Re: Coat of arms
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In reply to:
Coat of arms
9/30/98
There is a common misunderstanding here. The Bushnell family never has had a coat of arms. The one described was assigned by a king's herald (thus, heraldry) to a single individual, whose male heirs were eligible to inherited these arms, unchanged, through the generations. Other sons may have used the basic pattern, but had to change it in some way (called a "difference") so they wouldn't be confused with the heirs. In order for someone to claim that a particular coat of arms belonged to an ancestor, one has to do the genealogy to prove that particular ancestor. Just having the same name is no proof at all.