APPENDIX III
IDENTIFYING ARMS FROM VARIOUS COUNTRIES
This appendix complements chapter VI and relates closely to the works in the section “Identifying arms” of the bibliography accompanying this guide. The books that do not have a complete bibliographic entry are easily found on the internet or in the bibliography. Several works are available online sometimes on more than one site.
English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish arms
If you have concluded that the arms to be identified belong to the United Kingdom and there is a motto, you should consult Elvin’s Handbook of Mottoes or Pine’s A Dictionary of Mottoes, and jot down the family names that you might find. If there is a crest, consult next Fairbairn’s Crests of the Families of Great Britain and Ireland: https://archive.org/stream/fairbairnscrests00fairrich#page/n21/mode/2up. The object is to look closely at all crest illustrations and to jot down the family names given for any crest that matches the one you are researching. Perhaps you can now match a name in the list you drew up for the motto with one in your list for the crest. Of course, if only one name is found for both, it can make the process simpler, but this is rarely the case.
If there is a shield, attempt to blazon the arms as fully as possible based on content and possibly colours that can be represented with pigment or hatching. If you have a description of the shield and a pair of matching names for the motto and crest, you can already go to Burke’s General Armory to seek a match for the shield of arms as well as the crest and motto: http://www.archive.org/stream/generalarmoryofe00burk#page/n5/mode/2up. If not successful, consult Papworth’s Ordinary of British Armorials (includes Great-Britain and Ireland). An ordinary lists the arms according to main charges (figures), number of main charges, accompanying charges and colours: https://books.google.ca/books?id=dTABAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false. If a name or names corresponding to the shield is found in Papworth, return to Burke’s General Armory to confirm your findings. If not successful and suspect that the arms are medieval, you should consult Dictionary of British Arms: Medieval Ordinary, Society of Antiquaries of London, published in four volumes by various authors form 1992 to 2014; C.R. Humphery-Smith, Anglo-Norman Armory Two: An ordinary of 13th Century armorials, Canterbury: Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies, 1984.
If you believe the arms to be Scottish, consult Sir James Balfour Paul, An Ordinary of Arms contained in the Public Register of all Arms and Bearings in Scotland, Edinburgh: William Green & Sons, 1893 (2nd ed. 1903), and David Reid of Robertland, and Vivien Wilson, An Ordinary of Arms Contained in the Public Register of all Arms and Bearings in Scotland, 1902–1973, vol. 2, Edinburgh: Lyon Office, 1977. For Ireland, Sir Bernard Burke's Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry of Ireland (1958) is an important source as it also contains considerable genealogical information. There are a number of other works available such as Edward MacLysaght’s Irish Families (4th ed. 1985) and More Irish Families (1982), and John Grenham, Clans and Families of Ireland (1993). For Wales, an important work is M. P. Siddons, The Development of Welsh Heraldry, Aberystwyth: The National Library of Wales, vol. 1: 1991, vols. 2 and 3: 1993, vol. 4: 2006. Vol. 2 is an armorial of Welsh arms; vol. 3 is an ordinary of arms with family mottoes.
If the arms contain supporters and you have not yet identified them, you should consult Burke’s Peerage or Debrett’s Peerage. The various editions of A.C. Fox-Davies’ Armorial Families can prove useful for both peerage and other arms: https://archive.org/stream/armorialfamilies01foxd#page/22/mode/2up and https://archive.org/stream/armorialfamilies02foxd#page/n7/mode/2up. Unfortunately, if you have not come up with a name or names, it is necessary to leaf through such works because they do not contain an ordinary of arms.
Should you have reason to believe that the arms are civic or corporate, you should look at G. Briggs’ Civic and Corporate Heraldry. A.C. Fox-Davies, The Book of Public Arms (1915) may also prove useful: http://archive.org/stream/bookofpublicarms00foxd#page/n7/mode/2up.
