A coat of arms belongs to one person and that person's descendants, not to everyone who shares a surname. Every heraldic authority grants arms to a named individual, and the right to bear them passes on only through a documented line back to that grant. Two people named Campbell are not automatically entitled to the same arms just because they share a surname, and in most cases neither is entitled to any arms at all.
The only way to know whether a real claim exists is to trace an unbroken line back to the person who was granted the arms, then check that line against the authority's own register, not a surname database. Scotland's Public Register of All Arms and Bearings is searchable from 1672 to 1923 through Scotland's People; later entries mean writing to the Court of the Lord Lyon directly. The College of Arms holds the equivalent records for England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, and searches them for a fee. A plaque with a surname on it settles nothing either way.
Who Actually Grants Arms
No Heraldic Authority in the United States
The United States has never had an office that grants or registers personal coats of arms. The Institute of Heraldry, the Army office whose heraldic authority dates to a 1957 federal law, designs seals, medals, and insignia for the federal government and military, not family arms for private citizens. The American College of Heraldry keeps a private, voluntary registry, but recording a design there carries no legal weight. Nothing in U.S. law regulates coats of arms, so anyone can adopt a design and call it a family crest, which is what makes the surname sales pitch work.
How the Surname Sellers Operate
Companies that sell a "family coat of arms," sometimes called bucket shops, pull whatever design is on file for a surname in old printed armorials, whether or not the buyer descends from the person the arms were granted to. Halbert's, an Ohio company that mailed millions of solicitations, sometimes invented arms for surnames with none on record; the U.S. Postal Service investigated it and similar firms as early as 1983 for false representation under federal mail law. A giveaway sign is a surname printed inside the scroll meant for a motto. South Africa treats the practice itself as a crime: since a 1980 amendment to its Heraldry Act, a dealer who sells a "family coat of arms" without a Bureau of Heraldry certificate of authenticity can be prosecuted.
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