THE IDENTIFICATION OF AMERICAN COATS OF ARMS

The process of identifying the origin of a coat of arms from an American context can be challenging, for a variety of reasons, not least because they might have come from any country in the world. Such arms might appear on a wide variety of family heirlooms including signet rings and seal impressions, embroidery, silverware, portraits, book stamps and bookplates, and weapons of various types. The difficulty of identification is increased when such objects have become detached from the family for which they were originally created. Then there are arms linked with buildings, including funeral monuments and stained glass.

Arms from Boston King's Chapel and Boston State House

Quick Facts

At a glance

Sharing a surname and coat of arms does NOT prove direct ancestry.
Coats of arms in America can originate from any European country, making identification complex.

THE CHALLENGE

Identification

The New England Historic Genealogical Society began in the later nineteenth century to register arms which they could verify as having been legitimately borne in Europe by the ancestors of the bearer. A series of rolls of arms have been published covering their research, but the total number of arms listed runs to the hundreds rather than the thousands, so that a great profusion of material falls outside the scope of the register.

English & Scottish Arms

The countries which have enjoyed the greatest success in creating resources for the identification of arms are England (encompassing Wales and Ireland), and Scotland. This is hardly surprising given that they are among the few European countries which retain active heraldic authorities. But even here there are significant gaps in coverage. In both countries the official registers of arms only date back to the late seventeenth century, prior to which the only attempt at the systematic recording of arms was in England, with the heralds’ visitations of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. These represent highly valuable, but imperfect sources. Prior to the sixteenth century the information available on arms which were adopted or granted in the first four hundred years of heraldry is patchy. Such information on British medieval heraldic shields as exists has been published in the four volume Dictionary of British Arms, Medieval Ordinary.

There is no unified source which adequately facilitates the identification of arms from every European country, and searching must proceed on a country-by-country basis, beginning with the most probable country of origin. The style of the arms can often be indicative of country of origin, as different styles of design evolved in different parts of Europe.

The Rise of Self-Adopted Arms

From the eighteenth century onwards in England there was little to prevent families who rose up to gentry status from adopting arms without legal authority. This practice was indeed well established by the seventeenth century. Not infrequently the nouveau riche adopted arms which had been granted to another family of the same surname. If the self-adoption of arms could be passed off without difficulty in London, there was no problem at all doing this in the colonies. The self-adoption of arms does not preclude their identification, particularly as very often such examples are based on legitimate arms linked to the same surname. It does, however, mean that it should not be assumed that someone using arms in the US was descended from the person to whom the original grant was made.

A Notable Historical Gap

Given that the seventeenth century was an important period for immigration to the British colonies of north America, it should be noted that there is a particular gap in our knowledge of arms granted in England during the Civil War and Commonwealth periods (1642-1660).

Dutch Arms and Early American Settlers

Dutch arms are of some importance in terms of early settlers in the US, and it should be noted that outside the nobility there was no regulation of arms, and every prominent Dutch mercantile family had a self-adopted coat of arms. Since the state did not interfere in this process the records are very incomplete, but there are resources for identification available in the Netherlands.

DISCOVER

Curious About Your Family History?

IHGS has an extensive heraldry library which encompasses arms from around the world, and offers an identification service for arms, with the option of linked-in genealogical research from the medieval period onwards.

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