Sight that shows coat of arms?

Question

I need a sight that I can find coat of arms, and actually print them out, without having to pay for them. I've tried google and yahoo searches and I've got nothing. The last name inparticular that I'm looking for is Ballou- a friend needs her last name crest for a project. If you could help that would be greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

Try http://www.heraldry.co.uk/. Hope that helps you some.

Answer 2

House of names is a good one.

http://www.houseofnames.com/fc.asp?sId=&...

Since it may not want to let you print it...open a graphics  program (even just the Paint one, if you have it), and use the Print Screen (Prt Scrn) button that's next to F12 and just past it into the graphics program.

Might also try the google image search if you haven't

http://www.webplaces.com/search/

Answer 3

Understand this, what you see on those sites probably in most cases are valid coats of arms, but they were granted to an individual man and belonged only to him and can be inherited only by his direct legitimate male line descendants. They do not belong to everyone with the same surname.  

Most people are not entitled to one at all.

Also only the eldest son of a man is entitled to his father's.  The younger sons can get one granted with slight changes.  Also in many cases there were more than one man with the same surname, not all necessarily related, that were each granted their own coat of arms, all different.  The peddlers that sell them on the internet, at shopping malls, at airports, in magazines and sometimes solicit by mail will not have all of them.  They don't need to in order to sell to gullible people.  The only time they will have more than one is if more than one person with the same surname from different national origins were granted one. Then they will have one of each and there might have been several of each.

Most of the sites are owned by Swyrich.  House of Names one of the sites Swyrich owns has the following in fine print.

"We encourage you to study the Ballou genealogy to find out if your descend from someone who bore a particular family crest.. . . . . . . No families, not even royal houses, can make sound claim to the right to bear arms unless a proven connection is established through attested genealogical records."  Family crest is a misnomer for a coat of arms.

See the links under Sources, one 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.

If this is a school project, please print off the 2 links and give them to your teacher.  Also feel free to print off what I have posted here.