Hello,

I’ve recently become interested in heraldry and heraldic customs. I’ve found a "Cid" coat of arms that seems to be "or and a gule bend" (one I found amongst the coats of arms belong to members on this site), but I’ve also learned that coats of arms belong to particular persons and one must inherit the coat of arms to use it legitimately. I’m not sure that I have any legitimate connection to that coat of arms, and may or may not search for some true ancestral coats of arms in the future, but this created a question in my mind.

Is it appropriate to break with ancestral arms altogether and make use of an entirely different coat of arms? Would this be appropriate to signify a shift in a family’s nationality, a shift in tradition?