Popular Genealogists, or the Art of Pedigree-Making [By G. Burnett]. - Tapa blanda

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1865. Excerpt: ... have ever since, without alteration, been borne by the chiefs of the family. Genealogists have not been able to trace the origin of the supporters to the arms of this very ancient family; but they have undoubtedly been used since November 24, 1443, as they appear on a pendant seal of Sir Roger de Coulthart of that date, granting the lands of Fellmore in Galloway to one Robert Agnew.' In Lower's Patronymica Britannica, p. 71, will be found an account of the Coulthart family, with further particulars not in Burke's Landed Gentry, and an engraving of the seal mentioned by Mr. Elvin. Any person who has given attention to the study of seals will at once pronounce it a very poorly executed fabrication. There is a clumsy and ignorant attempt to imitate the position of the couche shield, helmet, and supporters, but the caparisoning of the horse is of the eighteenth century, and the whole is surrounded by a classical dentil-moulding The inscription 'SlGlLLVM Covltharti,' without Christian name, would alone point out its spuriousness. Sir Bernard Burke, in his Vicissitudes of Families, vol. i. p. 219, adverts to the issuing of a warrant in 1547, by the Earl Marshal to Somerset Herald, 'directed to all justices of the peace, constables, and head boroughs, authorizing the apprehension of one W. Dakyns, "a notable dealer in arms, and maker of false pedigrees, for which fault about xx years past, he lost one of his ears."' The warrant referred to mentions that this Dakyns had compiled spurious pedigrees for nearly a hundred families in the counties of Essex, Hertford, and Cambridge. Whoever the Dakyns be who has compiled this pedigree, he can hardly be a Scotchman, for reasons which have already been indicated; he probably, therefore, belongs either to England or Irela...