Quote Originally Posted by WBHenry View Post
piperdbh: "You've switched pews, but you're still in the same church." Although Lord Lyon would not be involved, the CoA would be. Unless you can prove you are a direct descendent of the original armiger and are entitled to those particular arms, it's a non-starter. There is no such thing as a "family coat-of-arms," at least not the way you are looking at it. England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales have very specific rules concerning the inheritance of arms. In very general terms, a coat-of arms in those country can only belong to one individual at a time (other members of the family who are entitled must difference the arms in one way or another in order to use them). If one wishes to honor one's ancestors from the "old country" through the use of heraldry, then one should also honor the system under which those ancestors were granted their arms.
This rule is not peculiar to the British Isles. It is the basic rule everywhere heraldry is used: if you're not a direct descendant of the original bearer of the arms, you have no right to them. There are rare exceptions, but they usually require (or required) official approval, either royal or parliamentary.

General rule of thumb: If they were not your grandfather's arms, you are probably not entitled to use them (99.9999999 times out of a hundred).
Why? English and most other arms (except Scottish) are automatically inherited and passed on by all legitimate sons ad infinitum. This is so well established that it's even in the classic legal textbooks like Coke and Blackstone.

Now, if you believe you are in some distant way related to the original armiger, you could use those arms as a starting point for creating arms which you can assume.
If the relationship is direct, no matter how many generations, you can use the arms as you find them, but you should be able to prove the descent, not just speculate on it.

If by distant we mean that it was an uncle or cousin who was the original bearer of the arms, then yes, you need to difference them somehow.