Copyright© 2002 by Richard W. Eastman. All rights reserved.

- Want to Buy Your Family’s Coat of Arms?

Many people like to purchase Christmas gifts that are "personal." What can be more personal than one’s name? I bet that thousands of people will give presents this year that depict a family coat of arms printed on paper, suitable for framing. They also may give coats of arms on t-shirts, sweatshirts, golf jerseys, stationery, coffee mugs, or even key chains. There is only one problem: almost all of them are bogus!

In many shopping malls across America, you will see pushcart vendors selling reproductions of coats of arms, claiming to be the "proud history and heritage of your family name" or some such words. Similar "businesses" exist on the Web. A number of Web sites proclaim that they can sell you "authentic" copies of your family’s coat of arms.

I have one thing to say to these con artists: "Balderdash!" Actually, that’s not my first choice of response, but that word will have to suffice in this family newsletter.

The study of coats of arms is called heraldry. Those who control the issuance of arms are the heralds. Typically, each country in Western Europe as well as in England, Scotland, and Ireland has an office of the heralds, sometimes called the Kings of Arms. The heralds are empowered to decide who is authorized to display a certain coat of arms. If you do not have authorization from the heralds, you are not authorized to display any coat of arms. The rules are a bit different in the Netherlands and in some eastern European countries.

Most Americans seem ignorant of one very basic fact: in most of Western Europe and in all of the British Isles, there is no such thing as a "family coat of arms." A coat of arms is issued to one person, not to a family. After that person is deceased, his primary heir (normally the oldest son) may apply for the same coat of arms. Again, when he dies, his heir may apply. The rules for determining who is eligible to display a coat of arms are very similar to the rules for becoming King or Queen of England. However, even the proper heir cannot display the coat of arms until he or she has received authorization (been confirmed) by the heralds. At any one time, only one person may rightfully display a coat of arms.

According to the American College of Heraldry, "While Americans are usually fascinated by the beauty of heraldry, they are rarely familiar with its meaning and traditions and, therefore, often misunderstand and even abuse this rich cultural heritage. They seldom understand that a coat of arms is usually granted, certified, registered or otherwise recognized as belonging to one individual alone, and that only his direct descendants with proven lineage can be recognized as eligible to inherit the arms. Exceptions to this rule are rare."

The American College of Heraldry also says, "It is highly inappropriate for one to locate the arms of another person sharing the same surname, and to simply adopt and use these arms as one's own." My interpretation of this is that, if you are displaying an unauthorized coat of arms, you are impersonating someone else.

The College of Arms in England (the heralds for English, Welsh, Northern Irish, and Commonwealth families) says, "For any person to have a right to a coat of arms, they must either have had it granted to them or be descended in the legitimate male line from a person to whom arms were granted or confirmed in the past."

Despite these warnings, many vendors are making money by preying on Americans’ ignorance of the topic. The pushcarts you see in shopping malls typically are franchise operations. One pushcart owner told me that he paid $6,000 for a "franchise" to sell this stuff. The so-called franchise did not include a protected territory; another franchisee was free to set up business in the same area. For the $6,000 investment, the franchisee receives a computer with a database containing thousands of surnames and so-called "family coats of arms," a high-quality printer, a supply of parchment paper, and a supply of coffee cups, key chains and other paraphernalia. These franchisees reportedly receive no training in the study of heraldry. The ones I have talked to didn’t recognize the term "College of Arms."

The Web sites aren’t much better. The ones I have looked at seem to have carefully-worded claims. Instead of saying, "your family’s coat of arms," they will say something like "your historical namesakes." Okay, "namesakes" has a different meaning than "ancestors," but it still can be misleading to many people. When a Web site proclaims, "your historical namesakes," most people will think this means "my family." However, if argued in court, the wording on the Web site would probably be considered correct. In short, their statements are legally correct. I doubt if any of these companies will ever be shut down for misrepresenting their wares.

The next time someone offers a copy of your "family’s coat of arms," ask them for the documentation. They won’t have any. If a friend of yours is displaying a coat of arms on his stationery or on his fireplace mantel, I suggest you simply walk away smiling. There’s no sense in upsetting a good friendship. But don’t be as gullible as your friend. And please, please do not display your "family’s coat of arms" on your genealogy Web site unless you have been confirmed by the heralds, okay?

If you would like to learn more about the serious study of heraldry and any rights you might have to display a coat of arms, there are a number of Web sites devoted to the truth. Here is a short list of some of the more reputable ones:

None of the above sell printouts on parchment paper, t-shirts, or key chains. However, some of them do sell books and magazines devoted to the study of heraldry.

