How do I acquire family coat of arms?

Question

I have learned that heraldrys and coat of arms were not granted to families per se, but to individuals. How does one go about acquiring this?

Answer 1

First you have to prove with documentary evidence that you are descended from a man who was granted arms, and then apply for permission to legally use them, the rules are very strict and can be upheld in the civil court of any country. Just because you share a surname with someone who was granted the right to arms does not mean that the right is also yours. The Heraldic tradition varies slightly between countries, but in essence they are all the same.

In the first instance the grant of arms was/is made to one individual and inherited by his descendants who alone may bear or use his arms, they were passed equally to each of his sons, each one added their own mark of cadency to those arms. The eldest son added a label – a horizontal strip with three pendant drops (during the lifetime of his father). The second son added a crescent, the third son added a five pointed star, the fourth son added a martlet, the fifth son added a annulet, the sixth a fleur de lys, the seventh a rose, the eighth a cross Moline and the ninth a double quatrefoil, which were then displayed on their shields to distinguish themselves from each other and their father, the sons passed their arms, complete with their own cadences, on to their own sons, who then added a second set of cadences to distinguish themselves from each other, their father, uncles and cousins.

When a man died, his eldest son then had the right to bear his father’s arms without the differentiation marks, the eldest son’s children would then add only one set of cadency marks, instead of two, and so on down the generations, the brothers of the eldest son continued to use the arms with their own cadency marks, which were later passed to their sons in the same manner, It all got very complicated.

Daughters also inherited the right to display their father’s arms if there was no male heir, a daughter could pass her father’s arms on to her sons. Wives, widows and daughters had a courtesy right to display their husband or father’s arms, normally on a diamond lozenge.

The original achievement remained the same through the generations, enhanced by the addition of the various cadences, however, the arms of more than one family could also be included on one shield. If both the man and his wife had the right to bear arms, they could be displayed side by side, called impalement, or if mixed together to form new arms, it was called compounding. One method was quartering, where the shield was divided into quarters, then, for example, if a man had no sons, his daughter or daughters inherited his right to the coat of arms, if one such daughter married a man who also had a coat of arms, her arms could be impaled with his, or be displayed on a

small shield in the centre of her husbands arms, their sons would then seek permission of the Heralds to bear arms, with their father’s arms in two quarters and their mother’s

in the other two quarters. With time the coat of arms could include the arms of many families and became very complex.

Dating originally from before the advent of surnames, the arms were in effect a means of identification, much the same as a surname. With the establishment of surnames during the 12th. And 13th. centuries, those families who already had the right to bear arms acquired a surname to go with their arms, once surnames were established and became hereditary, new arms were granted to men with an established surname, so it can, I think, be argued as to whether or not arms are attached to a family, or the family surname.

Neither were they (or surnames) introduced by the Normans for taxation purposes. The Normans arrived in England some 100 or more years before the first heraldic arms or devices began to appear.

Heraldry in Europe developed and evolved during the 12th.and 13th. centuries (1100-1200) Heraldic arms were a personal device, possibly for military purposes, or simply a display of status or vanity, it can only be guessed at because, today, no one knows the real reason. At first, arms were displayed without authority from anyone, but gradually became controlled by the Crown, through Heralds, whereby, men who could prove their ancient use of arms by their family, were granted permission to continue displaying them. Total control finally came about in the 15th.century, when Richard III

in 1484, established what is now known as the College of Arms, it still holds the

authority to grant or withhold the use and display of arms.

A crest was normally an ornament on a helmet and it was included within the family’s achievement (coat of arms) but later became used separately, as decoration on plate and cutlery, stationery etc.

If it is possible to access a copy of Burke’s “General Armory of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales” first published in 1842, you can find out if any particular family was ever granted the right to bear arms. It is unfortunately a fact that very, very few people, other than extremely well documented lines of royalty, nobility, gentry or maybe wealthy landowners, traders or other persons of note, can prove a satisfactory link back to that period. Generally, if a family is entitled to display arms, they are most probably still aware of the fact, it is not something usually “forgotten”. Today there are two types of arms, “granted arms”, which are formally conveyed by a sovereign, state, or other body with the authority to do so, these grants have legal status under the law wherever they are recognised. And there are “assumed arms”, which can be designed and used by anyone but carry no legitimacy.

http://www.ngsgenealogy.org/comconsumerp...

Other countries have a broadly similar history of Heraldic rules and regulatory authorities.

http://www.electricscotland.com/WEBCLANS...

Sources :-

Among others.

The College of Arms

http://www.college-of-arms.gov.uk/About/...

And the book by T.Woodcock & J.M.Robinson

“The Oxford Guide to Heraldry”.

Answer 2

Live a clean, honest life, pay the College 4,000 pounds and petition them. 9 people in the US got a Coat of Arms last year.

http://www.college-of-arms.gov.uk/About/...

says in part,

When the memorial is submitted the fees due upon a grant of arms become payable. Such fees are laid down by Earl Marshal's Warrant. As of 1 January 2008 the fees payable upon a personal grant of arms and crest are £3,950, a similar grant to an impersonal but non-profit making body, £8,575, and to a commercial company, £12,850. Where a grant of a badge or supporters, or the exemplification of a standard is also made a further fee is payable. A special reduced fee (currently £4,975) has recently been introduced for parish councils, to cover the grant of arms alone, without crest. Those wishing to know further details of the fee structure should contact the officer in waiting at the College of Arms.

Answer 3

During the Middle Ages, knights used a coat of arms to identify themselves. One man in armor looked a lot like another, so the coat of arms was used to identify a knight in battle.. In a society where few people could read and write, pictures were very important. A coat of arms was more like a label for instant identification than it was like a painting. You wanted to know instantly who was coming toward you, so you could know which side he was on.

      Only the oldest son would inherit his family's coat of arms unchanged; his younger brothers would usually add a symbol to show who they were. The symbol a younger son added was often a smaller picture placed in the middle of the shield. When a woman married, especially if she had no brothers, the coat of arms of her family was often added to her husband's arms. Sometimes the arms were quartered, or divided into parts. In this case, the man's family coat of arms was in the upper left quarter (as you look at the coat of arms) and lower right, while the woman's family's arms were in the other two quarters. Shields are generally "read" like a book, starting at the upper left, going across and then down.

     In the heraldic traditions of England and Scotland an individual, rather than a family, had a coat of arms. In those traditions coats of arms are legal property transmitted from father to son, and undifferenced arms are used only by one person at any given time. Other descendants of the original bearer could bear the ancestral arms only with some difference: usually a color change or the addition of a distinguishing charge. One such charge is the label, which in British usage (outside the royal family) is now always the mark of an heir-apparent.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coat_of_arm... shows a drawing of where each of the parts of a coat of arms belongs and you can click the links to read more about them.

Answer 4

The problem that misleads people is that  a lot of them think they belong to surnames.  

There are lots of peddlers on the internet, at airports, at shopping malls, in magazines and sometimes they solicit by mail selling them to anyone with a particular surname. That is not valid.  Anytime you see one of those walnut plaques with a coat of arms and family history on it on someone's den wall, what you are looking at is one that was granted to someone with their surname and probably isn't even related.

The only thing you can do is to trace your father's or your husband's family and see if either is directly descended from a man that was granted one.  

See the links below, one from the British College of Arms(they grant coat of arms) and the other from the most prestigious genealogical organization in the U. S., The National Genealogical Society.

I understand in France they do belong to families but you cannot assume that if you have the same surname as a family that has one that it has anything to do with your family.

You can send your family tree to the British College of Arms and they will investigate to see if you are entitled to one.