What are some good websites where I can look up different family crests and coats of arms?

Question

I know that the site House of Names (or whatever) is a pretty good one. But I am looking for a site that has more nationalities. Can anyone help? thank you!

Answer 1

http://www.eogn.com/archives/news0329.ht...

scroll down the page to "my least favorite genealogy site"

with no disrespect meant to you.. houseofnames is known among reputable genealogists as being ... let's just say, NOT RECOMMENDED.  Nor are the others that (like houseofnames) are connected to Swyrich corp.

Or, you may check out what the College of Arms has to say about family crests/coats of arms-

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

They are, by the way, the official and authorized site regarding the topic.

I'm sorry if you find my reply contrary to what you believe.. but it is completely misleading to sell such items to anyone.

Violet's reply is completely accurate, and does not deserve any thumbs down.

Answer 2

houseofnames.com

Answer 3

The topic is Heraldry;-) do an Internet search.

Answer 4

Certainly for England it is not correct to say that arms were passed only from eldest son to eldest son.

In the first instance the grant of arms was to the male head of a family, each of his sons added their own marks of cadency to those, the family arms ( the second son added a crescent, the third son added a five pointed star and other sons added their appropriate mark) 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, that son's children would then add only one set of cadency marks, instead of two, and so on, the brothers of the eldest son continued to use the family arms with their own cadency marks added, which were later passed to their own sons in the same manner, it all got very complicated. Daughters could also display the family 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 husbands or father's arms, normally displayed on a diamond lozenge.

The original achievement remained the same through the generations, enhanced by the addition of the various cadences, but often, the arms of more than one family could be included on one shield, side by side, called impalement, or, if they were mixed together it was called compounding, in time, the coats of arms could include the arms of many families and became very complex.

Dating from before the adoption of surnames, the shields, in effect, displayed the family "surname".   With the onset and establishment of surnames, those families who had the right to bear arms, then had a surname to go with those arms,

so it is also arguable whether or not arms are attached to surnames.

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

Heraldry in Europe developed 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 nobody 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.

Answer 5

Wendy gave you the most authoritative link there is.  Below is a link from the most prestigious genealogical organization in the U. S., The Naitonal Genealogical Society.

Also, I am furnishing a links regarding Italian heraldry, Scottish heraldry and Irish heraldry.

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

http://www.regalis.com/onom.htm

http://www.bothwell.cx/arms.shtml

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

http://www.genealogytoday.com/columns/re...

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.  

Actually, there might be, for instance, 15 different men 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,like House of Name, at airports, at shopping malls, in magazines or 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 persons with the same surname from more than one national origin were granted one and in that case they will have one of each and there might have been in fact 5 of each.  They are usually valid coats of arms but they don't belong to everyone with the surname involved and the family history that comes with them is not necessarily  the family history of everyone with the surname involved.

Now there might be more than one in your family tree.  That doesn't mean you are entitled to any one of them.  It just means that if after doing research on your family, you find more than one ancestor that was granted a coat of arms, you can validly put pictures of your ancestors' coats of arms in any book you have printed or even published on your family history.  However, it would not be valid if you put in your book pictures of those that were just granted to persons with your ancestors' surnames.

For Americans, if they have any English lines that goes back to early colonial days in the American South, they have an excellent opportunity of finding several in their family tree.  Actually, some in the South have the one their ancestor brought over from England 300-400 years ago.  As a rule they don't display them. They aren't those dinky little walnut plaques that silly people have on their den walls. They aren't any good for buying groceries.  Walmart and Target won't take them as a credit card.

So anytime you go into someone's home and see one of those plaques, be polite and don't laugh.  We don't laugh at people about things like that in their own homes.

Answer 6

just go on google or yahoo or msn and type click images. in the search bar type 'heraldry' or 'coat of arms' or 'family crests'. most coat of arms are associated with english, german, polish, french, italian, scottish, welsh, or most european surnames. if your last name is not dirived from a european country it will be harder if there are any, but it is the internet i'm sure you'll find something

Answer 7

If you just want to look up some last names and see what pretty pictures someone drew up and put a surname on it, then there are plenty of sites for that.  However, the truth is.....

Coat of Arms were granted to INDIVIDUALS, not assigned to surnames. Just because someone of your last name MAY have been granted one at some point does not make it yours.  Also, it may be that several men of the same surname were granted a coat of arms....each one different.....and maybe none of the men were related to each other.  Likewise, it may be that NO ONE of your surname was EVER granted one.  In order for you to be able to claim any Coat of Arms you must be able to do the following:

1. research your family tree to see if you have any ancestors that were granted a Coat of Arms.

2. If you do have an ancestor who was granted one, then you can only claim it IF the following is true: The person who rightfully can claim a Coat of Arms that was granted to their ancestor is a male descendant who is the first born son, of the first born son, of the first born son, of the first born son, etc., all the way back to the person who was originally granted the Coat of Arms. If you do not fall in that line, then you cannot claim it.  If you do fall in that line, then chances are you are already aware you have one.

To use a Coat of Arms based on your last name is meaningless.  It is about as accurate as buying a picture frame at the store that has a piece of paper in it showing an image of a child holding a flower and claiming that is actually a picture of your child.