Franklin Family Researchers United
Franklin Family Researchers United
Miscellany
Last updated 1 Feb 2017
"The" Franklin Coat of Arms
It is with some trepidation that I add this section to the FFRU website.
In Britain, the College of Arms is the authority on such matters. They state:
Q. Do coats of arms belong to surnames?
A. No. There is no such thing as a 'coat of arms for a surname'. Many people
of the same surname will often be entitled to completely different coats
of arms, and many of that surname will be entitled to no coat of arms.
Coats of arms belong to individuals. For any person to have a right to a
coat of arms they must either have had it granted to them or be descended
in the legitimate male line from a person to whom arms were granted or confirmed
in the past.
See Frequently Asked
Questions
I have not found any Franklins arms registered in any other countries. If you
find any, please let me know. Information about the various forms of heraldry
in other European counties is found here or here.
In the history of England, there were four individuals with the surname
of Franklin who have borne Arms which were registered with the
College of Arms. Each of the
armorial bearings are completely different from each other. For more information
about this, see: A Short Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Families
of Frankelyn of Kent and Franklyn of Antigua and Jamaica, B.W.I. Together
with Sections on the Families of Bolton of Sandford and Gray of Billericay,
by Charles A. H. Franklyn, M.D., B.S., F.S.A. (Scot.), M.R.C.S. (Eng.),
L.R.C.P. (Lond.). It was privately printed in an edition of 70 copies by
Edward O. Beck, Ltd. of London, in 1932. Briefly, descendants of those lines
are:
- Franklin or Franklyn, now spelling it Francklin, of Skipton-on-Craven,
County York, of Gonalston Hall, County Nottingham, and Thurleigh or Thurley,
County Bedford, still extant.
- Frankelen, Frankelyn, Francklin, Francklyn, Franklyn or Franklin,
of Chart Sutton, Maidstone, Wye, Mereworth Castle, County Kent, Togago, Jamaica,
and London, still extant.
- Francklyn or Franklyn of Moor Park, County Hertford, created at Baronet
in 1660, extinct in the male line 1728.
- Franklyn or Franklin of Jamaica, late of Furze Hall, and now of Blackheath,
Folkestone, and Wakefield, County York, possibly a branch of (1) or (2) above
Below is the least ugly of these four insignia. This one seems to be most
popular among those people who imagine that the Franklin surname (or any
surname, for that matter) has its own coat of arms. There is no copyright
on this image. You may freely copy and use it however you wish to in the United
States. In Britain, however, be careful. There are laws which govern the use
of armorial bearings.
The U.S.S Franklin
Yes, in WWII there was a ship named the USS Franklin. It was an aircraft
carrier with an interesting history. See the
USS Franklin (CV 13).
...and there is another ship named Franklin. The submarine named in his honor was the 32nd Polaris Missile Submarine built for the Navy and is the first ship of the 640-class Ballistic Missile Submarine -- USS BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (SSBN 640). See USS Bejamin Franklin SSBN 640.
Queries
Generically speaking, a query should consist of at least three elements:
Name, Place and Date. In the case a Franklin query, the maiden name
of a non-Franklin spouse can be particularly helpful. Please spell out
places. Use an intelligible format for dates. Better than that, you
might want to ue "Genealogy Format" if you are going to be doing genealogy
(See below).
Date Format
Use DD Mmm YYYY, where DD is the day, with or without a leading zero, Mmm
is the Month: the first three letters of the month ( not followed by a "."
or anything else) Mixed case, or all upper case, and YYYY is the 4-digit year.
If you are using a year that is less than 4 digits ( that is, before the year
1000), then be sure to use leading zeros. In the dual dating of events due
to the Julian/Gregorian changeover the years take the form of YYYY/YYYY or YYYY/YY.
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Contact Information
Ben Franklin
5847 Sandstone Drive
Durham, NC 27713-1925
Email: [email protected]