blueskys23

~~~ Sells Things for Saint Beverly ~~~

We are an Amateur Herald & Professional Historian who specialize
in custom Heraldry & Genealogy. We personally build, color, & print
COATS OF ARMS using Photoshop plus research & write FAMILY NAME
HISTORIES and SCOTS, IRISH & POLISH CLAN HISTORIES. We NEVER
computer generate them! They are one-of-a-kind items!
We also do Genealogical Research by the Hour.

We research and make Coats of Arms plus
research and write Family Name Histories
from countries all around the world. Our
research is NOT limited to one area or country.

Member Since Monday, May 03, 1999

ebay Official Date & Time Nov-28-09 05:24:53 PST

This is our eBay auction policies and information
page with lots of Heraldry and Genealogy information
for your convenience!

IMPORTANT INFORMATION!

If you are interested in compiling an EXACT Genealogy,
generation by generation, to directly trace your personal
ancestors (not merely a Name or Clan), the charge for this
research is $40 per Research Hour PLUS $10 per written
and printed page PLUS possible fees to Databases
and Authorities (ie. Confederation of the Polish
Nobility, College of Arms, etc.) only if needed to
access your information.

For more information, please contact us by
emailing your request to:

customerservice@blueskys23.com

and we will let you know if it is possible
for us to do your requested research.

We offer quality built & colored or researched & written
(by us) Heraldry and Genealogy items. We are appalled by
the poor quality, and often inaccurate, computer generated
Coats of Arms and Family Name Histories that are offered
online. These are overpriced and lack the personal touch.
As a result, we research, build and color the Coats of Arms
and Clan Badges that we sell using a Photoshop program. We
also research and write the Family Name Histories and Scots,
Irish & Polish Clan Histories. If, for some reason, we cannot
find the information to be able to build the Coat of Arms or
write the Family Name History for the name you have submitted,
we DO NOT offer you some computer generated generic item.
There are names that do not have any Coats of Arms associated
with them. We are honest and tell the potential buyer if we
find no record of one. We offer these items for the pleasure
of providing high quality products in which people can have
pride. We also provide Coats of arms Design Services should
you want a new Coat of Arms designed for you.

We DO NOT use a computer program to generate
Coats of Arms!!!! These Programs are highly inaccurate -
they even go so far as to spit out a generic Coat of Arms
that has nothing to do with a given Surname.

We have hundreds of Heraldry Books in our
Personal Library. This does not include the
hundreds of History, Genealogy, Law, Geography,
etc., books that we also use in our Research.

We also possess almost 100 Volumes of the Magazine
'Notes & Queries' which was the principle magazine
for English Genealogists and Heralds from the
mid-nineteenth century to the 1920s and a large
number of volumes of 'The New-England Historical
and Genealogical Register' which is for American
Genealogists and Heralds.

We don't simply have Heraldry and Genealogy books
from England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales, we also
have over 30 books on Polish Heraldry and Genealogy
and are adding to that constantly. Our Austrian, Spanish,
Italian and Portuguese Resources are nearly equal to our
Polish Resources. And our French Collection contains in
excess of 50 Books.

One of us is a Professional Historian, Genealogist, Linguist
and Translator who is fluent in several languages and
educated in Philology (the Study of how languages develop
and change). The other is an Amateur Herald and Graphic
Artist. We both hold Degrees from well known Universities.
We both also hold Honorary Doctorates.

We also do detailed Genealogical Research.
(Please see our rates above.)

We research the Name you email us and find the description(s)
of the Coat of Arms for that name that most closely matches
information you provide. Then we build and color that Coat of
Arms for you piece by piece in Photoshop. (These are
one-of-a-kind items!) Finally, we print the Coat of Arms
on high quality, thick Parchment paper. (Or, we email you
2 high resolution image files.)

Beware of the word AUTHENTIC, in conjunction with
Coats of Arms. That usually means that the Coats of Arms
are being computer generated with a program developed by
someone who knows very little about Heraldry and its Rules.

**Unless you yourself have commissioned a Herald to develop
a Coat of Arms for you and then Matriculated it, You DO NOT
have a Coat of Arms that actually belongs to you.**

The Coats of Arms we build actually belonged to someone long
ago who bore that surname. They actually did commission a
Herald to build it and then Matriculated it. This is very
costly. The equivalent of thousands of Dollars (or Pounds,
Euros, etc.) costly! While these Coats of Arms do not
technically belong to you, the USA (and many other
countries) does not frown upon you displaying them
(on a wall, etc.) for your personal use. However, you
CANNOT claim the Coat of Arms is LEGALLY yours.

