[5] The Washington family traces its roots to England in the 13th century to Wessyngton, a small rural estate in the northeastern county of Durham where Sir William de Hertburn received a lordship.

In 1346, the first appearance of the family coat of arms as we would recognize it was recorded for Sir William de Wessyngton's great-grandson, but with argent (silver) horizontal bars and mullets on a gules (red) field.

George used the coat of arms extensively on his Mount Vernon plantation, including on personal objects and on the livery of his enslaved servants.

[10] In the early 20th Century, the Thompsen-Bryan-Ellis Company was a firm of printers working on a flag book under the direction of Lieutenant Commander Byron McCandless who had a great interest in vexillology.

Charles Moore, the chairman of the Fine Arts Commission who had been consulted on the drafting of the bill, also agreed that the design should be simple and should emphasize in some way that the district is the seat of the central government of all the states.

[15] In February of that year, Charles Dunn submitted a set of drawings in black and white and in color to the Evening Star which was published on March 16, 1924.

The "special committee" was headed by Fred S. Walker and James W. Murphy who came forward with the emblem with Jesse C. Suter as a member: a goat on a field of yellow.

The goat and double cross [...] speak more or less for themselves, while the yellow is symbolic of the lemon which the District is continually having handed it under the present system of government.

On September 16, 1934, Frederic Adrian Delano, chairman of the National Capital Planning Commission and the uncle of President Franklin D. Roosevelt unveiled his design for a district flag.

In place of the stars a map of Washington when the city was first projected in 1792 was added and was surrounded by pictures of the Capitol, the White House, the Lincoln Memorial, Mount Vernon, the Supreme Court Building, the Lee Mansion and the Amphitheater at Arlington, the Dumbarton House in Georgetown and the Masonic Memorial and Christ Church in Alexandria.

The Evening Star stated at the time that this was a first step for the people of Washington toward the district's sovereignty which would include the right to vote.

[11][30] Charles Dunn submitted his 1921 design with the Washington coat of arms with all the charges in their original tincture of gules (red) in June 1938.

In addition to the flag itself, he proposed the use of a Washington coat of arms in the canton (which he erroneously called a jack) for local organizations such as the American Legion.

On a blue background, a big gold star made up of 13 concentric lines representing the original Thirteen Colonies with the Capitol Building in the center.

In their September 8, 1938 meeting, the Association of Oldest Inhabitants asked that the Commission of Fine Arts collaborate with a special committee of native Washingtonians as they felt left out.

[34] On a letter to the commissioner they stated their concerns: Our association believes that such a flag, in order to be appropriate and truly representative of the District, must have some definite local significance.

The design was described as "paying honors to George Washington using the major elements of the emblem features of the family shield of the first President".

The direct association of the first president with the establishment of the district and the capital city bearing his name was sufficient to justify using heraldic symbolism in the flag to illustrate the historical connection.

He responded to the failure to include the local population (directly or through the civic associations) by stating that anyone interested could submit a design and that it would have been reviewed.

[42] Commissioner Hazen also announced that the flag could first be flown at the Inter-American Horse Show at Meadowbrook Farm, in Montgomery County, Maryland, on October 23, 1938, which would be designated as District Day.

The new design would have added the letters "D.C." to the center star and the words "Taxation Without Representation" in white to the two red bars, a slogan already in use on the district's license plates.

Today, it is used extensively by the DC Government's Statehood Campaign, activists and citizens fighting for the District of Columbia to become the 51st State of the Union.

The failure to involve the local population in the selection of their flag did not go unnoticed and many found new meanings for the stars and bars with many negative symbols and parallels.

[46] The chairman of the Flag Committee of the Society of Natives noted: One critic finds fault with the absence of blue and of the predominance of red.

"[73] Surely the hand of Moscow would have been suspected of animating the commission had this banner bearing so much red been born at that time.A citizen had similar views.

[81] It appears that the coat of arms had been used by the family in the Colony for some time as George Washington reported in his letter to Sir Isaac Heard on May 2, 1792.

[81] It is well documented that George Washington, a British subject until the Revolutionary War, used this coat of arms extensively at Mount Vernon and on many objects.

While the United States were no longer under British rule after its independence, it appears that George Washington was actually studying his family heritage later in life both in terms of genealogy and heraldry as visible in his correspondence with the College of Arms represented by Isaac Heard from 1791 to 1796.

The question was raised with regards to the design of the Great Seal of the United States[84] and the possible need for regulations which George Washington was reluctant to the idea because of the fragility of the Union.

In his view "it might not [...] be advisable to stir any question, that would tend to reanimate the dying embers of faction, or blow the dormant spark of jealousy into an inextinguishable flame.