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Coat Of Arms

Do we really have one?

Many of us over the years have found the book about the HILLIKERS in one or another relatives house. We have almost all recived the ad in the mail telling us how few there are and to buy this book. Invariably, someone with the correct last name sent us the invatition to preview the book, with an address in Ohio. If you have more than one last name in your household, as I do, you will find that the address never changes except for the name at the top. The contents of the book do not vary much either. With this in mind, we must ask some questions about the book, but in this case we will restrict ourselves to the Family Crest or Coat of arms.

To provide an initail background lets take a look at what a HERALD is according to Webster's Dictonary:

her-ald (her'uhld) n., v. <-ald-ed, -ald-ing>
n.
1. a royal or official messenger, esp. one
representing a monarch in an
ambassadorial capacity during wartime.
2. a person or thing that precedes or comes
before; forerunner; harbinger: the
swallows, heralds of spring.
3. a person or thing that proclaims or
announces.
4. (in the Middle Ages) an officer who
arranged tournaments and other
functions, announced challenges,
marshaled combatants, etc.
5. an officer of a body concerned with
armorial bearings, genealogies, etc.,
esp. an officer intermediate in rank
between a king-of-arms and a pursuivant.
v.t.
6. to give tidings of; announce; proclaim;
publicize.
7. to signal the coming of; usher in.
[1300-50; ME herau (l) d < OF herau (l) t <
Frankish * heriwald = * heri army + * wald
commander (see WIELD)]

Ok, now that we have that out of the way let us work out the rest of the meaning. A family crest is a Heraldic Coat of Arms. If it is a valid Crest it will be listed in one or more of the books on the subject. I checked

Debrett's Illustrated Peerage 1980 edition

Burkes Peerage Baronage and Knightage 105th edition (1970)

Burkes Dormant Abeyant, Forfeited and Extinct Peerages

V&HV Rolland's Illustrations to the Armorial General Vol III (1969)

I looked for family name, with all the variations, and the crest from the book. There is no crest for the family. The Armorial General had some family names that were ALMOST close, with a crest that was similar in that it had the crossed forks (Hillegheer) on P1.CC but this is a long reach. There is no crest listed or described that matches the one in the book.

A Coat of Arms is only presented to an individual, not a family. Heirs will use variaents of the original to show their roots and distinction. A crest is not something which can be willed or transfered. The popular press and Hollywood have created the current belief that the crest is "a family heirloom".

Belief that this "must be so because it is in print" has cost a lot of people a lot of money over the years. In our hobby, we must remember to distiguish between fact and fancy. It may sound great to say "I am an undocumented descendent of the Mayflower Families", but chances are that it is not so. We must remember that the more something sounds questionable, the greater the chance that it is. We all would like to have relation that are Heros and improtant, but that may not be the case. Focus on what we can prove, and not what we want to hear it will make the search easier.

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