royal Licence system may have existed in Ireland in the past.

 

If this is in the US, surely the child could assume arms in memory of his blood father and quarter.

 

James

 
Joseph McMillan
 
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11 February 2010 08:06
 

James Dempster;74880 wrote:

If this is in the US, surely the child could assume arms in memory of his blood father and quarter.


Certainly, although as I read Denny’s question it’s not clear to me that the mother is a heraldic heiress.

 

Actually, there is a history in the United States—lamented by the late 19th century heraldist Eugene Zieber—of people using maternal arms in the absence of maternal ones, John Adams being the best known but not only example.  Chief Justice John Marshall used a bookplate of the arms of Keith, his mother’s maiden name.  Samuel Chase, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, used a maternal aunt’s arms even though he was apparently entitled to arms from his father’s line.

 

But it’s not a practice that has generally been approved by heraldic writers precisely because it diminishes the utility of arms for identifying what has traditionally been considered the primary kinship group.

 
Michael Y. Medvedev
 
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Michael Y. Medvedev
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12 February 2010 17:00
 

Dear Denny, sorry, I missed this thread.

Even in Russia, with its peremptory denial of female transmission of arms and the lack of the strict name/arms link, this problem could be solved (and actually is being solved on several occasions, as, for example, illustrated here) quite easily.

The "fading presence" of the stepfather is IMHO irrelevant. The question is if a widow may assume arms "in the name" of her maiden family and then to make these arms inheritable by her children.

The short answer seems to be in the negative; however (1) the family (mother and children) may assume some arms; (2) these arms may be somehow based on the symbols of another family, for the reasons of affection if not linear descent (the due distance being kept to avoid usurpation - but this is relatively close to the "indeterminate cadet" concept); and (3) these arms may be assumed "in the name" or "as if in the name" of the late father - which, in sum, appears to be pretty close to a full "yes".

 
Donnchadh
 
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Donnchadh
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13 February 2010 00:15
 

good points Michael. thanks for the input.

 
Michael F. McCartney
 
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16 February 2010 20:55
 

Assuming your hypothetical client is an American, I would echo Joe’s reference to our AHS guidelines as a starting point—especially IMO the recommendation to honor the link between name & arms.  Given more than one possible inheritance, the persons in question can of course choose, subject to any legal requirements of their state, which surname to bear.  That determines (or expresses, if you prefer) the familial association they choose to adopt or retain.  The arms, under our guidelines, then follow suite.

A second consideration, if its important to them, would be any unique customs of their country of origin.  Since many if not (by now) most of us are multi-ethnic "Heinz 57" I would focus on the country of origin of the chosen surname.  If , hypothetically, that name were Souza, then they might (or might not) choose to look into the Portuguese system of cadency of ancesteral arms from maternal lines, at least within those ancestral lines who are also Portuguese—though for practical reasons of clarity, identification & avoiding possible confusion, FWIW I wouldn’t go beyond the actual surname I chose to bear if it were me, other than as a quartering with a primary pronomial quarter.  (But, of course it isn’t me…though that’s what I’ve done as a quartering for one of my my grandsons, whose other grandfather was a Sousa; with a Portuguese-style difference referring to his grandmother—who was Italian…"Heinz-57"...)

 

If the chosen surname were, say, Russian, then I might look more deeply into "the other" Michael’s posting for possible options, though personally I would still prefer to do so within the general framework of the AHS guidelines..

 

Would be curious to hear of actual cases, to the extent that the client’s privacy would allow.  Its sometimes remarkable how a given set of actual facts, as opposed to a generalized question & the various sets of unspoken & contrary assumptions each of us is likely to read into it, can lend clarity and focus to the discussion, sometimes leading to a different & perhaps better conclusion

 
Kathy McClurg
 
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17 February 2010 06:34
 

Michael F. McCartney;75036 wrote:

Would be curious to hear of actual cases, to the extent that the client’s privacy would allow.  Its sometimes remarkable how a given set of actual facts, as opposed to a generalized question & the various sets of unspoken & contrary assumptions each of us is likely to read into it, can lend clarity and focus to the discussion, sometimes leading to a different & perhaps better conclusion


I’m not sure this is quite the same thing, but here’s a "real case" of a unique family situation:

 

Father: Male line - Traceable to Ulster, known links (unproven) to Scotland. Female line (as yet unknown). not armigerous.

