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VI
THE LEARNED FAMILY IN AMERICA
Acknowledgments to the following are gratefully recorded: Dr. Harold Bowditch, lately deceased, of the New England Historic and Genealogical Society, who gave freely of his knowledge, time and advice; Ann.e Belle Learned Beasley (Mrs. W. B.) of Wallace, N.C.; Helen Sweet Dawson i.Vlrs. A. Stuart, Jr.) of Saint Louis; Thelma Lamed Francis (Mrs. Lester P.) of Saint Louis; Jane Lamed French (Mrs. Dale A.) of Denver; the late Judge Learned Hand, of the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals; Leland Hilligoss, Senior Reference Librarian, Saint Louis Public Library; Margaret Nobes Howe (Mrs. Harold H.) of Cheyenne; Geraldine Jostrand (Mrs. Robert A.) of Saint Louis; Miss Dorothy Lamed, of Winchester, Mass.; Esther Eckberg Lamed (Mrs. Lynn S.) of Houston, Tex.; Mr. and Mrs. Richard A. Lamed, of East Palo Alto, Calif.; Robert Morse Lamed, of Topsfield, Mass.; Alvah C. Learned, of Houston, Tex.; the late Andrew Brown Learned, of Natchez, Miss.; Benoni C. Learned, Sylvan Lake, Alberta, Canada; Charles H. Learned, of Stockton, Calif.; Laura Morely Learned (Mrs. Harry A.) of Riverside, R.I.; the late Roy Ernest Learned, of Stockton, Calif.; Mr. and Mrs. Samuel C. Learned, of Madison, Wis.; Stanley Learned, of Bartlesville, Okla.; Vincent Roy Learned, of Gainesville, Fla.; Miss Welthea Learned, of Salt Lake City; Wilmer Harrison Learned, of Zenith, Kan.; Howard M. Lemaster, of Carlinville, 111.; the late J. T. Liddell, former mayor of Learned, Miss.; the A. N. Marquis Co., Mr. K. N. Anglemire, president, for kind permission to cite Learneds listed in Who's Who in America; Marian Learned Meader (Mrs. Charles N.) of Denver, Colo.; Isabel Learned Mintz(Mrs. Darrell W., Sr.) of Tacoma, Wash.; Bessie Learned Moore (Mrs. Arthur E.), Mexico, N.Y.; Lucy Wilde Mulligan (Mrs. C. W.) of Hoquiam, Wash.; Miss Charlotte Murphy, of Saint Louis; Hattie Learned Nobel (Mrs. B. C.), Spiritwood, Sask., Canada; Shirley Smith Norling, of Skokie, 111.; Ivah Meyers Roddick (Mrs. W. A.) of Portage, Wis.; Dr. Charles Sellers, Librarian, Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pa.; Jessie Latourette Silvius (Mrs. H. T? Jr.) of Sacramento, Calif.; Rubie Pfrinney Snocker (Mrs. Frederick A.| of Wheatland, Wyo.; Beulah Coolidge Soderer (Mrs. Augustus H.) of Santa Cruz, Calif.; Ruby Learned Tanner (Mrs. H. F.) of Bountiful, Utah.; Edith Learned Thompson (Mrs. Carroll W.) of Glendale, Calif.; the late William Whipple, of North Platte, Neb.; and by no means least, my dear husband, Clifford R. James, who endured, and who devised the usable numbering system.
Prior to 30 September 1604, when we find a baptismal record at Ware, Hertfordshire, England, of one Sarah Leonarde, daughter of William Leonarde,
THE LEARNED FAMILY IN AMERICA
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in spite of repeated search, no records under any similar name have been found. The origin of the Learned family is not known.
The coat-of-arms used by many members since the mid-eighteenth century has never been proved authentic. The arms are blazoned: "He beareth Azure a Saltire engrailed Or, between four diamonds Argent. Crest on a wreath a griffin rampant; by the name of Lamard, granted and confirmed the 4th of Feb., 1582, in the 25th year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth to John Lamard of Fenton in the County of Nottingham, Esquire, Son and heir of the late Robert Lamard, of Shropshire, M.A."
Aside from this reference in the first and second editions of The Learned Family, the only other mention of these arms is found in Wm. A. Crozi General Armory ed. 1904 (reprint, Baltimore, 1957) p. 84.
It was the considered opinion of the late Dr. Harold Bowditch, physician, heraldry expert, and long-time secretary of the Committee on Heraldry of the New England Historic and Genealogical Society (NE H&G Register, cxix, January 1965, p. 3) that the blazon of these arms w? * the work of John Coles, heraldic painter who flourished in and around Boston and Charlestown after the Revolution, and died circa 1809.
In a letter dated 3 August 1956, Dr. Bowditch wrote:	. . the more I look
at it the more Coles I can see in it. Coles is known to have used John Guillim's Display of Heraldry ed. 1724 as well as one or another of Kent's heraldry books. Sometimes he (Coles) added a statement about the arms, either on the face of the paper or on a label stuck on the back of the frame, taken from Guillim, concerning the arms, appropriate to the name (or to one something like it) but not of course necessarily to the individual for whom he made the paintir and sometimes he seems to have invented the blazon and statement for the purpose ?as in the case of the Jameson arms . . .
?It seems to me quite possible that Mr. Learned, when he was writing his Genealogy, saw a painting of Lamard arms by Coles, which would then have been about a hundred years old, and have taken it at face value.?
On Christmas day, 1823, a copy of this coat-of-arms was given by James Learned7, (F-52) G-140, to his cousin, Mrs. Mary Stoddard Humphreys7, G-152, who gave it to her cousin, George Learned7, G-147, who gave it to the wife of Albert Hubbard Learned8, H-303, who gave it to her son, Ezra Read Learned9, 1-286, who states (1957) that the coat-of-arms is marked on the back with the date and the donor. (Learned Family, ed. li, marg. note).


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