In Ireland, it was believed that swans pulled the bark of the sun across the underworld sea each night. Swans also bore the souls of Celtic chieftains to the afterlife. Swans had magic powers that could make mortals sleep. Swan skins and feathers were used to make the cloaks of Celtic poets. In County Mayo,…
Author: Justin Durand
Stripped of Arms
It might seem very archaic but it turns out you really can be stripped of your coat of arms. That is, if you used fraud to obtain it. What seems to have happened is this. David Holliday, a Dallas attorney, wanted to be chief of the Halliday family. In Scotland, a chief of the name…
The Y Chromosome is older now
They found a new branch of the y chromosome that’s older than anything found so far. The human “The new divergent lineage, which was found in an individual who submitted his DNA to Family Tree DNA, a company specializing in DNA analysis to trace family roots, branched from the Y chromosome tree before the first…
French Nobles
“Pierre d’Hozier was a seventeenth century French genealogist and juge d’armes to the king. His job was to check on claims of nobility. His son, Charles, eventually took over the work and the position of juge d’armes. He created, at the request of Louis XIV, the Armorial général de France, a list of all the coats of arms in use at…
Deception
Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur. (The world wants to be deceived, so let it be deceived.) — Anonymous