If you use a search engine, you can find many Web sites that claim they can sell "your family’s coat of arms" to you. However, you now know that any site that purports to sell "your family coat of arms" is a rip-off.

- Legacy Family Tree Video Training Series

Millennia Corporation, the producers of Legacy, this week will release a new series of "e-learning" CD-ROM disks called the Legacy Family Tree Video Training Series. I had a chance to use pre-release copies of the disks this week. There are three CDs in the set, each comprising over 50 minutes of video training. The CD titles are:

1. Legacy for Beginners
2. Your 12-Step Checklist for Using Legacy
3. Legacy's Ultimate Guide to Sources

The video training lessons have two objectives:

1. Teach you how to use the Legacy 4.0 program
2. Teach you about genealogy techniques and how to record the information you have found

The on-screen presentation of these video training disks is excellent. You see the program’s various screens as they are being described. When the narrator moves the mouse and clicks on an icon, you see exactly the same thing on your screen. When he enters text, you see the exact same letters appear on your screen at normal typing speed. In other words, this product is not a simple "slide show" like some other products that I have described in the past. The Legacy Family Tree Video Training Series shows the information in a keystroke-by-keystroke and "mouseclick-by-mouseclick" manner.

I also noted that Geoff’s bio states that he met and proposed to his wife in a family history center. While the bio didn’t specifically state this, I assume that those two events happened on separate visits to the center.

The first CD, Legacy for Beginners, includes a copy of Legacy Standard Edition. This allows the user to install it and then use the program while watching the tutorials in the training videos. This first disk shows the basics of how to use Legacy version 4. The topics on this disk include Basic Data Entry, Adding Family Members, Importing a GEDCOM, Source Citations, Pictures, Calendar, To-Do List, and more.

The second CD, entitled Your 12-Step Checklist for Using Legacy, moves into more advanced topics that show the finer points of the Legacy genealogy program. Topics include Relationships, Quick Bookmarks, Set Direct Line, Half Siblings, Backup and Restore, Potential Problems, File Maintenance, and more.

The final CD, Legacy's Ultimate Guide to Sources, is one that I wish all genealogists would watch. The examples in this tutorial all use Legacy, but the techniques taught apply to almost any modern genealogy program or even to paper-based recording of information. Geoff Rasmussen tells why source citations are important and then shows how to cite these sources properly. My favorite quote is from the beginning of this CD’s tutorial, when Geoff says, "Genealogy without documentation is ‘mythology.’" Topics on the Legacy's Ultimate Guide to Sources CD include Adding a New Source, Source Detail, Cite a Master Source, Master Source List, The Genealogical Proof, and more.

The Legacy Family Tree Video Training Series is an excellent set of tutorials for the user of Legacy. Not only will users learn how to use the software, but they will also learn genealogy principles that accompany the data entry. In fact, the third disk in the series contains useful information for users of all genealogy programs.

System requirements would appear to be modest. These disks are in AVI format and should work on any modern Windows computer. In short, if your PC is capable of using Legacy version 4, it should also be able to play the Legacy Family Tree Video Training Series CDs.

The Legacy Family Tree Video Training Series disks are also modestly priced:

The above prices are in U.S. dollars and do not include shipping or taxes.

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The Florida Heritage Collection is an ongoing cooperative project of the State University System (SUS) of Florida to digitize and provide online access to materials broadly representing Florida’s history, culture, arts, literature, sciences, and social sciences. Thematic areas in this growing collection include Native American and minority populations, exploration and development, tourism, the natural environment, and regional interests.

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My thanks to Alvie L. Davidson for telling me about this great Florida genealogy resource.

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RootsMagic should be released some time in January. In response to requests from potential purchasers, Bruce is offering gift certificates for those who want to give it as a Christmas gift. These gift certificates will be at the introductory price of $19.95 plus shipping/handling (The price of RootsMagic will be $34.95 after February 28th, 2003.). The shipping charge covers shipping of both the certificate (now) and the program itself (in January).

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The following is an announcement from the (U.S.) National Genealogical Society:

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Jane McBride, lineage record chair of the Nathaniel Davis (Odessa, Texas) chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, has compiled a huge list of deceased local veterans. She said she got the idea for this project from one she did ten years ago for the Permian Basin Genealogical Society. She was recording all the names in the Odessa cemeteries and noticed that there were a large number of military markers in each cemetery.

