Heraldry was akin to reading a book in the old days when fewer people could read, and signs were pictorial. I recently bought over 600 digital books on Scotland, including several on Scottish heraldry. The gem of the lot is "A System Of Heraldry..." by Nisbet published in 1816. There I found Heraldic proof that we are correct in our claim that we have discovered the Y-DNA haplogroup of our ancient Clan Johnstoun Chiefs.

You may have noticed that the surname starts with an "I" and not a "J". This is a throwback to ancient Roman times. A "J" was difficult for stone masons to carve as the hook at the bottom often broke out. The solution was to eliminate the hook which makes the "J" look like an "I". This style was carried over to the days of the early printing presses too as illustrations were carved into wood blocks. Wood has a tendency to break out easily at the hook of the "J", just as stone does; therefore, a "J" was made to look like an "I" as we see here.

These are 2 images of the Gretna coat of arms - one as it came from the book, and the other cleaned up a wee bit and with a few engraving gaps filled in, but nothing altered. Compare just the Graitny (Gretna) shield to that of our Chief. They are identical. Where they differ is in the full achievement which is not shown for our Clan Chief here, but is for Johnston of Graitny. Here we see the crest (the figure above the helmet) as a warrior brandishing a sword while on horseback. Our Clan Chief had the familiar and traditional winged spur as his crest. The helmet atop the shield is interesting. Knights and baronets used this style of helmet, but with the visor tilted open; however, here we see that the Johnston of Graitny used a closed visor. This indicates that he did not have a formal title granted by the king, and there is no record of a title ever having been granted to him. He got his land and money the hard way. He and his ancestors earned it with the lance and the sword.

Notice the shape of the sword - a scimitar, not a Claymore or a basket hilt as one would expect. In heraldry this a reference to participation of an ancestor in the Crusades.

I find it interesting that of all of the Johnston arms to draw on, Nisbet included only the arms of Johnston of Graitny and the arms of Johnston of Westraw. As our Clan was officially leaderless in 1816, the image of the arms of our last Clan Johnston Chief were not included in his opus of 2 volumes. They were described though.