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. News Clipping: Heraldic arms lost in dispute 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 or clan gets to use the original coat of arms without differences to...
“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 the...
I’ve been compiling a list of Luce, Lewes, and Lewis coats of arms (and crests) in hopes we might find a clue to the origin of Henry Luce (c1640-1689), an early Massachusetts immigrant. Henry Luce has been speculated as a member of the Luce family at Horton in Gloucestershire. The Luce family of Horton is often said to be a branch of the Norman family de Lucy, although there is no evidence...
Do a Google image search on “county seals” and you’ll see that they (and state seals) are usually poorly designed. I would venture to guess that most were thrown together over lunch by some of the folks in the back office. Every now and then one stands out, either because it uses legitimate heraldry or because the efforts of a graphic designer shine through. Denver’s...
An heraldic sandbox. The following coats of arms have been used by, claimed by, or attributed to various ancestors. Alloway Crest: An anchor in pale Proper. Source: Fairburn’s Crests: Allaway and Alloway, England and Scotland. Crest: On an anchor a dove with an olive branch all Proper. Source: Fairburn’s Crests: Allaway and Alloway. Allsop Arms: Sable three doves volant [or rising] Argent beaked...