Getting a COA registered

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

A trivial point on this, more significant on what follows: it's unlikely that Lyon would devise a new coat of arms with a bordure of any kind, since in Scots heraldry bordures are almost always used to difference for cadency these days.

I am not certain what the current Lyon would do in this specific case, but speaking from experience, I would regard the last provable ancestor as an indeterminate cadet coming off the stem arms; thus it would seem reasonable to assign a bordure to indicate that position. I agree that in the instance of a de novo grant the use of a bordure would be highly unlikely.

He'd be more likely to devise arms differenced in other ways from the stem arms of the name.

Indeed he might, but then again other factors can enter into the decision such as the existing number and placement of charges on the field, the desire of the client, and the risk of creating arms that too closely resemble those of another family.

But your grandfather couldn't be an indeterminate cadet of the original grantee, because if he were indeterminate that would mean you hadn't proven descent from the person who was subject to Lyon's jurisdiction. Nevertheless, he might indeed be assigned, as you say, the ancestor's arms...

It is quite easy to prove descent, and often impossible to prove how many male children occurred in each generation of that descent. That being the case it may be virtually impossible to determine precise cadency from the original ancestor being used as the foundation of the grant. Precise cadency can only be determined when all of the offspring of an ancestor are know. This may only occur with the petitioners father or grandfather, or may reach back into the mists of time.

And in the United States, of course, there is neither a granting authority nor any legal provision for recognizing the validity of foreign grants of arms or protecting whatever rights those grants conveyed in the country of origin. That means that in the United States, an English or Scottish grant of arms has the same substantive status as arms assumed at will.

Does it? I wonder? I would think that at the end of the day, if someone with a substantive grant of arms brought a suit against someone who had merely assumed the same coat that they would be on firmer ground re: ownership of the disputed devise. That said, the concept of "first past the post" might equally apply, especially if the proprietor of the assumed arms could prove usage ante-the date of the granted arms. Hmmm....

On the broader issue of the status of arms in the United States, and what they mean or don't mean, I think the classic exposition is the statement issued by the Committee on Heraldry of the New England Historic Genealogical Society in 1914, which is linked from http://www.americanheraldry.org/page...Main.Documents . Those interested in exploring this more may also want to look at the Washington-Barton letters and the article by H. S. Ruggles, linked from the same page.

Looking forward to more discussions here, even if I would barely know which end of a kilt is up.