We make every attempt to build you a Coat of Arms associated
with the name(s) of your choice. This sometimes takes hours
of research! We want to provide a product that you can display
proudly!

We give the same attention to researching the Family Name
Histories we write that we give to our Coats of Arms
research. These take much longer to research and write.
(That is why it takes up to 10 Business Days
for these to be shipped!)

Our Family Name Reports and Family Name Histories are
superior to anything provided by our competitors because
of our wide and ever increasing collection of texts.
The others boast that they have such collections, but if
they do, they either don't know how best to use them, or
simply don't bother to. We do and we give sources, because
that is the correct course of action. You, the customer, have a
Right to expect it. We expend the same kind of time and expertise
on each of our Reports and Histories as we would on an Academic
Paper, and, in fact, that is what they are. We are sure that the
same cannot be said for the work of other people in the field.
Each Family Name History is different because each one is written
to order, we don't state that each one contains X, Y, Z, and 9, 8
and 7 because we cannot tell what it will contain until it is
finished. We can tell you it is unlikely to trace the History
of your Name to a date pre-1100 AD because Surnames in the
Modern Sense didn't even start to exist until after about
1200 AD in England. In North Wales most people didn't have
Surnames until the late 1700s, in Norway it was the mid 1800s
and so on. All of this is, of course, if you don't have a really
rare name like FitzAllan Howard, of course if you have that name,
you're probably the Duke of Norfolk or a close relative and your
Family Name History was written by the College of Arms because you
run it. Take a look at a couple of good books on the
subject, you'll find out that that is true!

Our sources aren't likely to include "A Constitutional History
of Modern England", because most people aren't descended from
Walter Bagheot, or "Agrarian History of England and Wales",
because most people aren't interested in sheep breeding.
Our work doesn't come out of a computer program, it comes
out of study. There are at least eight websites out there
all saying the same thing as each other because they are all
using the same computer program, in each case they guarantee
"Every surname history is over 1,800 words long" and say
"Since 1971, our professional researchers have been compiling
a vast library of surname histories". We just guarantee you'll
get the best we can give you, and no-one gives better.

The only similar works to our Reports that spring to mind
are the old "Johnston's Clan Histories" that used to be
published by Johnston and Bacon of Edinburgh. These are about
the same length as one of our Family Name Reports but they were
published by the thousand from the 1950s to the 1990s, whereas
each of our Reports is individually written for the Client, ie You.
Therefore our Reports have the cachet of the unique. Go to Amazon,
you can pick up some of the "Johnston's Clan Histories" as cheaply
as $0.01, while others will cost you anything from $25.00 to £95.07,
yes that is pounds sterling, so at the time of writing $188.36. And
this for a mass produced book that sold thousands and doesn't address
personal matters! Many of them you cannot buy at all anymore, though
Lomond Books are going to re-publish them, sometime.

Incidentally, not only are we professional researchers with a vast
library, we are University Graduates from good Universities who just
happen to hold honorary Doctorates, and Research Privileges. In some
areas we'll go out on a limb and bet our rivals don't have texts we
do, our oldest Polish Heraldry and Genealogy text dates from 1584,
our oldest English Text from 1485, although we have copies of
Rolls of Arms from nearly two centuries before that. We have a
large number of the Harleian Society Reprints of the Heraldic
Visitations and almost every Scots Heraldic source up to about
1907, including a copy of Nisbet's "System of Heraldry". We are
always looking for more texts.

From the International Association of Amateur Heralds

"Bucket Shops?
A "bucket shop" is a term used by serious heraldic enthusiasts
to describe unscrupulous heraldrymongers who dispense bogus or
inaccurate coats of arms by the bucket load. They usually have
a large database which contains images of historic and/or bogus
armorial bearings. Even if their representations are accurate
renderings of historic arms, these heraldrymongers will neglect
to tell their customers that there might be anywhere from one
to one hundred arms listed under any given surname. Further,
when you ask these heraldrymongers "What's my coat of arms?"
or "What's my family crest?" they won't bother to tell you
that armorial bearings DO NOT belong to all persons of a
given surname and may rightfully be borne only by the
descendants of the individual to whom they were first
granted or allowed, according to the Laws of Arms in
the country of origin."

