[Bob Uhl]

[quote="Russ Ellis"]

[Bruce Wilson]

Guys, there are lots of things about heraldry that tend not to be well understood. As has already been stated, very few families were actually associated with achievements of arms. It's also absolutely correct to say that a specific armorial bearing relates only to an INDIVIDUAL, not to a family.

The rules relating to the use of arms varies somewhat from one country to another. British heraldry is very specifically regulated. The College of Arms is the official repository of the coats of arms and pedigrees of English, Welsh, Northern Irish and Commonwealth families and their descendants. Its records also include official copies of the records of Ulster King of Arms the originals of which remain in Dublin. The Court of the Lord Lyon is the heraldic authority for Scotland and it deals with all matters relating to Scottish Heraldry and Coats of Arms and maintains the Scottish Public Registers of Arms and Genealogies.

For more detail on the specific use of armorial bearings in the UK, see here:
http://www.college-of-arms.gov.uk/


These are some key points from the FAQ section at the College of Arms:

Q. Do coats of arms belong to surnames?
A. No. There is no such thing as a 'coat of arms for a surname'. Many people of the same surname will often be entitled to completely different coats of arms, and many of that surname will be entitled to no coat of arms. Coats of arms belong to individuals. For any person to have a right to a coat of arms they must either have had it granted to them or be descended in the legitimate male line from a person to whom arms were granted or confirmed in the past.

Q. What is a crest?
A. It is a popular misconception that the word 'crest' describes a whole coat of arms or any heraldic device. It does not. A crest is a specific part of a full achievement of arms: the three-dimensional object placed on top of the helm.


See also these links for more information and some great examples of heraldic art:
The Court of the Lord Lyon (Scottish Heraldry) http://www.lyon-court.com
The Heraldry Society http://www.theheraldrysociety.com/index.htm
The Heraldry Society of Scotland http://www.heraldry-scotland.co.uk/
The White Lion Society http://www.whitelionsociety.org.uk/


I hope that's all useful!

With best regards,
B.





Edited just to point out that my avatar is only a bit of heraldic doodling on my part and has no historical or genealogical significance whatsoever! I'll explain it's derivation later if you REALLY want to know! It probably breaks SO many of the heraldic rules! I use this banner variant as my flying flag screensaver. (Sad, isn't it...?! )

[Michael Sigman]

[Chad Arnow]

Interestingly enough, MSN.com has a brief article on heraldry up right now: http://landing.msn.ancestry.com/article/CoatO...code=11601

[Robert W. Betten]

As far as my research has led my family were nobles from Switzerland, Theres a town named after my family there in the alps (Betten). Then they ended up in the netherlands and frankly the sites that say they have info on my family want too much money to aquire it.

But part of my family relate to the Mclean's of Scotland 13th century Duart Castle is the castle of that part of the family...which is part of why i easily found out about that. Plus my grandmother wrote a book about the McLeans...below is a picci of me castle as for Betten i dunno its coat of arms but i know there is one.

[Eric Nower]

Hello all,

After talking to my grandmother I found out she had a couple of other books on this topic and found out quite a bit I didn't know....all of which have been addressed here. The coat of arms was passed from father to 1st son and to his 1st and so on and so forth. Other people in the family sometimes used varieties of the coat of arms. I didn't know that the coat-of-arms wasn't associated with the surname. Learn somethin new everyday

I didn't mean to ruffle any feathers by the way....I didn't realize there was so much involved with the coat of arms. I'm still gonna talk to my aunt and find out how she found the one we have.

I want to thank Bruce for giving some excellent links, I was hoping for somthing like that.

[Patrik Erik Lars Lindblom]

[Russ Ellis]

Great info Bruce, sounds like nobody really has a coat of arms...

[Eric Nower]

Yeah,
It really does appear that way doesn't it. Ahhh well, it's still nice to know what an ancestor somewheres back in time may have used as a coat of arms.

[Nate C.]

Bruce - Thanks for the great info.

[Russ Ellis]

[Nate C.]

From what I can tell, the arms would follow the title at the very least. For example; Bob, Lord Anyville is granted arms. Given that Lord Anyville is an inheritable title, his oldest surviving male heir would inherit the title and arms upon Lord Bob's death. If he (Lord Bob) has any sons, they would be entitled to use his arms as their own with additional badges added to indicate their birth order. When lord Bob dies the eldest surviving son inherits the title and his father's coat of arms. So, in order to display Lord Bob's "original arms" a person nowadays would have to be a direct descendant of Lord Bob by the line of inheritance (eldest son to eldest son.....).

I think that's how it works. Someone correct me if I'm off base.

It isn't that simple however, because if a lord had no sons, his oldest daughter could inherit his arms. Her sons might also have the option to use her arms as part of their own. From there it gets more complicated than I know or want to type.

This is a fascinating subject to me since I've always wondered if I could rightfully claim a coat of arms. Let's keep the information flowing.

[Douglas G.]

