Where can I find an accurate website that shows legit family coat of arms?...Might be ablr to print off 4 free

Question

All these sites that I have ran across are sites to buy mugs, shirts, rings, etc. I just want to find a site where I can find my family's coat of arms free or charge.......And also will give any explinations for the symbols on it....Please help me

Answer 1

All of those sites you mentioned that I have seen have pictures of various coats of arms.  Mostly they are accurate sites; that is not the problem.  All of them I have seen you can print the picture of the coat of arms.

The problem is, unless you do thorough research, you WON'T KNOW which one, if any, applied to your family tree.  There are several that apply to my surname; many more that applies to my Mom's mother's surnames.  I have no idea which is correct for my branch of the tree.

Answer 2

Nothingusefullearnedinschool and Tebs both gave you good answers.

You are very correct about being suspiscious of sites selling walnut plaques, keychains, coffee mugs, T Shirts  etc.  Actually in most cases what they have are legit coats of arms for somebody with that surname.  

If this is a school assignement go ahead and print off any one you like.  However, also print off the two links I am furnishing you and give them to your teacher.  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.

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

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

Actually if you are entitled to one, if you send your family tree to the British College of Arms, they might be able to locate yours, no matter what the national origin is.  I am sure it would be rather costly.

Also you can design your own and send to the College of Arms with your family tree and perhaps they will grant you a coat of arms.  It definitely will be costly.

It is quite possile you have more than one in your family tree. That does not necessarily mean you are entitled to any one of them.  It just means that after doing research you find various ancestors that were granted a coat of arms and if you have a book printed or even published on your family history, it is quite legitimate for you to put pictures of your ancestors' coats of arms in your book.  It would not be legitimate, however, for you to put in your book pictures of ones that just happened to be granted to persons with the same surnames as your ancestors.

If you are an American and you have any English lines going back to early colonial days in the American South, you have an excellent opportunity of finding several in your family tree.   Actually some in the South have the ones their ancestor brought over from England 300-400 years ago and they aren't those dinky little walnut plaques silly people have on their den walls.  As a rule, they don't display them.  They aren't any good for buying groceries and I might add gasoline.  Walmart won't even take them.

Now, if you are a student and I apologize if you aren't ( We get a lot of kids with assignments asking about their coat of arms), I will tell you what your parents would also tell you.  Anytime you go into someone's home and see one of those walnut plaques on their den wall or over their fire place, it would not be polite to laugh at them or make some ridiculing comment about it.  We don't do that in someone's home.  However, you can see that if you display one of those plaques that anyone knowledgeable in heraldry or genealogy will be amused. Although, courtesy means they won't say anything.

Feel free to print off what I have posted here and give to your teacher.

Also, feeling that you are a student, I will do something Ted Pack (one of our contributors would do). Run and come are 2 words where the present tense and the past participle are the same.  It is have run, have come, not have ran or have came. I don't care if you did hear Adam Housley on Fox News say "have came."

Answer 3

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.

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

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 4

OK. So you can find the meanings of the symbols and colors here: http://www.fleurdelis.com/meanings.htm

Example: if the arms were a blue shield with a silver sash the heraldic artist would describe it as:

Blazon: Azure a bend argent.

View and print it from here: http://www.rushings.info/images/defoe_1....

Tradition choses plumes as the crest, but the crest is the choice of the heraldic artist when none is specified. (crest is just above the helmet)

The arms would symbolize the peaceful, sincere defense of truth and loyalty.

The Mantling is the shredded drape protecting the shield, symbolizing a torn surcoat  or cape damaged in battle. The Helm sits above the shield with the mantling usually attached to it.