(Please Note: This is a general Guide based on
English Practice, but Laws of Arms differ considerably,
and in some countries Coats of Arms do, indeed, belong to
large groups of people with or without the same Surname. And
in some Countries, Arms may be assumed by anybody. In Scotland,
Coats of Arms are the property of individuals.)

"The Association is a diverse assembly of professional and
non-professional genealogists, heraldists, historians, and
graphic artists dedicated to providing the general public
with heraldic information and design guidance at no charge."

INFORMATION CONCERNING THE
DISPLAY OF COATS OF ARMS

The Court of Chivalry or The Court of the Earl Marshal is
the English Court with jurisdiction over Heraldic Matters.
It last met in 1954 and was presided over at that time by
Lord Chief Justice Goddard acting as Lieutenant, Surrogate
and Assessor for the Earl Marshal, The Duke of Norfolk. In
the Case of 'The Lord Mayor, Aldermen and Citizens of Manchester
vs. Manchester Palace of Varieties, Ltd.', Lord Chief Justice
Goddard drew a distinction between Bearing and Using Arms as
a personal Hereditament and displaying them, as on Armorial
Souvenirs, etc., he contended that in such circumstances display
was not a ground for intervention by that Court or any other.
In the British Commonwealth, other than in Scotland and Canada,
the Earl Marshal's Court enjoys jurisdiction over Heraldry, and
therefore, Lord Chief Justice Goddard's conclusion is the Law.
This can only be changed by The Court of Chivalry, itself, or
by the UK Parliament passing a Statute. Any other opinion has
no Legal validity.

A NOTE ABOUT COATS OF ARMS DESIGNS:

Some Coats of Arms are fancy, but just as many are quite
plain! We cannot change a recorded Coat of Arms because the
buyer thinks it is too plain. We have no control over the
original design of the Coat of Arms for any specific name.
The shield design is SET IN STONE, as they say.
It is recorded with the Heraldic Authorities and may not
be altered under any circumstances!
(We do use very fancy mantlings to add to the attractiveness
of the Coats of Arms we build.)

We will email you a description of the Coat of Arms for the
name(s) you ask about and you can determine if it suits you.
Sometimes there are several Coats of Arms registered for a
particular surname - then we leave it up to you to choose which
one you would like us to build. Our goal is for you to be happy
with your purchase, and proud to display the Coat of Arms you
have chosen.

PLEASE NOTE THAT WHEN COATS OF ARMS ARE PRINTED ON THICK
PARCHMENT PAPER, THE BEIGE HUE AND ABSORBENT NATURE OF THE
PAPER HAVE A MUTING EFFECT ON THE COLORS. THE COLORS YOU
SEE IN OUR ILLUSTRATIONS WILL PRINT DARKER THAN THEY LOOK
IN THE LISTING. HOWEVER, THIS ADDS TO THE LOOK OF AGING
THAT IS DESIRABLE IN A COAT OF ARMS PRINT.

Below are some of the feedback comments
we have received for our
Heraldry and Genealogy items:

STUNNING!! Excellent communication, packaged very safely. I can't thank u enough

Incredible service! Great Work! Highest possible recommendation! Thanks!!!

Expert research + outstanding service = The best I have ever encountered!

Fast & professional service. An asset to ebay! Happy repeat customer! : )

Outstanding research & service...again! Nicest people I've ever dealt with! AAA+++

Fast & professional service! Awesome research & quality! Asset to ebay!AAAA+++

Items are beautiful! Nicest people in the world 2 work with.Thanks 4 everything!!

Great item and super-nice people to work with! Thanks so much!

Truly went the extra mile for me - will deal with again!

Give this seller 10 triple AAA's! Great service, great product! Thx

Wonderful product, very quick shipping! Highly recomended!!

A+seller very willing to please, went the extra mile, will buy again, thank you.

Beautiful Work! Wonderful heavy paper with superb font and printing! A+++++++

Great transaction. Very satisfied w/ Name Research. Would Buy Again. Thanks!

Beautiful item, as described! Fast ship, too. A+ seller; would do biz again!

Wow! Awesome job! You guys are the best Ebay! Thanks so much! A+ service!

Best eBay seller I've ever dealt with. Excellent work, great price, fast service

A++++ Easy to do business with, answers all questions. Fast delivery!

