Disclaimer:

The Armorial bearings or "Coats of Arms" depicted on this page and others in this site, are intended as graphical decoration only and no right to bear these arms is assumed.

On several pages within this site the Armorial Bearings or "Coats of Arms" shown above can be found. They are all most certainly NOT the armorial bearings for my family or any other families closely related to me. I believe that the "coats of arms" shown above are all "undifferenced". That is they are shown without any marks or symbols to designate birth order or family position. Only the eldest living son in the male line has the right to display the undifferenced arms as his own. Also, even the son or grandson of the rightful heir to the arms should not display them as his own unless they are properly differenced or "distinguished" with the appropriate marks to designate his rank in the family and registered with the College of Arms or similar body. Similarily the eldest son of a second-born man may never display the undifferenced arms. That right will belong to his cousin only. In addition to that it is not known if any of my ancestors ever had been granted the right to bear the arms presented here

The armorial bearings shown above may possibly be associated with my ancestors and it is in that context only that they are shown here

The image of the "TUTTLE" arms shown at the left is one of three that were shown as being associated with the TUTTLE surname in one of those kiosks in the mall that I'm sure the College of Arms wishes would go out of business. I picked out one of the 3 at random, memorized it's appearance and drew it up on my computer's painting program. I have no real reason at all to believe these particular armorial bearings are associated with any of my TUTTLE ancestors. Interestingly though I do have some real reason to believe that the family of Symon TOOTILL had some right to bear arms. In the book, "A Topographical Dictionary of English Immigrants" by Charles E. Banks, he cited the "College of Arms" as the source for information on the three immigrant sons of Symon TOOTILL, William TUTTLE, John TUTTLE and Richard TOOTILL who immigrated to Massachusetts on the Planter in 1635. So if one my TUTTLE cousins, close or distant, wished to request a search by the College of Arms it is likely that the search would actually result in historical arms being identified. In his book, C. E. Banks quite strongly suggests to his readers that they should not waste time searching for their noble ancestors. For in almost all cases, he argues, our ancestors were not members of the noble class, hence there was a motivation to emigrate and obtain land. So I was quite surprised to discover that he referenced the College of Arms for the Planter TUTTLEs. After I saw that, I searched the book a bit and found no other entries for which he cited the College of Arms as his source!

Every depiction of the CURTIN Armorial Bearings that I've seen is similar to this one on the left. I have no information as to whether my Irish ancestors had any rights to bear these arms or not. If I have any luck in locating my ancestors in Ireland I will hopefully be able to answer that question.

I copied the EASTMAN Armorial bearings shown at the right from the excellent EASTMAN family website maintained by one of the many descendants of Roger EASTMAN who immigrated to Massachusetts in 1638 on the ship Confidence. If you're an EASTMAN too, check out his site and check in on the progress of the research into whether or not these particular Armorial Bearings are in any way associated with Roger Eastman.

For more on Heraldry check out

François Velde's Heraldry Site, Heraldica

or

The College of Arms in London from where I "borrowed" the following warning text (I'm sure they won't mind)

WARNING: There has recently been a spate of shops and other organizations selling heraldic plaques and other items purporting to represent Coats of Arms associated with a specific surname. Their sources are unofficial and unreliable printed works of reference, which are far from comprehensive and contain numerous errors and omissions. There is no such thing as a Coat of Arms for a surname, as Coats of Arms belong only to the original grantees and their descendants in the male line.

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