Coat of Arms Can Enrich Hunt for Roots

A Northern Ireland family firm has become an international success story by tracking down people’s roots and finding their ancestral coats of arms.

From President Bush to the Beatles, everyone wants to know where they come from, and the O’Corrains aim to find out, however hard the detective work in each genealogical call to arms.

Around the world and through the alphabet from Aaron to Zwenski, O’Corrain Heraldry has tapped a rich market in the roots business, which began with a simple little display in an Australian shopping center.

The firm now has 40,000 family names on its computer records and can track down a total of 500,000 in the mass of reference books strewn across the office at its humble headquarters in the Northern Ireland seaside town of Bangor.

After the grueling research work is done, the firm’s artists meticulously paint the family coat of arms onto each individual bronze plaque and out they go around the world.

O’Corrain Heraldry produces 12,000 plaques a year, boasts an annual turnover of $750,000 and has set up franchises and agents in the United States, Britain, Canada, South America, West Germany and South Africa.

“One of our agents in the U.S. got the order for the Bush plaque, which is now hanging in the White House,” said Juanita O’Corrain, who with her sister and two brothers works alongside their father Dan in the family coat-of-arms corporation.

“We did one for George Harrison of the Beatles which was ordered by a friend. We also worked one out for Ringo Starr and his wife. We even have a couple hanging in the House of Commons in London,” she said.

The O’Corrain family emigrated to Australia in the 1970s at the height of the political and sectarian conflict raging in Northern Ireland.

Dan O’Corrain, always an avid fan of family trees, worked first as a chef but then really hit the jackpot by putting on a display in a Melbourne shopping center offering to track down people’s roots.

His passion for heraldry and genealogy was an instant success and he set up investigative agencies in Perth and Cairns. The family then decided to move to pastures new in the United States.

Juanita takes up the story. “We came back to Bangor to say hello and goodby to everyone before going off to the States. But then we put up another shopping center display, it was such a success and Dad decided to make a go of it.”

Now, O’Corrain Heraldry’s tentacles stretch around the world from Boston to Brisbane. The firm even has a display shop on board that elegant old ocean liner Queen Mary, now docked as a tourist attraction at Long Beach, Calif.

“It has really taken off in the last three years. We just keep getting busier and busier,” said the black-haired Juanita who, despite her name, is as Irish as Guinness Stout.

“It is not just Irish names. We do them all over Europe--Swiss, English, French, Dutch, Scandinavian, Polish. We can lay our hands on at least 500,000 coats of arms. The oldest we have done dates back to the 4th Century,” she said.

“I feel like a detective. It’s very satisfying but there are times I could kill the customer for having such an awkward name,” she said. One out of every 100 requests defeats them.

Dan O’Corrain is now opening up studios across the border in Donegal in the Irish Republic for artwork and research into ancient coats of arms--which were initially painted on shields by knights as their insignia on the field of battle.

Despite the worldwide expansion, the company still personifies the small-is-beautiful ethic with Juanita stressing that it is the individual touch that pays rich dividends.

“Everyone wants to know where they come from. But it is a very personal thing,” she said. “That is why it is all face-to-face advertising.”