Spurlin coat of arms and heraldry

No 'family' arms

The Heraldry Society says a surname is not directly connected to a coat of arms. In its words there is "no coat of arms for the surname ... Smith ... or indeed any other surname and there never was." Arms are granted to a named person and passed to that person's heirs^[1]. Firms that sell "family crests" for any surname are known as "bucket shops". Wikipedia's article on heraldic fraud notes that at least one such firm invented arms for surnames that had none^[2]. HouseofNames sells Spurlin crest products on this basis. Its surname history pages are commercial and uncited^[3].

Historical arms of related English families

Sir Bernard Burke's General Armory (1884), a 19th-century register of British arms, has several relevant entries^[4]

• Sperling or Spurling of Weston, Hertfordshire (granted 1586): Azure, two bars or, in chief three mascles of the last. Crest: a greyhound sitting on a cap of maintenance^[4].
• Spurling of Essex: Argent, on a mount in base vert three gillyflowers proper, on a chief azure four six-pointed mullets or. Crest: a six-pointed mullet between two wings^[4]. The OCR text of the scan reads "Spurlin^". From the alphabetical position and the matching Sperling arms, this is taken to be "Spurling".
• Sperling of Dynes Hall, Essex, and Lattenbury Hill, Huntingdonshire: similar gillyflower-and-mullet arms, with the motto Sapiens qui assiduus^[4].
• Sparling of Petton, Shropshire (William Sparling, High Sheriff 1809): Erminois, three sparlings haurient proper. These are canting arms showing smelts; the motto is Virtutis honor praemium^[4].

Using these arms

These arms belonged to particular families and their heirs. A modern Spurlin has no right to use them unless descent from the original grantee can be shown. Most American Spurlin lines have no known link to those families^[1][2]. The entries are still useful to genealogists because they place Spurling and Sperling families in Hertfordshire and Essex from the 16th century onward^[4].

Commercial crest merchandise

The retailer House of Names sells "Spurlin" crest downloads, including "Heritage Series", "Legacy Series" and "Book Plated" JPGs, plus PDF surname histories.^[5][6] The crest image on its Spurlin page is stored under the name SPERLING, which suggests the vendor applies Sperling/Spurling arms to the Spurlin name.^[5] These items are novelty merchandise, not evidence of a grant of arms. See Spurlin surname merchandise.