A+++++ Family history was fantastic to read. Coat of arms very well done. Happy!

Some of the Coats of Arms we have made:

Ladies Coats of Arms:

Marriage Coats of Arms:

Re-Enactment Coats of Arms & Patents of Arms:

Coats of Arms we have designed:

2 Sample Family Name Histories:

THOMAS

The Welsh surname ap Thomas derives from the Hebrew personal name meaning "a twin" and the Welsh particle 'ap' (originally map) cognate with the Gaelic 'Mac', meaning "son of" so "son of Thomas". The female equivalent is 'verch' cognate with the Gaelic 'Nic' and meaning "daughter of". It is a very common name in Wales. Unfortunately, surnames in the modern English sense did not take root in Wales until after 1800, so a man called Rhys whose father was called Thomas would have been Rhys apThomas but his son would be perhaps Thomas apRhys. This makes the tracing of Welsh families very difficult especially as some personal names were very common (in a seventeenth century roll of candidates for the Anglican priesthood the present writer found 34 called Thomas apRhys). In America this problem is further complicated by a policy on the part of both the Colonial and early United States Authorities of deliberate Anglicisation of Scots, Irish and Welsh names which in the case of Welsh people would involve deliberately assigning English style surnames to those who did not possess them.

The Welsh records hold two celebrated families named apThomas, one from South Wales and one from North Wales. Though distantly related, for the most part they are connected at certain significant points. The South Walian family retained the designation apThomas from a comparatively early period but the North Walian added the English patrynomic Herbert, so apThomas Herbert was the normal form. This for the chiefs of the name for those lower in the social scale the conditions already mentioned would apply. The South Welsh apThomases were originally apGruffyd or Griffith to use the English form. The North Welsh were originally apMaelgwn or Maelgon to use the English form. Both claimed descent from Urien, a North British or Cumbrian Celtic monarch of c.565 AD who ruled the area around Carlisle and through him from Cunedda or Coroticus a North British King who flourished in the fourth century. Famous members of the families include: Sir William apThomas who built the castles of Beaumaris and Raglan (home of the apThomas Herberts), Sir William apThomas who fought alongside Henry V at Agincourt and Sir William apThomas of Radyr and Sir Rhys apThomas who helped their cousin Henry VII to seize the throne of England.

On the Isle of Anglesey there were several significant Thomas families in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Some time prior to 1761, a James Thomas was mining at what would subsequently be the Mount Parys Copper Mines. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the Thomas family were farming at Ty'n Buarth Llangaffo and at Llangeinwen and Cynfeiliog. The 1851 and 1881 Censuses show Thomases not only as farmers but also as agricultural laborers, shopkeepers, carpenters and fishing boat owners on Anglesey. In 1881, Meschach Thomas and his family ran the Anglesey Union Workhouse at Amlwch. In the parish Church of St. Mary at Llanfair yng Nghornwy there is an impressive monument to Owen Thomas of Maes. Perhaps the most famous Anglesey Thomas was Hugh Owen Thomas, the Orthopaedic Surgeon, 1834-1891, a descendant of Owen. The Thomases of Maes were celebrated as Surgeons and Bonesetters. Hugh Owen Thomas studied at Edinburgh University and University College London and, like his father, practiced medicine in Liverpool. He is seen as "the Father of British Orthopaedic Surgery" and was a pioneer in the treatment of Tuberculosis as well as Fractures and Hereditary Skeletal Deformity.

Copyright 2005-2009

**************************************************

RYAN

Ryan is an Irish Allegiance, or Ecclesiastical name rather than the more common Patronymic type of Irish Name. Originally the name was Ui'Maoilriain, pronounced as O'Mulryan, meaning "Descendant of a follower of Saint Riain". Other meanings have been attributed to the name but these may safely be ignored according to the best Irish Authorities. The O' suffix was largely dropped in the 1600s and is seldom encountered outside Irish Gaelic documents. Likewise the "Moal" or "Mul" was dropped and is seldom encountered, though a small number of families in Leitrim and Galway are still known as Mulryan. The name Ryan is the eighth most common in Ireland and at the last Census there were over 28,000 Ryans living in the Republic of Ireland, with another 2 or 3 thousand living in British Northern Ireland. Worldwide there are probably at least 300,000 bearers of the Ryan name. Variants of the name today include: Ryan, Mulrian, Mulryan, Riain, Royan, Ruane, Ruan, Ryane, Rynne, O'Moelrian, O'Mulriain, O'Riain, Rouane, O'Ryan.