"When this project came up, I had no idea what I was gonna do," she said.

After a little bit of thought, she said, she remembered the markers and decided it would be a noble project.

This project, which has taken a year and will be done sometime in December, has involved researching military and Social Security records, as well as cemetery records and actual grave markers. McBride said she has gathered and confirmed about 6,000 veterans’ names, and the number is growing. Among these names are ten Civil War soldiers and one Mexican American War soldier.

When McBride feels she has compiled and verified all the names she can, she plans to have the list professionally bound and sent to the DAR headquarters in Washington, D.C. Another copy will be available for local researchers at the Ector County Library. There is no plan yet to make the information available online.

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A new Web site appeared recently announcing that a new service will become available on Sunday, December 8, 2002. Quoting from the site’s announcement:

On another page, the same Web site states:

The minimum charge will be £5.00 GBP, about $7.75 in U.S. funds. This one-time charge entitles the user to browse or search the database, identify possible records, save, retrieve, and print up to 50 specified index pages. Additional pages can be searched and retrieved for payment of another £5.00.

Family Research Link uses LizardTech’s DjVu browser plug-in for Web browsers to display the images. This is the same viewer used by Ancestry.com, the National Archives of Canada, and several other genealogy-related Web sites. It is a proven product that works well on Windows, but there is no Macintosh or Linux version available.

My thanks to Maureen Byson for telling me about this new Web site.

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Wiltshire Ancestors has released a CD-ROM disk containing transcribed records from the 1851 Wiltshire Census. This is not just a simple index; it is the complete census as transcribed by expert genealogists.

The transcript of the 1851 Census for Wiltshire has been available for about three years on microfiche in a series of 19 volumes. The new CD-ROM places the same data onto a single plastic disk in a format that can be easily searched. This product is produced by the collaborative effort of several individuals: Pat Wilson, Alan Merryweather, and Michael Gwilliam did the transcriptions, while B. Rhys Roberts created the search engine software used on the CD-ROM. The result is an excellent resource for anyone researching Wiltshire ancestry.

I installed the disk on a Windows XP system and was in business a couple of minutes later. The opening screen gives several options:

• View Census as Enumerated - shows the transcribed census entries in the same order as entered by the enumerators (census takers).

• View Census in Name Order - shows an alphabetical list of all the entries, sorted by surname.

• View Enumeration Districts – gives details about the district, including the names of the Enumerator, the Registrar and the Superintendent Registrar.

• View Census Abbreviations – displays a short list of common abbreviations.

• Find Ancestor – the search capability.

The "Find Ancestor" feature is a powerful method of searching by any combination of fields, including: given name, last name (surname), birth year, county of birth, place name of birth, census address, and occupation. You can specify searches for any one field or a combination of fields. The name fields can use exact spelling, partial spelling, or Soundex (sounds like). For instance, here are a few of the results of a search I conducted for my own surname, specifying only those born in Downton (a small village near Salisbury):

The letters "DA" indicate that this person is a daughter of the head of household, while "GD" indicates granddaughter and "GS" indicates grandson. The information is easily printed or "copied-and-pasted" into another Windows document as I did with the above lines, pasting them into this newsletter.

When viewing the results of a search, another button appears, labeled "View Neighbours." Clicking this displays a list of all the other residents in the neighborhood.

The functionality I have described so far requires Microsoft Windows. However, anyone with a Macintosh or Linux system will note that the census transcriptions and the indexes to the transcriptions are also available on the same disk in Adobe Acrobat format. Mac and Linux users can use this disk to look up information in an index and then go to the page referenced to view the transcribed original record. However, Mac and Linux users will not be able to use the search capabilities I described without use of a Windows emulator.

The Wiltshire 1851 Census CD-ROM disk contains high-quality genealogy information. The records were transcribed by expert genealogists, not by untrained clerical workers as used by some other products. It is easy to use and should prove popular with those researching Wiltshire ancestry. I would expect that most genealogy libraries will also want to purchase a copy of this CD-ROM to add to their available resources.

The Wiltshire 1851 Census transcriptions on CD-ROM sells for £22.50 (about $35.00 in U.S. funds) plus shipping and taxes, if any. The disk is available only from Wiltshire Ancestors at this time. They are not equipped for online ordering via credit card although they do plan to offer the disk through another retail outlet that is equipped for credit card transactions.

