Many will read this book and admire the colorful coat of arms but really not know anything much about it. I am just about in the same boats so to speak., A few things have come to my attention in the last few years. when we lived in New Jersey my son Richard in Nashville, sent a MATHENY coat of arms painting. It was accompanied by a printed sheet about Heraldry and named several reference books. On the bottom was typed the following:

A year or so later I received a flier wanting to sell me a MATHENY coat of arms plaque. It was different.

Recently I received a Xerox copy of the METTENEYE coat of arms as shown in a Genealogical Society film.

It shows the shield and helmet the same as on the one in this book. The crest is different. (As I understand it, crests vary from family to family of the same name).

The point is I have four different designs for the MATHENY coat of arms, all telling different stories. As far as I am concerned, a coat of arms is a colorful symbol of the family name and is very nice to hang on a wall of your homme.

The coat of arms in this book, including the crest, fits the description of the MATHENY coat of arms adopted by the family in the fourteenth century. It was registered by the grandfather of John C. Matheny of Richmond, Va. (husband of Emma R.) This means that he submitted proofs that he was descended from the ancient Matheny family, to the Committee on Heraldry of the New England Historic and Genealogical Society of Boston, Mass., and that they accepted the proof and registered the design. To me, therefore, it would be the proper one for American Mathenys to use.

My grandsons Tim Matheny asked his French teacher to interpret the Matheny coat of arms description given at the beginning of this genealogical record. Bear in mind that she was interpreting old French words in the light of modern French and that she had no knowledge of heraldry symbols and words. Her interpretation:

The ancient arms of the Matheny family were those of Count de Vaudrey, differenced by a change of tincture (color); With black on top with a handle of three silver coins. (Bonvallet, Armorial de la Franche.)

The present arms the family adopted in the fourteenth century in Bruges (Belgium) are described by Riestap as: Red with a stripe of silver, accompanied by three circuits of gold with openings of azure (blue); court headpiece. Crest: A swan descending and soaring with a silver beak of red color holding in its beak a little ring of the same (kind); or a tower of the shield, between a flight banner of red; or a cat issuing from black hangings of gold and of red.