Assumed Arms

[EagleJCS]

I once had the opportunity to discuss this very topic with LL Robin Blair when he visited the Glasgow (KY) Highland Games many years ago (2004). His suggestion was to petition for a coat of arms for/in honor of the deceased Scottish ancestor in the paternal line (not requiring a living Scottish relative for that one). Split the cost with their living descendants, the petitioner's cousins - if they can be tracked down and convinced to do it!

THEN, each of the new armiger's descendants can request a matriculation of those arms for themselves, appropriate to their position in the family (generation-wise) with the appropriate differences for different branches. Individually less expensive than doing one for just themselves.

Photographic evidence (that's me on the right of the photo, LL Blair's left). As I recall, it was a scorcher that day. High 90's F and 75-80% humidity, so no ties or tweed in sight.



In my case, since my family hasn't been able to trace back to Scotland itself, my family COULD petition for arms in honor of the earliest ancestor we've found, born in the Colonies well before the 1783 Treaty of Paris ending the Revolutionary War - and therefore a subject of the Crown. (This ancestor was born around 1767. His father was born sometime around 1737-1740, but we haven't been able to *prove* that connection yet. ) It's a $$$'s thing for me, as well as getting all of the documentation for definitive proof and not just genealogical supposition.

A friend suggested the below coat of arms for me, based off the Scott of Buccleuch arms (the primary Scott line), if I choose to use them as assumed arms, without registering them. (If we turn out descending from a different branch of the Scott's, then we'd use THAT branches' arms as the starting point.) If my extended family were to petition Lord Lyon for arms today, we'd have to use Scott of Buccleuch to start with, then go from there with whatever changes Lyon would think appropriate, with our input as to what to use to differentiate our branch of the family. Then individuals interested in matriculating and registering their own arms would have to accept Lyon's choices for the differences to use for descendancy on each branch (different borders/'bordures', colors, charges/devices, etc.).

To the right is the Scott of Buccleuch arms for comparison. The Kentucky long rifle represents my family's 200-year lineage in the Commonwealth, as my family settled in what is now Green County, KY prior to the birth of the Commonwealth on June 1, 1792. The embattled bend represents the pioneer forts of both Kentucky and Southwest Virginia, where they had settled in 1774 before the move to Kentucky. The blazon (heraldic language describing the arms) for my assumed arms would be something like this: "Or, on a bend embattled azure, a mullet between two crescents of the first, overlaying a Kentucky long rifle proper, sinister." I might have the last part mixed around, but it's close.

Proposed arms: Scott of Buccleuch: