[Genealib] DISHEARTENED BY A COAT-OF-ARMS QUERY

[janet tomkins]

As the genealogy librarian here at the Vancouver Public Library, I am "in
charge" of the closely related topic of heraldry as well.

I knew very little about heraldry before I started, and as a way of
learning more, created a guide for the public (online at
http://www.vpl.ca/branches/LibrarySquare/his/StudyGuides/coats_of_arms.html)

Of course, I found that it is very difficult to prove a legitimate claim to
a coat of arms and that it takes a huge amount of (possibly expensive)
research to do so.

Yesterday a woman came into the library.  Her son wanted a tattoo with the
"family crest" on it (let's say the family name was Fuller), and had found
several versions of the "Fuller" crest on the Internet.  They had picked
one, and wanted a nice big colour image of it.

Virtually all of our books have only small black-and-white images, but in
any case, I gave them a copy of the guide and tried to explain that just
because they had found a "Fuller" crest on the Internet, it did not mean
that it had anything to do with their family.  They were completely
undeterred or unconcerned by this, and  even mentioned that they had a
coat-of-arms for another surname associated with their family that they had
"sent away for".

At one point, I actually mentioned the word "scam".   In the end, I think
what they might have decided to do was print out the small color version
they had found on the Internet and take it to a photocopy shop to be
enlarged.

I feel that I did all I could to help them in terms of providing
information etc., and of course, it's up to them if they are happy with a
bogus coat of arms.   But what is truly disheartening about the whole thing
is that they left the library thinking that we don't have what they
want/need but the Internet does!

I suppose this is just a bit of a rant, but I would be interested in
comments / feedback and perhaps suggestions.  Also, does anyone know good
comprehensive printed sources of COLORFUL coats of arms?

Thanks,

Janet Tomkins
Genealogy librarian
Vancouver Public Library