Does anybody know where I can get an image of my family crest online for free?

Question

I am trying to get my family crest tattooed on me and I need a large enough image for the artist to see, everywhere I find online its charging like $15 for the image...there has to be somewhere where I can get my OWN family crest for free online...Anyone know anything PLEASE let me know ASAP....Thanks

Answer 1

The first 2 posters are absolutely correct. There is no such thing as a family crest. A crest is part of a coat of arms. Coats of arms DO NOT belong to surnames.  They were and  are granted to individual men and are passed down through the direct male line of descendancy.  Only the oldest son gets his father's coat of arms.  The other sons are entitled to one with some differences.

People who display walnut plaques, coffee mugs, tshirts, keychains etc with a coat of arms on them frequently are displaying valid coats of arms which belongs to someone with their surname who probably isn't even related.

Also, there might have been more than one man with your surname, not all necessarily related, that were each granted their own coat of arms, all different.  No one peddler that sells them on the internet, at shopping malls, at airports, in magazines or solicit by mail will have all of them. They don't need to in order to sell to the gullible.  At the same time it is possible that you never had a direct male line ancestor that was ever granted a coat of arms.  Most people don't.

Edit: Here is a link regarding Irish coats of arms

http://www.heraldry.ws/info/article10.ht...

Answer 2

There is no such thing as a "family crest", a crest is the decoration on the helmet, just part of a heraldic achievement known as a "coat of arms".

There are probably thousands of people with the same name as you, if one, or any of them, have a coat of arms it belongs only to them, not to everyone with the same name.

To find out if your family had a coat of arms, you must trace your lineage back to the man who was granted the right to those arms, and prove your descent using documentary evidence which you then present to the Chief Herald of the country which awarded the grant, if he is satisfied that your claim is proven he can then give you permission to continue the grant. see :

http://www.college-of-arms.gov.uk/Faq.ht...

You can of course design your own ! There is nothing to prevent you doing that.

"The notorious "Coat of arms for the Name of Jones, Smith, or whatever," purchasable by mail order or in one's local shopping mall, represents no more than improper and illegitimate armorial bearings. To buy and bear these commercially produced arms is to claim for oneself a direct kinship which has only the most remote possibility of validity, and is thereby to deny one's own legitimate and rightful line of descent. Such infraction of armorial regulation and custom constitutes a flagrant abuse of arms which no knowledgeable and honorable person would intentionally commit."

http://www.americancollegeofheraldry.org...

Answer 3

What makes you think you have a family crest in the first place?

The crest is part of a coat of arms, so unless you have a coat of arms you don't have a crest. Period. And most people don't have a coat of arms. Your family won't have one unless at some time it has been gentry (or higher-ranking still). Even if your family does have one, only the current head of the family and his unmarried daughters are entitled to use it; it isn't "family property" (unless you're Polish; rather different rules apply in Poland).

If you are genuinely the head of an armigerous family (that is, one of gentry status that has been granted a coat of arms recognised by the heraldic authority of your country), part of that will be a crest, and an very precise description of it will exist in the heraldic authority's records. Suppose that crest is a swan's head and neck, or a red lion rampant. You're at liberty to portray that lion or that swan's head any way you like provided it conforms to the written description - there's no magic about any particular image. So you can draw it yourself, or ask a talented friend to do it for you.

When you talk about "everywhere I find online its charging like $15 for the image..." presumably you mean the sites that say "input your surname and we'll tell you your family crest"? The thing you need to realise about those sites is that they are ALL lying. They can't possibly know if you have a family crest, and even if you have they can't possibly know what it is. Suppose your name is Perkins. You type that name into the box, and it comes up with an image labelled "The Perkins Family Crest". But all they have done is look up the surname Perkins in an old heraldic directory, found a coat of arms that was at some time granted to one specific person called Perkins, and stuck an image of it on their site. There are hundreds of unrelated families called Perkins, and the person this coat of arms belonged to may be totally unrelated to you. Even if by pure fluke that person happens to have been your ancestor, you still don't have any right to use that coat of arms unless you are his senior descendant in the male line. And if you do have a coat of arms they may well have shown you the wrong one! (My maternal grandmother was from an armigerous family, and when I put her surname into one of these websites, the search brought up a quite different coat of arms from hers.) So don't waste time or money looking at those sites.

And don't for heaven's sake get yourself tattooed up with a coat of arms belonging to someone in New Zealand or Cumbria or somewhere, who is nothing whatever to do with you!

Edited to add:

Hey, McKeegan, if you're h**l-bent on tattooing yourself with a coat of arms that none of your ancestors may ever have had, just note down the main features of it, and/or the verbal description, and re-draw it. Doesn't matter if you don't get it precisely the same - it isn't YOUR coat of arms anyway, it's just a decoration.

Answer 4

Here is the actual record as recorded in The General Armory. This is what they are selling as your "family crest".

Mac Egan (Bally-Mac-Egan, County Tipperary; confirmed by Hawkins, Ulster, 1715, to Darby Eagan, Esq. Barrister at law, son of John Eagan, Esq., of Uskean, Grandson of Constance Egan, Esq., of Killenlagh and great-grandson of Daniel Mac Egan, Esq., of Bally-mac-Egan). Quarterly, 1st Gules a tower argent supported on either side by a man in complete armour, each holding in the interior hand a battle axe all proper, in chief a snake fessways Or, 2nd & 3rd, Or, on a bend vert three plates; 4th, gules a tower between two men in complete armour, as in the 1st quarter, on the tower a swan proper. Crest: a tower argent issuant from the top a demi man in armour couped at the knees, holding in the dexter hand a battle axe all proper. Motto: Fortitude et Prudentia.

Please think hard before marking yourself with something that may make you persona non grata among some circles and in some places because it is based on a misunderstanding of the Coat of Arms and heraldic traditions.

USA answer

Answer 5

Heads up.. you are on the internet.  You can find ANYTHING ON THE INTERNET.. that does not make it legitimate.

Of course, the places are going to charge you.. they are in business to sell something, including coffee mugs or keychains.  They will tell you what you want to hear.. and it isn't necessarily right.  STAY AWAY FROM SUCH PLACES.

http://www.college-of-arms.gov.uk/Faq.ht...

Educate yourself FIRST.  Don't be gullible. If you buy coffee mugs with a fake family crest on them, at least you can box them up and put them in the closet, when you realize that they were a rip off.