Nequid Pereat: An earned coat of arms 10/24/22
People who are into genealogy sometimes find a connection to someone of fame, of historical significance, or a root to a particular house. When the family is too boring or perhaps when the researcher is too big headed, their embrace is cemented with an absurd purchase like a family coat of arms or a crest devised. Look anywhere on the internet and you too can buy a coat of arms for your family name for only...
The most interesting people I found hidden in my maternal family were at seeming odds. A great, great...grandfather Reeves had financed and fought in the US Civil War from his middle Georgia homestead. After the South had lost, he like other men of his position, received a Presidential pardon from former General and then United States President Ulysses Grant.
On the other side of my maternal line, the Dent family, we lay claim to several distant cousins of fame. The most famous, who lived in historical opposition to that Reeves, was Miss Julia Dent, a cross-eyed lass. She was wooed by a certain Ulysses Grant and ended up the First Lady of the United States. Their children then went on to no small amount of fame, including one granddaughter who became a Princess, and whose husband served under Tsar Nicolas II. Julia, named after her grandmother, would document another civil war, the Russian Revolution.
First Lady Julia Grant's son, Jesse, shared a name with my great, great grandfather, Jesse Dent, father to Marie Dent Reeves. Marie married Henry Reeves, whose grandfather was pardoned by President Grant.
While all this makes interesting bedtime stories for little girls, within the Dent lineage lay another famous cousin for the lads. Captain John H Dent, USN, (1782-1823) was an acting Captain on the USS Constitution, also known as Old Iron Sides, in the battle of Tripoli in the First Barbary War. From the Halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli. Yes, from the Marine Hymn, that Tripoli, that war. In 1918 the USS Dent was commissioned and named for him. Seeing action in WW1 and WW2, the destroyer has since been decommissioned.
Scattered among these famous family members were plenty of ordinary folks just living their lives. But there were also scoundrels, liars, and cheats. Marie Dent Reeves father, Jesse Dent, was a convicted murderer. At his store a man picked a fight. Jesse was the victor; the other man died. Three years in jail. Before he could return home to his wife and child, he was found dead by the side of the road. It was thought to be revenge by the victim's family. Nothing was done. Jesse's family had disowned him and his family.
It wasn't until 2013 at the Dent Family Centennial Reunion that our branch of the family was reunited, well over a century after the murder. Among those not invited though were the descendants of Octavia and her siblings. That branch of the family only exists in legal records from the mid 1800s. Their names referenced as inheritors in a will from a great, great...uncle* who wanted to leave a sizable portion of his wealth to his bastard children, born to a slave woman he owned. As then, when the family fought and managed to keep the wealth from the black heirs, today's descendants found themselves left outside the family's embrace.
There are interesting stories in every family. Even more are the surprises which arise when research is conducted and distant cousins are found. President Obama found distant famous relatives previously unknown when the genealogical tree shaking tradition of Presidents was conducted. The most recent former President, he who must not be named, was discovered to be the grandson of a brothel keeper in the Klondike Gold Rush. (No surprise there!) Current President Biden's grandmother was said to have routinely cursed the British royals because of their response to the Irish Famine. But her grandson dutifully met QE2 as a matter of protocol during his political career.
I think it's kind of silly for people to buy the family crests when they discover a connection to the Scottish Clan of Wallace, MacDougal, etc. Though I will admit to having a picture of Captain Dent in our home...tee hee. Over the weekend I saw several of these purchased family crests discarded, for sale at thrift stores. The younger generations I suppose were throwing them out.
With the recent monarchy change in the UK, I was reminded of the crest tradition. When a new family is established, symbols are chosen to reflect the family past, its future, its interest, its hopes, and the combining of two lineages. As an Ash, I know others named Alder and Rowan. In my family, there are names that include Green and For(r)est, and a maiden name ending in -ley, another word for lea. I guess if I were to devise a crest just for my marriage, trees would have to be included. Toss in our children Reed and Peter, a plant and a stone, and the selections for the crest would include an rural idyll based upon the family names.
But today as I perused a British magazine site I saw an established family coat of arms that I could long last adopt as my own, but not in name, only in spirit. Its motto was Nequid Pereat. Translated it means Let Nothing Perish. When I read it, I laughed. It is the perfect description for our house of endless collections, our own Cabinet of Curiosities. Charles Paget Wade (1883-1956) was the owner of the heraldic crest. A famous collector, a poet, and artist, his home Snowshill Manor, is a world famous WonderKammer managed by the National Trust in the UK. Indeed, a kindred soul. I think if I look long enough, and among the never ending branches, who knows? Perhaps another a long lost distant relative?
Perhaps beside the portrait of Captain John Dent?