France and other European Countries
For all other European arms, the book to consult is Dictionnaire des figures héraldiques by the Comte Théodore de Renesse republished in 1992 as Dictionnaire de Renesse by Jan van Helmont. This work arranges in the format of an ordinary all the arms found in J.B. Rietstap’s Armorial général. Both Renesse and Rietstap are available on line at the National Library of France site http://gallica.bnf.fr. The works are in French. If this poses a problem, one can use them in conjunction with Dictionnaire du Blason by Emmanuel de Boos that helps one to navigate among French, English, German, Italian and Spanish. However, one will not find all the arms of European countries listed in Renesse. If a search in this work yields no result and you know or think you know the nationality of the arms, it may be necessary to search for specialized works relating to a specific country. Many resources are now available on the internet where international bibliographies are becoming increasingly numerous, for instance, on this site http://www.heraldica.org/biblio/annotate.htm. Michel Popoff`s international bibliography is in French but is not difficult to consult as it is arranged by countries and is online: Bibliographie héraldique internationale (http://sfhs.free.fr/documents/biblio_internationale.pdf).
Continental European countries also have their own books of mottoes such as the Dictionnaire des devises historiques et héraldiques of A. Chassant and Henri Tausin and the more recent Dictionnaire des devises héraldiques & historiques de l’Europe by Jean-Jacques Lartigue et Olivier de Pontbriand. “La connaissance et l’étude des armoiries modernes” which is chapter III in Michel Pastoureau, Traité d’héraldique, pp. 264-85, describes eloquently the benefits of positive identification through heraldry. While it offers useful advice on the process, it makes it clear at the same time that the road to successful identification can be fraught with pitfalls and that one cannot expect success every time.
Canada
All arms used in Canada prior to 1988 were either assumed arms or came from a European country (see the section “Tracing ancestral arms” in chapter IV of the present work). Arms granted by the Canadian Heraldic Authority since its creation in 1988 are being placed on an automated armorial available online at the Government House site. There are many ways to gain access to the armorial bearings that are part of the register. If you are searching for unknown arms with something vague like a fish without knowing the species, you could start by consulting the Symbol Category, which is likely to yield a large number of examples that will require sifting through. The Advanced Research is likely to prove the most useful if you are researching an unidentified emblem that you believe to be in the register. The Recipient Type entry under Recipient Information allows a more focussed search under Individual, Military or Civil Institutions. In the Letters Patent Information, one can already choose specific armorial components such as arms, crest, supporter, or motto and other categories such as flag or badge.
The section Index Armorum (index of arms) is likely to be the most helpful although it does have limitations. When I tried to combine the Motto category with another category such as Main Charge, no records showed up. Likewise, when I entered the motto Semper fidelis with the word chevron as the main charge, nothing appeared although the arms of J.G. Le Bel have that motto and a chevron. When I entered Semper fidelis alone, several records showed up. I also tested the index with my own arms (A.G. Vachon) which have two suns as secondary charges. When I entered “sun” in the Attribute category, several arms came up with suns as secondary charges, for instance C.E.E. Chisu and S.B.G. Ralph, but mine did not and neither did those of P.R.B. Armstrong which have a chevron between three suns. When I entered “sun” in the Main Charge category, my arms as well as those of Armstrong, Chisu and Ralph were all in the list. I only mention this to caution the user, to try several approaches. The Advanced Research of the Canadian Public Register still works much better than any of the printed works that give access to unknown arms, and I am confident that its glitches will be taken care of over the years.
For the arms of many European families having immigrated to Canada, Birk’s Armorial Heritage in Canada is an important work, though it does not include all families and those from Great Britain, Ireland and France are excluded. For families dating back to the French period and Quebec, the somewhat outdated Armorial du Canada français by E.-Z. Massicotte and Régis Roy (https://archive.org/details/armorialducanada00massuoft and https://archive.org/details/armorialducanada02massuoft) is still the only published compilation, though some of its content has been updated by Ægidius Fauteux’s Armorial du Canada français, a manuscript in the Gagnon Room of the Montreal Central Library. There is also a great deal of new information to be gleaned from articles published in Heraldry in Canada. In this respect, it is worth mentioning Campbell’s Heraldic and Vexillological Index by Ian Campbell, which lists all articles published in Heraldry in Canada and heraldic journals from other countries such as The Double Tressure, The Heraldry Gazette, The Blazon, Flagscan, ARMA, The Coat of Arms, The Bookplate Journal and The New Zealand Armorist. More books are listed in the bibliography accompanying this guide.
