My arms are assumed, designed by me with the help of members of the now vanished Scots Heraldry forum several years ago.



The blazon is "Or a lion passant Sable between in chief three stars Azure voided Argent and in base on a bar wavy Azure a barrulet wavy Silver." The crest is "a dexter hand proper brandishing a Creek Indian atassa (war club) Gules." The motto, Caelum non animum mutant, means "They change their skies but not their souls." A cousin and I recorded the arms with the NEHGS Committee on Heraldry in 2005 in the name of my great-grandfather (my cousin's grandfather) Rustem Warthen McMillan.

The arms were designed to conform with Scottish design practice even though they weren't granted by Lord Lyon. The earliest I can trace my McMillan line thus far is to my great-great-great grandfather Daniel's birth in South Carolina in 1808. (I don't think I'd apply for a Lyon grant anyway, but in any case I can't unless I can push the genealogy at least one more generation back.)

The arms of the chief of the clan, MacMillan of MacMillan and Knap, are "Or a lion rampant Sable in chief three mullets Azure." I turned the lion from rampant to passant and hypothetically assigned my unknown pre-Revolutionary ancestor an additional difference of a bar wavy Azure in base. These would be appropriate arms for an indeterminate cadet.

Then I charged the bar wavy with a barrulet wavy Argent, since I don't know whether Daniel was the eldest son.

My great-great grandfather Jesse was Daniel's fourth son, so we need another difference. This was to void the three stars in chief with Argent.

Rustem was Jesse's only son. My grandfather was Rustem's second son, but the eldest leaving issue. My father was a first son, as am I, so Rustem's arms would descend to me under Scottish rules as the heir male.

As for symbolism:
- The bar wavy in base represents Tallasahatchee Creek in Alabama, where Daniel McMillan established the family farm in the 1830s.
- The voiding of the stars comes from the white stars on blue from the U.S. flag.
- The crest is based on that of the chief (two hands holding a claymore), replacing the characteristic Scottish weapon with the characteristic weapon of the people from whom Daniel "acquired" his land.
- The motto comes from a Latin poem that goes "Those who travel across the seas change their skies but not their souls." I see this as a reference to the Scottish immigrant experience, and the lion sable passant over the water with the stars differenced for cadency can be read as a graphic expression of this motto.