I don't think the heralds did any research themselves, they asked the family questions. Some people misremembered, and others left out what was unimportant to them.
I've got a family where the maternal grandmother was clearly known as Granny Brown because her first husband had died many years ago and she had remarried quite quickly to William Brown. So her daughter, who had died very young, must have been a Brown. Had she never remarried, they would have known she was actually Granny Smith. It took a researcher several hundred years later, who understood heraldry, to examine the tomb of the daughter and spot the error.
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The chestnuts cast their flambeaux
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