I thought I would start this thread as an education piece in the event anyone else wanted to go thru the process of having arms registered from South Africa.

So as I stated in my previous thread, I had a goal of receiving arms. First, I will start off with saying that I have no familial ties with South Africa; however, after long deliberation with the Lord Lyon, Ireland, and South Africa I went with South Africa. My reason was due to having a desire that the arms be granted to me, not a line of ancestors that I would pay for an anyone could later tap into, genealogical effort, and to some extent money. While I do hope to one day have these arms registered in Scotland for purely stubborn, personal reasons-I have to say of all the heraldic bureaus I liked the philosophy of South Africa the best. As an American I could assume the arms and just register them with NEHGS or American College of Heraldry; however, I felt that South Africa having a government sanctioned office lent more credibility to the arms internationally and within my own Clan Association. (That is purely MY opinion and does not reflect anything else.) Ok that is out of the way....

The process is very straight forward and the people at the S.A. Bureau of Heraldry are quite simply Amazing. They will do everything from registering your heraldic correct design to design a Coat of Arms for you based on your own curriculum vitae. Additionally, if you are close to being "there" on a coat of arms you can submit to them a rendition or blazon of those arms and they can tell you if they meet the requirements/traditions etc. They will also work with you prior to payment and submission to come up with finalized touches. (In my case it was the creation of a double tressure thistle-counter thistle.) Payment is straight forward using electronic funds transfer from your bank to theirs and all your signed documents can be emailed to their office.

After all this is received your blazon/proposal is given to an artist and they will provide you with a rough sketch in approx 2 or so weeks. Once, this is agreed upon it goes back for the final painting and calligraphy. Currently I am waiting for the rough sketch....more to follow.