The search for Canadian corporate arms will inevitably lead you to Ian L. Campbell’s The Identifying Symbols of Canadian Institutions which is published in four parts: Part I, Heraldry; a Canadian Perspective and Context; Part II, The Identifying Symbols of Canadian Educational Institutions; Part III, The Identifying Symbols of Canadian Municipal Institutions; Part IV, The Identifying Symbols of Ontario Hospitals; Part V, Canadian Mottoes. D.E. Kennedy’s An “Ordinary” of Arms from Heraldry in Canada, vols 1-10, 1966-1976 is another useful book.
The United States
The resources to identify American coats of arms are fairly numerous. The following are the best known: Bolton’s American Armory, Crozier’s General Armory, E. Zieber, Heraldry in America. The 16th edition of Burke’s Landed Gentry is devoted to American families of British origin. Further bibliographic information can be found in P.W. Filby, American & British genealogy & heraldry. There is also a great deal of information online, for instance: http://www.americanheraldry.org/pages/index.php?n=Books.Bibliography#toc3. The bibliography of this work also contains a selective listing.
Other approaches
Leafing through illustrated works can be a tedious but effective way of identifying arms. At times I was successful in finding the arms I was looking for by looking through every page of V. & H.V. Rolland’s Illustrations to the Armorial Général by J. B. Rietstap. I did this occasionally even after consulting Comte Théodore de Renesse’s Dictionnaire des figures héraldiques which systematically arranges the content of Rietstap by figures. Such a tedious approach was taken only in especially important cases such as a request from a museum and because Renesse’s dictionary is complicated to work with and contains both errors and lacunas that can prevent a successful identification even when the researched arms are present in the original armorial. There are a number of other illustrated armorials that can be leaved through within a reasonable amount of time. Many archives and libraries have collections of bookplates which may prove useful in identifying mystery emblems. If you have a complete or partial heraldic description, it is advisable to search the internet using the entire blazon or key words. With more and more heraldic descriptions coming online, it is sometimes possible to find unidentified arms by searching with the description.
English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish arms
If you have concluded that the arms to be identified belong to the United Kingdom and there is a motto, you should consult Elvin’s Handbook of Mottoes or Pine’s A Dictionary of Mottoes, and jot down the family names that you might find. If there is a crest, consult next Fairbairn’s Crests of the Families of Great Britain and Ireland: https://archive.org/stream/fairbairnscrests00fairrich#page/n21/mode/2up. The object is to look closely at all crest illustrations and to jot down the family names given for any crest that matches the one you are researching. Perhaps you can now match a name in the list you drew up for the motto with one in your list for the crest. Of course, if only one name is found for both, it can make the process simpler, but this is rarely the case.
If there is a shield, attempt to blazon the arms as fully as possible based on content and possibly colours that can be represented with pigment or hatching. If you have a description of the shield and a pair of matching names for the motto and crest, you can already go to Burke’s General Armory to seek a match for the shield of arms as well as the crest and motto: http://www.archive.org/stream/generalarmoryofe00burk#page/n5/mode/2up. If not successful, consult Papworth’s Ordinary of British Armorials (includes Great-Britain and Ireland). An ordinary lists the arms according to main charges (figures), number of main charges, accompanying charges and colours: https://books.google.ca/books?id=dTABAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false. If a name or names corresponding to the shield is found in Papworth, return to Burke’s General Armory to confirm your findings. If not successful and suspect that the arms are medieval, you should consult Dictionary of British Arms: Medieval Ordinary, Society of Antiquaries of London, published in four volumes by various authors form 1992 to 2014; C.R. Humphery-Smith, Anglo-Norman Armory Two: An ordinary of 13th Century armorials, Canterbury: Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies, 1984.