Some try to posit a descent for the Clan Ryan in Idrone from the Chiefs of the Ui'Drona and thus from the legendary, or mythological, Milesius (c.500 BC) and from the High King Cathair Mor (c. 150 AD). They may be correct but there is no solid evidence for the story. What is solidly attested is that in the late 12th and early 13th century Dermot Maolriain was Lord of Idrone and ruled much of Counties Carlow and Kilkenny. He founded the Abbey of Graiguenamanagh, and in accord with common Celtic Church practice then still the norm in Ireland, the Scots Highlands and Wales was probably the Commendator or Lay Abbot, this position would be hereditary and explains the Clan Name. (Later the abbey was held by the Cistercian Order and is today the parish church of Duiske.) Equally well established is the line of descent of the Ryans of Tipperary and Limerick. The O'Maoilriains, Chiefs of Owney, settled in that territory which is now known as the Baronies of Owney, County Tipperary and Owney-beg in the east of County Limerick and later moved in to the Barony of Kilnamanagh, County Tipperary, where they became very numerous and powerful. In each case they supplanted the Heffernans. They claimed the same descent as the Idrone family and were unquestionably closely related to them. In County Clare, Cathedral of Killaloe was granted to a member of the Ryan family when the monasteries in Ireland were destroyed by King Henry VIII in the 16th century. Historical documents show that 'William Ryane of Tipperary, Gent in consideration of the sum of £6.13s.4d. was given it to hold forever' on the payment of a twentieth part of a Knight's fee and a rent of four pence. Killaloe Cathedral is still in regular use, as the Church of Ireland's main church in the diocese of that name. Another building that became the property of the Ryans in King Henry VIII's time was the old Augustine Priory at Tipperary Town. This was granted to a William Ryan for £20. These grants may show that the Ryans, rather than being true Anglicans, were in fact the Commendators of these churches. Certainly the Ryans had a very active presence in the Roman Church, two Ryan Abbots in France were guillotined during the French Revolution and there have been both Catholic and Anglican Ryan Bishops in the USA, Canada, Australia and the UK. A Ryan Monsignor in the Vatican was famous for aiding the escape of Allied Prisoners of War during World War II.

Like many other prominent Irish families, the Ryans served in a number of Foreign Armies and Navies during the 18th and 19th centuries, including the Imperial French, Austrian and Russian Armies, the Spanish and Portuguese Armies and the Chilean, Greek and Imperial Turkish Navies. In the 18th century the Ryans contributed a string of high ranking civil servants, economic advisors and Cabinet Ministers to the Spanish Monarchy. The senior Chaplain of the Army of the Confederate States of America was a Ryan. The Ryans of Wexford were one of the best known political families of the Irish Republic throughout the 20th century.

Copyright 2005-2009

SHIPPING

All of our Heraldry and Genealogy items are shipped by
Priority Mail at no charge to you. We include Delivery
Confirmation on all packages so we know that they have
been delivered and so that PayPal will provide Buyer and
Seller Protection.

Most items are shipped within 2 business days
of receipt of payment.*

*Personalized items such as
COATS OF ARMS,
FAMILY NAME HISTORIES and REPORTS,
SCOTS CLAN HISTORIES, etc.
may take up to 10 Business Days to be
shipped due to the amount of time it takes to
research and build or write them.

(Family Name Reports can take up to 30 Business Days
to be shipped due to the amount of Research required.
We appreciate your patience.)

Please remember, you are purchasing an item that we have
to research and make or write for you. In order to do a
good job, this takes TIME! We value quality over
speed and we think you do, too! We appreciate your patience
while we create your one-of-a-kind item.

We ship Monday through Saturday
via United States Postal Service.

Click here for more Butterflies Graphics!

PACKING

We pack our items professionally and securely using various
packing materials. These include sturdy Priority Mail Boxes,
strong tape, assorted labels, and anything else needed to
ensure the safe delivery of your item(s).

METHOD OF PAYMENT

The ONLY FORM of payment we accept is PAYPAL!
We gladly accept Credit Card payments through PAYPAL, as well.

NO OTHER forms of Payment are accepted!

(If you DO NOT have a PayPal Account and wish to
purchase one of our items, please email us.
Depending on the circumstances, we may agree to accept a
an alternative payment method.)