IDTG

As I was visiting the various blogs I regularly visit, I came across this post from the blog Georgian Heraldry by Alexander Mikaberidze.

The image above is of the coat of arms of Istvan Varallyay of Hungary. According to Mikaberidze, the armiger was a master farrier and gelder.

A farrier is a person who specializes in the care of a horse’s feet. However, the inspiration for the arms most probably came from Mr. Mikaberidze other specialty, gelding or castrating equines.

Heraldry originated in the European battlefields of the Middle Ages as decorated shields as a means of identification and is derived from the earlier practice in such places as Greece and elsewhere to instill fear in the enemy. The shield above identifies the family and most definitely instills fear in any male that gazes upon them!

Professor Grujic, as he is a professor of literature, has been practicing his art since 2000 and has been very active in Serbian heraldic circles and abroad. He is very much involved in trying to popularize heraldry in his native country, a very difficult task for anyone in any country of the world.

Grujic is an outstanding digital heraldic artist based out of Serbia with an exquisite eye for detail and a rare talent overall. These talents have been widely recognized and has been appointed Heraldic Artist to The Board for Heraldic & Genealogical Studies at The Centre for Research of Orthodox Monarchism (CROM), as Heraldic Artist to the Royal House of Bagration-Muhranski of Georgia and also to the editorial staff of the journal “Ocilo” of the Society “Milos Obilic”. Also, he was most recently elected to the position of Corresponding Member of the Serbian Heraldic Society “White Eagle”, a most prestigious heraldic organization.

I will not go over his biography here, as he has it very well presented on his personal website, however I will present some of his art in the form of what he’s done for me.
In his excellent gallery on his website, one notices not just heraldry but also something that is closely related to this art: personal signums or cyphers. He has a deep appreciation for these personal elements and is immensely creative when designing new ones for clients.

Grujic also has a great passion for “Full Heraldic Achievements” as he calls them. Emblazons that include the shield, crest, a standard, any badges, any supporters and components that add more life to the design. There are many cases where the heraldic standard is being held by a supporter but, this is not be confused with supporters in the traditional sense.

As mentioned above, I had the good fortune to commission Prof. Grujic to work on a new heraldic badge and cypher for me and he did outstanding work. I am well aware that my arms are not the easiest to emblazon and combining elements of my heritage, both Greek and Chilean was tough. Another difficulty with my arms is the eradicated oak tree, a charge that at first glance seems simple but doing it right requires lots of patience and even more skill. The results were so great, the commission was extended to creating an ex libris and other art.

Throughout this post, I have used the images created for me by this most excellent heraldic artist that can also be found in his gallery. These images convey much more than anyone, no matter how eloquent, can say about this extremely talented artist.

Prof. Ljubodrag Grujic’s website is at: http://www.ljubodraggrujich.com/

After over a month of dealing with moving to a new house, the gross incompetence of some people and companies, I’m finally back up and running with an Internet connection from home!

The experience of the move and dealing with so many fools would fill an ordinary blog but, since this is a heraldry themed blog, let’s just say that the coat of arms for this would have a field semy of heads erased….

The good news is that I now own the home I live in and, hopefully, will not have to deal with moving for several years!

Typically, insinuations of close relatives marrying each other and having children are reserved for the Deep South of the USA, royalty, etc.

What most people don’t realize is that every single one of us have that in our past. Some of us may have it in more recent generations while other in more distant one but, we all come from some sort of incestuous relationship.

Why do I say that? Simple, look at the numbers:

• According to the US Census Bureau’s Historical Estimates of World Population, this was the approximate world population at various points in time in the past:
  • 350-374M people in 1400AD
  • 254-345M people in 1000AD
  • 170-400M people in 1AD
• Approximate number of generations back to get to the same years above:
  • 25 generations to 1400AD
  • 32 generations to 1000AD
  • 60 generations to 1AD

Those who are math inclined may have already figured it out but, let’s keep on going. Every generation doubles the number of ancestors and can be expressed as a power of 2. In other words, you are generation 0 and 2⁰ = 1. You have only two parents (biological) and they are generation 1, therefore 2¹ = 2. You only have 4 grandparents and they are generation 2, therefore 2² = 4. Your great-grandparents are generation 3 or 2³ and so on and so forth.

So, let’s see how many ancestors we’ve got after 25 generations in 1400AD: that would be 2²⁵ = 33,554,432.

Let’s go back a few more centuries to the beginning of the second millennium or the year 1000AD. We would be at 2³² = 4,294,967,296. That’s more than 4 BILLION people! More than 12 times the estimate population of the world of the era!

So, either our ancestors mated with non-humans or there was just a little too much family love.

Another interesting conclusion is that there’s a pretty good chance that you and your spouse/significant other are distant cousins!

Remember all this next time you have the urge to call someone else an “inbreeder” because we’re all inbred!

It was just announced the other day that the XXIX International Congress of Genealogical and Heraldic Sciences will be held in Stuttgart, Germany in September 10-17, 2010.

The site for the Congress is still under construction and registration is not yet open but, you can visit it here: http://www.congress2010.info/