How can I find my family crest? I don't mind paying to get it from a site, I just want it to be legit!!?

Question

It is for my best friend, he wants to get his family crest/ coat of arms tattooed on him and I can't find it anywhere. Its really hard. I know most of the sites I went to don't seem to have much info nor a good looking picture of what ever they think it is. And then other sites they have you pay a fee to have them research it. And he is to the point where he doesn't mind paying a website to do so. Please let me know, greatly appreciated!!

Answer 1

Most people don't actually have a family crest, and most of these sites are scams.

Maybe you can create your own--it will be just as legit as anything you pay for.

Answer 2

Basically as the others have said because this question comes up all the time; if you do not know what your family coat of arms is then you don't have one. For those families that have them, they pass them down.

What normally happens is someone with the name of say Larson goes to one of these places and asks for the Larson coat of arms. The man at the other end goes to his computer and looks up Larson and finds a coat of arms with Larson on it, prints it off for you and that's that.

Does your family have anything to do with the family that that coat of arms belongs to? You have the same last name but that doesn't really mean much, do you think you're related to everyone in the phonebook with the same last name as yours? Very Unlikely and the same applies here.

You need to research your family tree first and then if you find a coat of arms through your research at least then you'll know it belonged to someone related to you (or your friend in this case).

Answer 3

it may be that his papa or his other ancestors never tried for the family crest. then how he can find it. he will have to work hard.he should contact his some elders family friends and should know the place from where they came and then should go there personally and try to find out and locate it.

Answer 4

depending on youre friends family name, there's a good chance he doesn't even have a 'crest'. if i name isn't western european, of one of the areas that participated in a feudalistic system, it's highly unlikely that any of his ancestors had a crest. (ex. if his last name is "chang" or "muhammed"...) even if it is of european descent, that doesn't mean that he had a crest. in fact, most families never had a crest of any kind; there was a period of several hundred years where important families and royal families had crests, but the greater majority of people never had any sort of family symbol. many online and private comapnies claim to be able to dig up your 'family history' and your 'crest' but in reality, most of this information is fabricated. further, there's no way of knowing whether or not a crest is actually yours or not; they tend to be made up by these companies, and even if they're not, there's still no garuntee theey have the right one. for instance, if your from the "smith family...", well there were  probably at one timr or another dozens or even hundreds of smith family crests, and the same is likely true for most other european names.

tell your friend to make up his own family crest, or to ask his parents/ grandparents what they think a fitting symbol would be. i'd be very wary of having a permanent picture stuck on my body that isn't even the correct crest!

Answer 5

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 an individual man and are passed down through the direct legitimate male line of descent.

There might have been more than one man with your friend's surname,not all necessarily related, that were each granted their own coat of arms, all different. Then some men with that surname were never granted one and their descendants aren't entitled to one at all.  Most aren't.   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.

The only time they will have more than one is if more than one man with the same surname from different national origins were granted one. Then they will have one of each and there might have been others.

Anytime you see a walnut plaque with a coat of arms mounted on it, or a keychain, coffee mug, tshirt and I might add tattoo with a coat of arms, what you are looking at is very likely a valid coat of arms but what isn't valid that it doesn't belong to the person that has it or is wearing it.  

See my links under sources.  One is from the British College of Arms(they grant coats of arms) and the other from the most prestigious genealogical organization in the U.S., The National Genealogical Society.

Answer 6

Stop right at your first sentence. It is not legit.

Coats of Arms are like medals, so to speak that are awarded to PERSONS, not families.  If your father's distant cousin got the Purple Heart for war service, it only belongs to him.  Your friend could be descended from someone entirely different from who the arms were given to.

The other issue is that people don't research their ancestry, and sometimes that will "dig up" facts that concern them.  In some cases.. they get back and find that an ancestor was adopted, and not a (Jones/Smith) at all. Or, the coat of arms was granted to a person from England, while his ancestors came from somewhere else.  Sometimes you find a name change after immigration.

You can buy fake things online, like fake handbags, etc. Sites that sell "family crests" TAKE ADVANTAGE of people who are not aware of the legitimate reasons and standards.

Your friend may be willing to pay.. but he is throwing his money down the drain.

Answer 7

The Coat of Arms was awarded to an individual and not to a family so any coat of arms will probably not be legit. Even if it was passed down the line it would only go to the eldest son and then on to his eldest son and so forth. therefore most of us cannot lay claim to a Coat of Arms. Your friend would need to trace his ancestry to find an ancestor who had been awarded one and then be able to prove that he would have be in line for it (so he would have to be a direct descendent through the male line).