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Archiver > GEN-MEDIEVAL > 2003-12 > 1071201235


From: Tim Powys-Lybbe <>
Subject: Re: coats of arms
Date: Fri, 12 Dec 2003 03:53:55 GMT
References: <170.278955f7.2d0a8845@aol.com>


In message of 12 Dec, wrote:

> Hi,
> Well, I discovered that my coat of arms,

How do you know it is your coat of arms? Have you done the genealogy
to trace your descent from an armiger?

> minus the crescent for the second son, was for the McFarlands of
> Scotland.

Are you actually descended from a McFarland family by a male line
descent?

> Clear as could be. Then I found out from two sources that the same
> coat of arms, with a crescent, was from a MacNaughten related to the
> McCrackens of Ireland.

Then those arms belong to that family. Are you descended from them?

> Waiting for references. As I said, the MacNaughtons and McFarlands
> left Argyll for Ireland in the early 1600's.

Have you really established that you are descended from either of these
families?

> We can look at the possibility that this second son McFarland gave it
> to a MacNaughten.

Curiously coats of arms are not given by one person to another, except
in Canada where they can be left by will. Other heraldic jurisdictions
have rules that only allow transfer of a coat of arms by male line
descent.

In the US of A, there is no heraldic jurisdiction and you can do what
you like. The best thing there, and elsewhere, is to invent your own
arms, which will then be truly yours.

Borrowing someone else's arms is like a football team coming out in the
strip of Manchester United (to name one that seems to be known around
much of the world). Everyone would say they were not Manchester United
and to go back and design their own individual strip; it would not
matter even if they called their team "Manchester United", they still
would not be The Manchester United. Same with coats of arms.

> Interesting stuff.

Indeed. Try: http://www.heraldica.org/faqs/mfaq

--
Tim Powys-Lybbe
For a miscellany of bygones: http://powys.org

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