Branches of the NN families
Posted: Sun May 06, 2012 11:47 am
I will post different information here on the different branches
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'Sir John Nisbet of Dean, Baronet, his family has been in use for a long time, by Allowance of Authority, to carry supporters, viz., on the right Side of the Shield a Savage wreathed about the Head and Middle, holding a Baton in his Right Hand all proper, and on the left Side a Greyhound proper; which two Supporters uphold the principal Arms of the Family of Nisbet of That Ilk; viz. Argent, three Boars Heads erased Sable, armed and langued Gules, with the crest of the Family, laying aside the Cheveron, a mark of Cadency, used formerly by the House of Dean: In Regard that the Family of Dean has Right, by Consent, to represent the old original Family of the Name of Nisbet, since the only lineal Male Representer (the Author of this System) is like to go soon off the World, being an old Man, and without Issue, Male or Female.
Nisbet's original MS. is in the possession of the Lyon Office, and it proves that the passage on account of which he has been denounced as a, 'trafficker,' who retailed for a pittance the ancient honours of his family, has been interpolated, by those who prepared the posthumously-issued folio, between entries of the arms of Dalmahoy of that Ilk and of Edgar of Wedderlie.
In the volume published by Messrs. Ross and Grant a facsimile is given of the page containing these entries, and they show that this is only one of a long series of garblings and falsifications, foisted in Nisbet's name and to the injury of his reputation. These heraldic and genealogical frauds, which remained undiscovered for a hundred and fifty years, have been set down to the account of Roderick Chalmers, 'herald and herald-painter,' to whom the preparation of the folio was committed. The quotation given above must be pronounced the most flagrant of the series, since Nisbet is made to come forward in his own person, with an appeal to our sympathies, while practically confessing an offence against the canons of the science of which he was an ardent student. The editors of the Nisbet Plates pronounce that 'the deed was perpetrated in the interests of the Dean branch of the Nisbet family, whose influence throughout Volume 2 of the folio, in which they more than once claim to be the principal family of the name, is quite apparent.' 'There can be no doubt,' it is said, 'that it was effected between 1723 and 1728, and the irony of the situation consists in the fact that Sir John Nisbet of Dean, for whose family glorification the fraud was concocted, died fourteen years before the world became acquainted with the ambitious claim made by him on behalf of his family.' As Sir John, like Alexander Nisbet and Roderick Chalmers, is no longer here to answer for himself, it seems only fair to say that the allegation that this bold heraldic 'fake' was made on his prompting and with his collusion is, after all, a suspicion founded on assumed motive, and falls considerably short of proof. It has not been shown that he ever made use of the 'principal Family Arms'; and the fact that the claim of a right to do so did not appear in print until so many years after his death should tell in his favour.