[ANSTHRLD] Device DB?

[Coblaith Muimnech]

Lord Lorenzo Martin wrote:
> . . .I was wondering what would be the best way to gather the  
> devices of certain people.  Is there a database or a way to search  
> on the heralds section of the Ansteorran website?  Preferably I  
> would want to see a pic of it, whether black/white or color but if  
> it were black/white then I'd want to know the blazoning of it.

Ansteorra doesn't yet have an online armorial.  (Star does have a  
Roll of Arms Deputy who's working on one, but it's still in the  
programming phase.)

The online Ordinary and Armorial <http://oanda.sca.org/> will give  
you the blazon for any piece of registered armory.  Use the Name  
Search Form to look up items belonging to someone whose registered  
name you know, and the Name Pattern Search Form to find someone whose  
you don't.  (For example, if you put "Emma de Fetherstan" into the  
Name Search Form, you'll see the three items currently registered to  
the present Star Principal Herald, along with the one she's  
released.  If you didn't know how to spell "de Fetherstan", however,  
you might put "Emma" into the Name Pattern Search Form, then look for  
hers among the 129 names that search returns.)

Finding emblazons is a little more hit-or-miss.  The O&A will tell  
you when any given item was registered and through which kingdom it  
was submitted.  If it was submitted through Ansteorra and registered  
in 1993 or after, you should be able to find in the Heraldic  
Submissions Tracker <http://heraldry.ansteorra.org/hst/> information  
on which Ansteorran Internal Letter of Intent included it.  If that  
ILoI is in the online archive <http://herald.ansteorra.org/ILoI/> (or  
if the Ansteorran Gazette in which it was published--usually the one  
from the same month--is in the archive for those <http:// 
herald.ansteorra.org/gazette/>), you can see the submitted emblazons  
there.  (The H.S.T. listing for Emma de Fetherstan says her current  
device was in the 6/02 ILoI, for example, and the emblazon for that  
device is, indeed, available at <http://herald.ansteorra.org/ILoI/ 
iloi200206.pdf>.)

If the item was submitted through one of the kingdoms that has an  
online roll of arms <http://www.modaruniversity.org/ 
Heraldry2.htm#Rolls>, you could check there.  Verify the emblazon  
matches the registered blazon, though.  People do make mistakes, and  
the online rolls of arms generally use freshly-generated emblazons  
rather than emblazons extracted from submissions forms, due to  
copyright issues with the latter.

Sometimes you can find emblazons elsewhere online by simply searching  
for a gentle's name with your favorite engine.  (Put "Coblaith  
Muimnech" into Google, for instance, and the first return will be my  
homesite, where my arms appear.)  Again, you'll need to check the  
emblazon against the registered blazon to ensure it's correct.

If all that fails and you really can't figure out how to emblazon a  
particular device yourself, you can ask Ragged Staff Herald,  
currently Baroness Shauna of Carrick Point, to give you a peek at the  
registered emblazon.  Contact me off-list, and I'll give you her e- 
mail address.


Coblaith Muimnech
<mailto:Coblaith at sbcglobal.net>
<http://coblaith.net>