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From: ariels@mako.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.consumers
Subject: Re: JCPenney -- goblets
Message-ID: <52@mako.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 2-Apr-84 14:15:11 EST
Article-I.D.: mako.52
Posted: Mon Apr  2 14:15:11 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 5-Apr-84 01:36:42 EST
References: <1358@sunybcs.UUCP>
Organization: Tektronix, Wilsonville OR
Lines: 34

What they do if there isn't a crest in the common registries with
your family name is use one for a name that is close to yours.  I'm
sure they don't do anything more than look at the British, French,
German, Spanish, Russian, and Austrian arms registries for your name.  If
your particular branch of the family wasn't armigerous (awarded
arms), chances are that some other branch was. 

I was tempted to go for that first "free" goblet just to see what they
would come up with, since I KNOW that my family never had a crest
because they were never awarded arms.  Jews never were, at least while
they remained Jewish.  Not to say that they aren't today in England
(which is the only place in the western world outside of the Society
for Creative Anachronism that awards arms these days, I think), but
since the bulk of arms were awarded before the Restoration, if you're
Jewish it's pretty unlikely that you'd have a "family crest".

I'd like to find out what they'd come up with for a family with an
Oriental name.  That is, whether they'll go to look in the Chinese,
Japanese, Korean, Siamese, etc. registries.  I'd also be curious
about what they'd find for a Black family.  Would they go all the
way back to the great civilizations of ancient Africa, or would they
use the "American" names that were likely taken when the family came
to the US as slaves?

In other words, the likelyhood of them finding a family crest for
you that you actually have a right to use is very slim.  

And then there's the family names with a number of different crests
for different branches of the family, like MacDonald.  How do you
even know they have the right one...?

Ariel (my arms are from the SCA) Shattan
..!tektronix!orca!ariels