a genealogist's sketchbook

I’ve been reading some of the works of the Appleton era, when the Committee on Heraldry of the New England Historic Genealogical Society kept a conservative eye on New Englanders with proved rights to English arms, and cast a jaundiced and disapproving eye on everyone else who affected arms. Before the Committee began in earnest to publish its Roll of Arms in the 1920s, the only such published list which pretended to (or which attained) scholarly rigor was that by William Sumner Appleton himself, “Positive Pedigrees and Authorized Arms of New England,” New England Historical and Genealogical Register 45 (1891), 187-90; and 52 (1898), 185, which I have linked here as a 196K pdf file. Appleton’s list of 32 immigrants “whose ancestors are recorded in the heraldic visitations of England and whose descendants are probably living in the United States of America,” is precisely the list of 32 immigrants reproduced by George W. Chamberlain as “Armorial Families of New England,” Magazine of History with Notes and Queries 6 (Jul-Dec 1907), 285-90; 8 (July-Dec 1908), 22-28, 101-107, 168-76, which I have linked here as a 644K pdf. To be fair, Chamberlain’s list gives more genealogical detail on the families of these 32 colonists. He further notes Appleton’s pessimistic view that, in addition to the thirty-two armigers already proved, “a dozen more names was a limit not likely to be exceeded.” The Roll of Arms no longer consists wholly of New Englanders nor of colonists with English origin and arms, but it now numbers well over 800, of which 713 arms have been published (among which some couple dozen entries belonged to Americans with modern honorary grants, a practice now discontinued).