Heraldry: your getstarted guide

I have good news for you and bad. The bad news is that you’re probably not entitled to bear a coat of arms. The good news is that you almost certainly had ancestors who were. If you find that surprising, it’s been estimated that armorial bearings have been granted to tens of thousands of individuals over the centuries. Some of those genealogical lines will have died out but, in other cases, there could have been innumerable descendants who have had a legitimate right to those arms. Given that we’re pretty much all related to each other if we go back far enough, some of these noble individuals will be your ancestors. The hard part, of course, is finding them, but that challenge also brings its rewards. Not only is there fun in the chase, but your family tree will look so much more impressive if it’s embellished with ‘a smattering of heraldic images’ – though of course, accuracy and thorough research are paramount. We are not encouraging you to flights of fancy when compiling your family tree.

Family history societies often list heraldry as an area of interest, so we’d have to assume that there’s quite some interest in the subject. Despite that, it’s a topic we really don’t read a lot about. I’ll start by taking a brief look at the history of heraldry before delving