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From: "Chris & Tom Tinney, Sr." <>
Subject: Re: Genealogy to Time of Christ and Ancient Genealogy Fragments re-examined.
Date: Wed, 05 Jul 2000 16:13:35 -0700


Pimbley's Dictionary of Heraldry - C, states:
Cross-bar - Sometimes used to designate the bar sinister;
a mark of illegitimacy.
http://www.digiserve.com/heraldry/pimb_c.htm
This comes from Heraldry on the Internet.
http://www.digiserve.com/heraldry/index.htm

I note The American Heritage Dictionary of the
English Language, William Morris, Editor, states:
bar sinister 1. Heraldry. "A bend or baton sinister
held to signify bastardy." The same can be said for
Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, bar sinister.
1: n (1823) "a heraldic charge held to be a mark
of bastardy . . ." "bar sinister might have come about
because the French for bend sinister was une barre."
http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/7/0,5716,109227+23,00.html

The "bar sinister" designation is clearly used and is firmly
imbedded within cultural norms of acceptable reference,
such as in Pimbley's Dictionary of Heraldry [provided
by Heraldry on the Internet], The American Heritage
Dictionary of the English Language, etc.; therefore,
it seems boorish to continue the discussion.

Arthur Custance, Ph.D., was familiar with the writings
of Lord Raglan, from "Totemism and Heraldry," in Man
(Royal Anthrop. Inst.), Aug., 1955, p. 128.
http://www.custance.org/man/2ch2.html
["He [Lord Raglan] was neither an amateur nor
a professional scholar but, like Francis Bacon and
Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and George Berkeley,
David Hume and Edward Gibbon, John Stuart Mill
and Bertrand Russell, a highly intelligent man who
wrote on matters in which he had a consuming interest,
dispensing with academic claptrap.]

"Totemism varies greatly in different countries,
as do the theories that have been advanced to
explain it. The totem poles used by the Indians
of the northwest coast of North America contain
a heraldic element in their employment of a hereditary
symbol for a family or tribe. They therefore come
under the heading of approaches to heraldic designs
and may be termed semi-heraldic in character."
http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/7/0,5716,109227+2,00.html

Respectfully yours,

Tom Tinney, Sr.
http://www.dcn.davis.ca.us/~vctinney/
Who's Who in America, Millennium Edition [54th]
Who's Who In The West, 1998/1999
Who's Who In Genealogy and Heraldry, [both editions]
- -------------------------------------------
Gryphon801 wrote:

> OED calls "bar sinister" a "popular, but erroneous, phrase" denoting
> illegitimacy. Bad heraldry but not gibberish.

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