If you believe the arms to be Scottish, consult Sir James Balfour Paul, An Ordinary of Arms contained in the Public Register of all Arms and Bearings in Scotland, Edinburgh: William Green & Sons, 1893 (2nd ed. 1903), and David Reid of Robertland, and Vivien Wilson, An Ordinary of Arms Contained in the Public Register of all Arms and Bearings in Scotland, 1902–1973, vol. 2, Edinburgh: Lyon Office, 1977. For Ireland, Sir Bernard Burke's Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry of Ireland (1958) is an important source as it also contains considerable genealogical information. There are a number of other works available such as Edward MacLysaght’s Irish Families (4th ed. 1985) and More Irish Families (1982), and John Grenham, Clans and Families of Ireland (1993). For Wales, an important work is M. P. Siddons, The Development of Welsh Heraldry, Aberystwyth: The National Library of Wales, vol. 1: 1991, vols. 2 and 3: 1993, vol. 4: 2006. Vol. 2 is an armorial of Welsh arms; vol. 3 is an ordinary of arms with family mottoes.
If the arms contain supporters and you have not yet identified them, you should consult Burke’s Peerage or Debrett’s Peerage. The various editions of A.C. Fox-Davies’ Armorial Families can prove useful for both peerage and other arms: https://archive.org/stream/armorialfamilies01foxd#page/22/mode/2up and https://archive.org/stream/armorialfamilies02foxd#page/n7/mode/2up. Unfortunately, if you have not come up with a name or names, it is necessary to leaf through such works because they do not contain an ordinary of arms.
Should you have reason to believe that the arms are civic or corporate, you should look at G. Briggs’ Civic and Corporate Heraldry. A.C. Fox-Davies, The Book of Public Arms (1915) may also prove useful: http://archive.org/stream/bookofpublicarms00foxd#page/n7/mode/2up.
France and other European Countries
For all other European arms, the book to consult is Dictionnaire des figures héraldiques by the Comte Théodore de Renesse republished in 1992 as Dictionnaire de Renesse by Jan van Helmont. This work arranges in the format of an ordinary all the arms found in J.B. Rietstap’s Armorial général. Both Renesse and Rietstap are available on line at the National Library of France site http://gallica.bnf.fr. The works are in French. If this poses a problem, one can use them in conjunction with Dictionnaire du Blason by Emmanuel de Boos that helps one to navigate among French, English, German, Italian and Spanish. However, one will not find all the arms of European countries listed in Renesse. If a search in this work yields no result and you know or think you know the nationality of the arms, it may be necessary to search for specialized works relating to a specific country. Many resources are now available on the internet where international bibliographies are becoming increasingly numerous, for instance, on this site http://www.heraldica.org/biblio/annotate.htm. Michel Popoff`s international bibliography is in French but is not difficult to consult as it is arranged by countries and is online: Bibliographie héraldique internationale (http://sfhs.free.fr/documents/biblio_internationale.pdf).
Continental European countries also have their own books of mottoes such as the Dictionnaire des devises historiques et héraldiques of A. Chassant and Henri Tausin and the more recent Dictionnaire des devises héraldiques & historiques de l’Europe by Jean-Jacques Lartigue et Olivier de Pontbriand. “La connaissance et l’étude des armoiries modernes” which is chapter III in Michel Pastoureau, Traité d’héraldique, pp. 264-85, describes eloquently the benefits of positive identification through heraldry. While it offers useful advice on the process, it makes it clear at the same time that the road to successful identification can be fraught with pitfalls and that one cannot expect success every time.
Canada
All arms used in Canada prior to 1988 were either assumed arms or came from a European country (see the section “Tracing ancestral arms” in chapter IV of the present work). Arms granted by the Canadian Heraldic Authority since its creation in 1988 are being placed on an automated armorial available online at the Government House site. There are many ways to gain access to the armorial bearings that are part of the register. If you are searching for unknown arms with something vague like a fish without knowing the species, you could start by consulting the Symbol Category, which is likely to yield a large number of examples that will require sifting through. The Advanced Research is likely to prove the most useful if you are researching an unidentified emblem that you believe to be in the register. The Recipient Type entry under Recipient Information allows a more focussed search under Individual, Military or Civil Institutions. In the Letters Patent Information, one can already choose specific armorial components such as arms, crest, supporter, or motto and other categories such as flag or badge.
