Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 027

Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 027

This report is available at http://www.s-gabriel.org/027

This is one of the Academy's earliest reports. We are not confident that these early reports are accurate. Please use it with caution.

Greetings,

Here's what we found out about the name "Turner." Reaney (Dict. of British Surnames) derives "Turner" from several sources. The more common (apparently) is Old French tornour, tourneour, "turner", a craftsman who works with a lathe; or a turnspit; or a translater. Second, it is a variant of tornoieor, tournoieur, "participant in a tournament". Third, Turnehare (1224, 1301) "turn hare," a nickname for a very fast runner. For the first derivations, he cites le Turnur in 1180; le tornur, tornator, and le turner in 1191.

We haven't found a coat of arms belong to a "Turner" at this point. Where did you find your reference? It's possible that we can determine whether it's accurate or not.

We also wanted to clarify what it means to see arms attributed to "Turner." In period, many countries (including England) didn't use "family arms." In these places, arms are the property of an individual, and those arms are passed on from generation to generation as an inheritance. Finding arms attributed to your surname does not mean that you have the right to carry those arms; it means that someone with your last name once had the right to carry them. If a father with arms had two sons, only the oldest son would inherit the right to those arms. The other sons would often make some change to their father's arms (called "differencing") to indicate their relation. Even if you find "family arms" attached to your surname, there's no evidence that they belong to your relations; people with the same last name are not necessarily related, and demonstrating a relationship back to period is a major genealogical task.

For SCA purposes, it would be appropriate to find arms belonging to a person with the same surname and period as your persona and to difference them in some way. Almost any change in arms was used as differencing; among the most common are adding a set of charges, changing a tincture in the arms, or changing the type of a secondary charge.