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A
Few Questions of Heraldry - CHAPTER IX,
pp 116
In Conclusion
In
some genealogical papers which were submitted to me for
examination, the statement was made that the coat of arms
with the cross crosslet was used by Merrill families in
England as early as 1588. The arms with the fleurs-de-lis
were said to have been "used by the Merrill families
of Essex and Sussex." The arms with three peacocks'
heads "are the same as used by the family of Ridgeway
of England." Only the first and third of these forms,
it was said, were used by persons of the Merrill name
at an early date in America. Gen. Lewis Merrill was cited
as authority for these statements, but in the somewhat
voluminous correspondence between General Merrill and
Gyles Merrill, and between General Merrill and the present
writer, such statements are not to be found. The writer
has instituted no search of the authorities in England
on this subject, either at the Heralds' College or elsewhere.
Perhaps
the reader has looked here for a coat of arms which all
American Merrills are entitled by the rules of heraldry
to emblazon on their stationery; and perhaps he is disappointed
and confused because, to relieve the monotony of these
typewritten pages, the author has pictured here so many
heraldic achievements. But the reader, if so inclined,
may make his choice, all are free for use if one in inclined
to assume them.
The
right to coat-armor based upon assumption, and not upon
grant, is ably defended by Henry Stoddard Ruggles in an
article in the New York Genealogical and Biographical
Record for October, 1903. According to the authorities
which he cites, and they are from English sources, members
of the Merrill family may justly use any coat of arms
here displayed, and whether the first use of the arms
by a Merrill was based upon grant or upon assumption is
immaterial. It would be equally immaterial, he insists,
if the user were a British subject.
Chapter
X
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