There are those who want to sell a JONES "Coat of Arms". This implies that there is only one JONES family, with a common male ancestor. This has been shown not to be the case. [See post: "Phonetic not Genetic", June 6, 2011, and "Genetic Bowel of Spaghetti", June 10, 2011. Also under blog http://jonessurnamedna.blogspot.com, posts : "The Jones Surname: Not genetic but Phonetic", June 18, 2011, and "Multiple Roots", June 22, 2011.] Thus, there can not be a single JONES "Coat of Arms" for the JONES surname. There are multiple coat of arms under families that carry the JONES surname, but more often than not, they are not related genetically.
As early as 1840, there were at least 123 JONES coat of arms! These are analyzed by the primary symbol (charge) shown in the figure to the right. The lion represented 45% of the symbols placed upon the shields. The "lion rampant" was 34%. The cross/pheons (spear heads) was second with 13%. Swords, arrows, and spear heads were third at about 9%. A breakdown of these symbols are shown in the flow chart, with birds, boar's heads, Nag's (horses), Stag's heads, Wolfe's heads, and Bull's heads being found. This shows multiple symbols, for multiple JONES families. Unless you can discover which JONES family you are related, then you will not know which "coat of arms" belongs to your Y-chromosome.
This figure was taken from The Jones Genealogist, Vol. VIII, No. 5, July/August, 1996, p.5.
For anyone interested in the Jones Coat of Arms, I have created vector arms for all 102 blazons listed under the surname Jones in Burke's Armorial General. You can visit my website here: Jones Coat of Arms. Please give us a visit as it took me a very long time to create these images.
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