The section Index Armorum (index of arms) is likely to be the most helpful although it does have limitations. When I tried to combine the Motto category with another category such as Main Charge, no records showed up. Likewise, when I entered the motto Semper fidelis with the word chevron as the main charge, nothing appeared although the arms of J.G. Le Bel have that motto and a chevron. When I entered Semper fidelis alone, several records showed up. I also tested the index with my own arms (A.G. Vachon) which have two suns as secondary charges. When I entered “sun” in the Attribute category, several arms came up with suns as secondary charges, for instance C.E.E. Chisu and S.B.G. Ralph, but mine did not and neither did those of P.R.B. Armstrong which have a chevron between three suns. When I entered “sun” in the Main Charge category, my arms as well as those of Armstrong, Chisu and Ralph were all in the list. I only mention this to caution the user, to try several approaches. The Advanced Research of the Canadian Public Register still works much better than any of the printed works that give access to unknown arms, and I am confident that its glitches will be taken care of over the years.
For the arms of many European families having immigrated to Canada, Birk’s Armorial Heritage in Canada is an important work, though it does not include all families and those from Great Britain, Ireland and France are excluded. For families dating back to the French period and Quebec, the somewhat outdated Armorial du Canada français by E.-Z. Massicotte and Régis Roy (https://archive.org/details/armorialducanada00massuoft and https://archive.org/details/armorialducanada02massuoft) is still the only published compilation, though some of its content has been updated by Ægidius Fauteux’s Armorial du Canada français, a manuscript in the Gagnon Room of the Montreal Central Library. There is also a great deal of new information to be gleaned from articles published in Heraldry in Canada. In this respect, it is worth mentioning Campbell’s Heraldic and Vexillological Index by Ian Campbell, which lists all articles published in Heraldry in Canada and heraldic journals from other countries such as The Double Tressure, The Heraldry Gazette, The Blazon, Flagscan, ARMA, The Coat of Arms, The Bookplate Journal and The New Zealand Armorist. More books are listed in the bibliography accompanying this guide.
The search for Canadian corporate arms will inevitably lead you to Ian L. Campbell’s The Identifying Symbols of Canadian Institutions which is published in four parts: Part I, Heraldry; a Canadian Perspective and Context; Part II, The Identifying Symbols of Canadian Educational Institutions; Part III, The Identifying Symbols of Canadian Municipal Institutions; Part IV, The Identifying Symbols of Ontario Hospitals; Part V, Canadian Mottoes. D.E. Kennedy’s An “Ordinary” of Arms from Heraldry in Canada, vols 1-10, 1966-1976 is another useful book.
The United States
The resources to identify American coats of arms are fairly numerous. The following are the best known: Bolton’s American Armory, Crozier’s General Armory, E. Zieber, Heraldry in America. The 16th edition of Burke’s Landed Gentry is devoted to American families of British origin. Further bibliographic information can be found in P.W. Filby, American & British genealogy & heraldry. There is also a great deal of information online, for instance: http://www.americanheraldry.org/pages/index.php?n=Books.Bibliography#toc3. The bibliography of this work also contains a selective listing.
Other approaches
Leafing through illustrated works can be a tedious but effective way of identifying arms. At times I was successful in finding the arms I was looking for by looking through every page of V. & H.V. Rolland’s Illustrations to the Armorial Général by J. B. Rietstap. I did this occasionally even after consulting Comte Théodore de Renesse’s Dictionnaire des figures héraldiques which systematically arranges the content of Rietstap by figures. Such a tedious approach was taken only in especially important cases such as a request from a museum and because Renesse’s dictionary is complicated to work with and contains both errors and lacunas that can prevent a successful identification even when the researched arms are present in the original armorial. There are a number of other illustrated armorials that can be leaved through within a reasonable amount of time. Many archives and libraries have collections of bookplates which may prove useful in identifying mystery emblems. If you have a complete or partial heraldic description, it is advisable to search the internet using the entire blazon or key words. With more and more heraldic descriptions coming online, it is sometimes possible to find unidentified arms by searching with the description.