A New Edition of an Early American Treasure from American Ancestors and Palfrey Press
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A New Edition of an Early American Treasure from American Ancestors and Palfrey Press
The Gore Roll, a rare and precious artifact, the earliest known roll of arms in America, is now available in print for the first time.
July 10, 2024 (Boston, Mass.)
The Gore Roll: The Earliest Known Roll of Arms in America, a new book from American Ancestors® and Palfrey Press, brings the Gore Roll, a unique artifact of colonial American history and art, to life in full color for the first time ever. This significant publication offers a fresh perspective on early American culture, identity, and decorative arts. The special edition presents the original roll of arms in context with information written by scholars and historians of heraldic arts and is a timely release, as the 36th International Congress of Genealogical and Heraldic Sciences holds its first-ever conference in the United States in Boston in September 2024.
The Gore Roll
The Gore Roll, named after its author, John Gore (1718 –1796), a Boston coach painter, is a treasure from the mid- to late eighteenth century. It features eighty-four complete coats of arms in pen and ink and watercolor and fifteen uncolored drawings of arms, each providing rich insight into heraldic traditions in North America.
The Gore Roll was missing or lost for more than seventy years. Copies were created by historian Isaac Child in 1847 and Harold Bowditch, a Boston doctor and heraldic scholar, in 1926. In 1934, Dr. Bowditch secured the original Gore Roll and donated it to New England Historic Genealogical Society (also known as American Ancestors®).
In this new publication, the original eighteenth-century roll, the nineteenth-century copy, and the twentieth-century copy are reproduced together for the first time, in full color. The pages of the Gore Roll are accompanied by relevant artwork from The Book of Coates and Creasts: The Promptuarium Armorum, a roll of arms created between 1602 and 1616 by William Smith, Rouge Dragon Pursuivant of Arms in Ordinary at the College of Arms, London. Dr. Bowditch’s insightful monograph, published by the Rhode Island Historical Society in 1936, is presented alongside the Gore Roll paintings, also for the first time.
Included, as an appendix, is Bowditch’s 1944 Colonial Society of Massachusetts essay, “Early Water-Color Paintings of New England Coats of Arms.”
Heraldry is more than a display of colorful shields and crests. It is a tapestry of lineage and legacy that speaks to longing for identity and belonging. In colonial America, where an emerging merchant class was vying for status and respectability alongside landed gentry, this longing was especially keen. This important work offers fresh insights into how some early Americans saw themselves.
Brady Brim-DeForest
Brady Brim-DeForest, Publisher of Palfrey Press and Patron of the 36th International Congress of Genealogical and Heraldic Sciences, holds the original 1750s Gore Roll.
The Gore Roll: The Earliest Known Roll of Arms in America
By Harold Bowditch
Foreword by Brady Brim-DeForest
Preface by Ryan J. Woods
Introduction by D. Brenton Simons OBE
“The Gore Roll and the Committee on Heraldry’s Roll of Arms” by Nathaniel Lane Taylor
7-¾ x 12-½ hardcover, 344 pages, illustrated
This definitive edition of the Gore Roll is being made available at the same time registration is open for the 36th International Congress of Genealogical and Heraldic Sciences, which will take place in Boston, Massachusetts, September 24–28, 2024, the first time the conference has been held in the United States. American Ancestors, a national center for family history, culture, and heritage and the preeminent publisher of family history–related scholarship, is hosting the conference.
Read more about the International Congress of Genealogical and Heraldic Sciences.
The Gore Roll is a fascinating piece of art and history, and we are delighted to make it available in its original form through the patronage of Brady Brim-DeForest and in collaboration with Palfrey Press. Conserving records that tell our history is part of our mission, and so is sharing documents, stories, and artifacts with as wide an audience as possible to help educate, inspire, and connect people through history and genealogy.
The Committee on Heraldry, founded by the New England Historic Genealogical Society, is the oldest non-governmental heraldic body in the world. The Committee was formed to “collect and preserve information in regard to heraldry.” Its interests are national in scope, embracing the use and understanding of heraldry throughout the current United States and all its colonial predecessors. The Committee actively supports heraldic education, offers symposia and online programming, assists in collecting and conserving original manuscripts, seeks donations of heraldic publications, and, in conjunction with other activities at American Ancestors, engages with constituents throughout the United States and abroad who wish to learn more about heraldry in their family histories.
About American Ancestors
American Ancestors® is a national nonprofit center for family history, heritage & culture based in Boston, Massachusetts, that has been setting the gold standard for genealogical research since its founding in 1845. Today, American Ancestors serves 400K+ members and subscribers through AmericanAncestors.org, one of the world’s largest online collections of family history resources. In 2025, American Ancestors launched the Family Heritage Experience, an interactive, state-of-the-art exhibition that introduces visitors to the joy of family history research, located at 97 Newbury Street at our headquarters in Boston. American Ancestors is also home to the Wyner Family Jewish Heritage Center, which preserves New England’s Jewish history, and 10 Million Names, a project dedicated to finding the names of the enslaved men, women, and children in pre- and post-colonial America before emancipation.
About Palfrey Press
Palfrey Press is a specialist publisher producing authoritative historical books on diverse subjects including heraldry, oral history, architecture, and other antiquarian matters. Drawing on an extensive network of subject matter experts Palfrey Press aims to deliver best-in-class books, combining exceptional research with world-class art. Palfrey Press was founded by Brady BrimDeForest in 2022.
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