Or, you can take your pick, There are loads of ancestral coats of arms in my family. Fortunately, none of them I can say I really like. Do I feel like having someone come up with one for me? Heck no!

I think the use of the term "fraud" is a bit severe here since all that is being presented is a that you are being deceived of something. These people are selling some form of history.

And as others have pointed out, it can add as impetus to learning our family history.

My dad traces his family back to the 12th Century, which isn't as interesting to me as my mother's American mutt family. I started doing research on that based upon curiosity and orphaned family photos.

Scratch back far enough and I am sure most people have interesting ancestors.