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Burke’s Peerage & Gentry have added 1,400 records of American families with British and Irish ancestry to their online collection. The searchable database now includes over 7,000 ancestries. These records are fully searchable through the incumbent, his biography, seats, arms, clubs, and lineage.

The authorities at Burke’s say that the families were selected for their titled and landed links with Britain and Ireland at the time of their emigration to the U.S., as well as their standing in the new world. Most of the lineages begin in 16^th or 17^th century Britain and chart the family ancestry on both sides of the Atlantic where available. Each record typically contains the generations, information about the origins of the family in Britain, and achievements and positions held by the individuals down the centuries.

Here is an example of one such entry:

Burke’s Peerage & Gentry is now in the process of updating the records to the present day. Consequently, this collection will evolve and grow to be an authoritative resource for family histories.

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- (+) Plus Edition Survey Results

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The following sad words were posted a few days ago on a message board that I read:

It seems this person was using an MS-DOS genealogy program that is fifteen years old. It does not export data in GEDCOM format – or in any other format, for that matter. The program crashed and is now corrupted on the hard drive. The original installation disks apparently were lost years ago. While he does have a backup disk, the data on the backup is unreadable by any other genealogy program. He is faced with manually re-entering all the data on 3,800 people.

Warning: every piece of computer hardware will fail eventually. It may last for many years, or it may fail this evening. Even brand-new computers will fail occasionally. You have no method of knowing in advance when the failure will occur.

Do you have a full backup of your data? Is it in a format that could be read by another genealogy program, if needed? Or will you someday have an experience that is similar to this sad case?

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A black man who is a candidate to lead a county chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans said he wants the job despite controversy he's sure it will create. Rudolph Young, 57, of Stanley, North Carolina, said he's not a Confederate flag-waver or an apologist for slavery but sees himself as a seeker of historical truth.

Earlier this year, Young became the first black member of Lincoln County's Sons of Confederate Veterans. The unit, called a "camp" within the organization, is named after the general who commanded a unit in which Young's great-great-uncle was a field cook. A new commander will be selected on Dec. 9, and if Young wins, he will be one of the few blacks in the nation to head a Sons of Confederate Veterans group.

Lynda Moreau of New Orleans, spokeswoman for the Sons of Confederate Veterans national office, said that the group is nonpolitical and that no reference to race is included on membership forms. "I know we have some black members, but there's no way of knowing how many", she said.

Membership in the Sons of Confederate Veterans is limited to people who can document a Confederate ancestor in their family tree. "Their mission is honoring their ancestors," Young said. "I'm honoring mine."

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Channel Tunnel Rail Link developers are running behind schedule as they are building a new high speed commuter line at St Pancras station in central London. Gravestones, coffins, and the remains of the dead will be dug up by mechanical diggers and dumped on to lorries before being taken away from the cemetery.

Archaeologists had originally been given until January to identify the graves from headstones and coffin plates and possibly contact living relatives. They also hoped to gather important archaeological and historic evidence of life in London during the industrial revolution.

The most recent grave in the Camley Street Cemetery dates back to 1854. There are around 4,000 graves, and many of the remains are those of aristocratic French émigrés who fled to England after the French Revolution. But the Channel Tunnel Rail Link Company (CTRL) has now ordered archaeologists off the site.

CTRL admits that it does not know how many graves will be destroyed and has refused to say how the graves will be removed. English Heritage, curator of the site with responsibility for advising the builders, says the company will simply send in the bulldozers because it wants to "make up time" on the project.

Catherine Cavanagh of English Heritage's archaeology advisory service said: "This will completely destroy the relation between the remains and their identities. It will become like one mass grave. "I would think that, when these people were buried, they thought they would be treated as individuals. I don't think it is showing respect in the treatment of the dead people in the cemetery. As well as the ethical aspect, there is a fantastic amount of information that will be lost."

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The Upcoming Events section of this newsletter is published once per month, usually in the first newsletter of each month. Each event will be listed very briefly: date(s), location and brief details, followed by either an e-mail address or a Web page that you can use to find more information. Since detailed information is available via e-mail or the Web, I will not list the details in this newsletter. If you do contact any of these organizations, please tell them where you heard about the event.

Here are the listings, arranged by date. An asterisk indicates a new listing that has been added since the last time this list was published:

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The PR Budget for this newsletter is $0.00. I rely upon "word of mouse" advertising in which you recommend this newsletter to your friends. This newsletter is a private project of mine, and I have a zero budget for a publicity campaign to get more readers.

Thanks.

COPYRIGHTS:

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