I would love to say any of my ancestors, whether Swedish, German or Scottish had a
coat of arms, but doubt there were since none of them to my knowlege were ever
anything more than farmers or tradesmen. One of my Swabian forebears was the head
of the wood crafters guild in his town, Markgroeningen around 1715, and I have seen
his ornately carved initials above the door to his house there, but this I think will be the
extent of it. This isn't to say the Coat of Arms people haven't approached us by mail with
an offer of our family creast on a lovely plastic plaque. After many Buds, my brother and
I sent away for one. What a hoot! Our "'crest" consists of a man in a two tone doublet and
tall pointed hat bearing in his outstretched arms some kind of lily and a parchment, and a
motto in Latin. So after regarding it, again with many Buds, we decided to make
apropriate adaptions, we glued a cut out picture of a cheese in the parchment hand and
made the lily to drape over the other, and changed our motto to "Nicht Schiessen!"

Best,
Doug

[Sam Barris]

Mine is a bit difficult thanks to the immigration laws of the 1920s, and I confess the true story is still a matter of investigation. Basically, when my great grandfather and great grandmother came over from Greece, their name was bastardized at Ellis Island to Barris. The Greek is something along the lines of Barakaras, although that's probably not a perfect transliteration. Barris is a German name with a very striking crest, which my grandfather and his brother adopted as their own when they started a business after returning from WWII. I have not a single solitary drop of German blood, but the crest and the name seem to have become inescapably attached to my family, and rather well known in certain circles as such.

It doesn't really matter, as the Greeks didn't have hearaldry in the same sense that other Europeans did. I recognize that I have no blood ties to this coat of arms, even if most of my family won't listen when I try to explain. The Scandanavian and Scotch-Irish branches of my family might provide more fruitful hunting grounds, but very few records have survived. It's an ongoing search on the part of myself and my sister.

[J. Padgett]

I know next to nothing about my forebears on either side of my family. My mother's side of the family is Italian, and immigrated fairly recently. My great-grandmother on that side did not speak English. I know even less about my father's side of the family. I've been told my surname is English, and it is based from the word 'page', but that is about it. I did find a coat of arms on the internet supposedly attributed to a Padgett at one time or another, but I'm sure the possibility of it being a relative is remote.

[Patrik Erik Lars Lindblom]

Here are Svante's family stuff
Natt och Dag

[Bruce Wilson]

Hi, Guys!

Glad to be of help! I knew that being British, a perfectionist and a history geek would come in useful at some point... (!)


There are some useful links to Heraldry in other European countries (especially Scandinavia) on the Heraldry links page of the Heraldry Society.

[url]heraldica.org[/url] also has a huge list of links to useful heraldry related sites - if you want to plough through the lists and follow some of the links I'm sure you'll find what you're looking for somewhere!

This page http://www.heraldica.org/topics/national/index.html lists lots of heraldry by country.

Failing that, just run "heraldry" through Google - there's SO much out there! The usual caveats about the authority and authenticity of information sourced from unregulated websites apply!!

It breaks ALL the rules, but I do enjoy creating my own arms. It's definitely a fun way to be creative - but you definitely WON'T be seeing these blazons appear over my fireplace or front door any time soon though!

B

[Anthony Drew Farmer]

Here's the Coat of Arms and Crest that came up in looking into the history of my family, my great aunt or some such relation researched it. Our Credo(?) I believe the term was is "Be Wary", we've got a suit of armor somewhere out England way somewhere I hear. Interesting info that the Crest is only the thing on the top of the helm.. I guess that's a jaguar on the top of mine, hm? Red cat, not sure.. inpute welcome, heh... planned on getting either that coat of arms, or that big shield+flourish design formerly known to me as a crest tattooed on my arm, not sure what part to do now.. I'll be researching any tradition behind that now!

[Gordon Frye]

I guess I'll have to go win my own Coat of Arms then. I'm a second son, of an only son, of a third son of farmers (er, I mean "Line of Hardy Yeomen"). Since my name translates from Saxon as "Free-man" I take that to mean that it was to differentiate some ancestor from his relatives who were still serfs. Thus no colourful banners for me (until I do some wonderful feat of arms on the battlefield, that is!) For now, a Sergeantcy must suffice!

I do have a branch (on my Father's side, no less!) that is armigerous (Cravens) but that's far enough back, and no question cadet line to boot, that it's pretty much just a nice memory.

Oh well, I can still claim to be a Gentleman (for now) though! (Property and no job, LOL!)

Cheers!

Gordon

Oh, Glenn; since you use the Percy Badge, you must remember the old War Cry from the North!

"No Princes but the Percy's!"

(Don't mention this to any Tudor's, though. They might take it wrong, resulting in forensic diffficulties such as you made quote of...) gef

[Alex McCracken]

Hi Everyone,

For those interested in Scottish arms, and live in the US,
here's another site well worth checking out:

http://www.scotarmigers.net/

The Lord Lyon has determined that if you can trace your
ancestor back to 1783 or earlier, you can apply for arms
in their memory and then rematriculate them for yourself,
as the American colonies were considered part of His
Majesties realm until then. There are all sorts of forms
and other helpful info to help one get started.

And of course I believe this one was posted earlier, but I'll
post it again since it has a good forums section to ask
questions on:

http://www.heraldry-scotland.co.uk/index.htm

Alex