Mother: Traceable to Germany on both sides of the family. not an armiger

 

Adopted son (less than 1 yr at beginning of adoption process) from Nova Scotia, Canada (French Canadian) naturalized US citizen at age of 4.  "family" name tightly held, but known, and listed on adoption documents and may be armigers - direct relationships not explored nor really desired.

 

Adopted daughter "at birth" from Cleveland, OH (family name unknown) - Birth Certificate lists parents as adoptive parents (adoption documents "Baby girl")

 

Adopted Son marries, Has four children - Daughter, Daughter, Son, Daughter (All unwed)

 

Adopted Daughter, unwed, has one daughter who carries the "family" name of her mother and does not have a relationship (or ever met) her natural father (not an armiger). unwed.

 

Arms are assumed under the Father’s name - Aside from the "family arms" - The family described above wants "personal" arms following the one person - one arms kind of thought.

 

It would be interesting to see how you all would "map" that descent heraldically.

 

I’ll answer questions to help focus the exercise, but reserve the right not to answer if I feel it’s inappropriate in some way.

 
James Dempster
 
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17 February 2010 07:30
 

From a Scottish point of view (which may be appropriate to an Ulster-Scots descent).

Father: Assume or (more expensive & difficult obtain grant of) indeterminate cadet arms appropriate to surname the differencing from the stem arms possibly of a form to reflect German heritage of his wife.

 

Adoptive son and daughter: difference adoptive father’s arms for adoption which is done with "links of a chain". Where these would be added would depend on the basic arms. The arms could be identical except for the tincture of the chains.

 

Blood children of adopted son: daughters may use (but not transmit) the undifferenced arms of their father or matriculate differenced versions of their own as determinate cadets (Stodart bordures), son would bear a temporary 3-point label. If there are additional quirks such as a desire to name one of the daughters as heiress then the son could either fall in with Stodart or bear a permanent differenced label.

 

Illegitimate Child of adopted daughter - as the mother would be a substantive armiger in her own right it is possible that Lyon Court would allow the daughter to inherit but if some difference is wanted then as heiress a label could be appropriate as a temporary difference. In a US case with assumed arms I would personally forget about any differencing for illegitimacy.

 

James

 
Patrick Williams
 
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17 February 2010 08:58
 

Donnchadh;74864 wrote:

another heraldic familial quirk question 4 ya…

say, for example,  a client presents herself to you and wanted arms for herself and her children. her arms would be based on what her father had/has/designs.

 

but, what if she wants her kids to have the same arms as she is divorcing her husband who is not the f.o.c. (father of child). the son does not want to use his now soon-to-be ex-step-father’s arms and would like to use his moms as well.

 

so, the son (non-armiger yet) of the mom (armiger via her father) would like to have his mom’s arms as his own because his f.o.c. is dead and would not like to use the arms of the step-father (armiger) to whom the mom (armiger) is divorcing. i hope that’s clear for ya.

 

is this kosher from a heraldry standpoint?

 

no this is not a real client, i’m just trying to wrap my head around how this would be done is all


Before we get too far afield here, let’s go back to your original question. The only way the situation would be kosher from a heraldic viewpoint (child wants to bear mom’s arms) is if he took his mother’s maiden name as his surname. This would be the case without regard to any other mitigating reasons. Name and arms, Denny, name and arms.

 

Despite genetics, this has been done on more than one occasion (and there’s the old, old story of the eagle who dropped a human baby into the lives of a childless armiger, whom was raised as the child and heir of the family ... the fam adopted a new crest to memorialize the event). So ... all reasons of genetics aside, if your imaginary client wanted to take his mom’s arms, then he should be required to take his mom’s surname. This is the case regardless of what the relationship to the natural father, stepfather, etc. may be. Name and arms!