Life update: my sister and her husband are expecting, which means that if I’m keeping with the pseudo family tradition, I have another set of arms to create!

I was tossing around the idea of adding a border compony ______ and _______ to my existing arms for this new addition.

How about a honeycomb bordure?

Unless your sister & brother-in-law have taken her surname (or hyphenated his & hers into one compound name) I don’t think just adding a bordure is sufficient to identify them as a different family.  Bordures are usually used to distinguish siblings and cousins sharing a common shared ancestor and bearing the same name.  (Also, the bordure company is typically seen as a difference for illegitimacy, which I’m guessing isn’t what you have in mind!)

Your sister can use your arms alone or impaled with her husband’s arms; or they can design new joint arms that may or may not draw their inspiration from your arms.  Their child, who is the inspiration for this question, should inherit and use whichever parental arms pertain to his surname, either alone or combined in some way (e.g. quartered or composed) with the arms of the other parent.

Either way, an interesting design process!

Slow day, a brain fizzle that might be worth considering:

If your sister & brother-in-law either don’t care much about arms, or better both rather like yours, an option for them might be to just reverse the colors of your arms and call it theirs.

Different enough, especially for relatives, to not infringe on yours even though surname is different.  Seems unlikely to infringe on other existing arms (but no guarantees - would warrant the sort of checking you & others here did for your arms).  Clearly implies some relationship to you.  And simple for your sis to impale (basically part per pale and counterchange) or for their kids to quarter (parted quarterly and counterchange).

Curious what you & others might think…

I don’t think my sister would be particularly interested in adopting her own set of arms, she’s the practical, business type while I’m the history nerd brother! I’m unsure of my brother-in-law’s heraldic status or feelings, but I’ll broach the subject in a few months when they visit us!

Arriano: I had actually considered exactly that, but decided that it might be an or-overdose when combined with the bees!

Michael: I had also considered the idea of a reversal, but or, semi bee murrey doesn’t look too great aesthetically imo

Reversing colors was just a thought, maybe not well thought out…

Would it be appropriate to share the your brother-in-law’s surname?  It might (or might not) trigger better suggestions.

I don’t think it would be a problem: Sargent

Medugal;104850 wrote:

I don’t think it would be a problem: Sargent

Three chevronels embowed!

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/archive/9/9b/20120213104259SCSO_Sergeant.png

- though each service has it’s own interpretation of three chevrons; and there are a number of historical arms with three chevrons or chevronnels in various color schemes.

One fairly simple approach might be to show three chevronnels between three somethings, or two somethings in chief and something else in base.  Or maybe three chevrons each charged with several somethings.

These somethings could refer to his family background, maternal ancestry, or whatever might strike their fancy.  Or even bees!

Since impaling or quartering are likely possibilities, try for a field that contrasts with your Sanguine.

Or maybe reject three chevrons for the name "Sargent" as just unforgivably obvious!

Going back through this thread, I noticed that someone correctly criticized the idea of a torch for education as a cliché.  And now we’re discussing three chevrons to symbolize the name Sargent?

Is it possible that we default just a little too quickly to punning arms?

Joe - probably.  It just seemed like a path of least (or maybe just less) resistance when the subject of the exercise isn’t terribly - if at all - interested.

And/or we could play with the dolphins - maybe substitute three pellets each charged with a dolphin Argent,  or substitute porpoises (either three individual porpoises, or three threesomes in annulo or fretted) for the heraldic dolphins, or replace the bottom dolphin with something meaningful ...

I’d likely keep the black on white color scheme both for simplicity and because it would contrast nicely with Medugal’s Sanguine semee if impaled or quartered.

There are surely other approaches but this is the path I’m stumbling along for now, unless Medugal turns thumbs down.

Found out Friday that they’re expecting a girl

Congratulations!!  You should enjoy being an uncle!

(Similar to being a grandparent - spoil ‘em rotten, then send ‘em home!)

Michael F. McCartney;104876 wrote:

Congratulations!!  You should enjoy being an uncle!

(Similar to being a grandparent - spoil ‘em rotten, then send ‘em home!)

Yes, we already have quite a few nephews, this will be my second niece! Looking forward to her arrival in a few months! :D