Here it may be well to say that if the reader will constantly keep in mind that the Norse Rognvald, the Norman-French Lupus and the English Wolf are synonymous names and that whenever in the history the text discloses either of these names, or displays the representation of a wolf, generally a wolf's head, it refers directly to Rognvald or to his descendants. This may be called the key to our family history.

The descendants of Rognvald became scattered and dwelt in many lands where they became rulers so that it was not long before the old name and designation had ceased to be used and each branch of the family acquired a new family name and adopted its own insignia of arms. One of the grandsons of Rognvald however retained the old name and distinguishing arms. From this grandson of Rognvald descended Hugh Lupus whose arms was the wolf head erased of the feild that is to say represented as forcibly separated from the body. So that at the very begining of our male line of ancestry this was our coat of arms.

In 912 Rollo became Duke of Normandy in France; hence he felt himself a king and really was one, so he changed his arms from the Wolf to that of the Lion, so that this became the arms of our family.

See figure No. 2 NEXT