Online Armorial and Ordinary
The Augustan Society, Inc., in fulfillment of it's committment to public education and the promotion of heraldry, will publish an Online Armorial of all arms Registered by the Society. This may, in time, expand to include the registrations of other American registries, with their cooperation. The Index, Armorial, and Ordinary are on the main web site [here].
Growth of the Armorial is expected to be be slow due to half the achievments being available only as black & white line drawings, and many being without any emblazonment. Some also lack a recorded blazon. It will also be delayed by the need to translate blazons into English so as to provide a consistent vocabulary for the Ordinary The number of achievements should exceed 600 when complete.
While we expect most will access the individual achievements using public search engines, we will create our own index.
An Ordinary of Arms is a listing of blazons ordered by the primary charges. This permits one to take the image of a shield and work backwards to find the person to whom it was registered. There are a few examples to draw from, but they often contradict themselves, much less each other, about the proper way to structure such. As a consequence, in addition to the not insubstantial clerical task involved, this will also require the construction of a strict grammar for blazons; one that may be rather more strict that would be required for registration.
