hi everyone, i’m new here and could use a little help. please forgive me if i posted this in the wrong forum. i’m looking to find my family crest(coat of arms). now i ordered one form a website,(itsd the one in my aviatar) but as i do more research this other website has a different crest under my name. i was wondering where is the BEST place for research. any links? is it the library? if so, what do i look under?

thank you guys. any help would be appreciated.

Scream1277 wrote:

hi everyone, i’m new here and could use a little help. please forgive me if i posted this in the wrong forum. i’m looking to find my family crest(coat of arms). now i ordered one form a website,(itsd the one in my aviatar) but as i do more research this other website has a different crest under my name. i was wondering where is the BEST place for research. any links? is it the library? if so, what do i look under?

thank you guys. any help would be appreciated.

If you want to find your ancestral coat of arms, then you would do some extensive research on your pateranl side and hope that one of your paternal ancestors bore arms.  The chances of this is pretty slim, but the work is worth doing if only to find out who your ancestors were.

The coat of arms you display as an avatar is probably (most likely, 99%) not yours to inherit, but is from some other family of the same name.  There is no such thing as a surname coat of arms.  So you got ripped off.

Can you indicate the earliest documented paternal ancestor of your name (there is no need to identify yourself) and maybe someone can do a quick search in the online genealogical databases to see if there is someone who bore arms?

Dear Unknown Guest:

Unknown Guest wrote:

i ordered one form a website,(itsd the one in my aviatar) but as i do more research this other website has a different crest under my name.

Sorry, but you’ve fallen for the "same name = same coat of arms" fantasy.

You can only bear an historical Coat of Arms if you can trace your family, through the male line, to an ancestor who received that particular Coat of Arms.  If you are within the same family you can bear the same arms only if you are the senior male heir; otherwise, you would need to modify the shield somewhat.

Different countries, different rules.  However, even in countries that allow the same genealogical "family" to bear the same Arms unchanged, you still must be within that "family".  For instance, not everyone named Schmied can bear the arms of Johann von Schmied—which might be found at websites willing to sell you THE "Coat of Arms of the Family Schmied".  These sites go through various volumes of registers and pull the first "Schmied/Smith" they come to—no genealogical research is done (and often they caveat the sale by saying "no genealogical association is implied").

If you are named Smith, you cannot bear John Smith’s Coat of Arms; after all, your family might have been Germans named Schmied, who became renamed after emigrating to the US.

So, what’s a fellah to do?  If you are an American, you will be told by the members of this board that you can create your own coat of arms and that is just as valid as receiving a Coat of Arms from the Lord Lyon King of Arms for Scotland (some few may disagree).  And they will say it carries just as much importance or authority.  Some will disagree—but generally that is the legally correct answer.

So, what you can do first is research your family: find where your ancestors came from; see if any of the name within that vicinity had a registered Coat of Arms; then you can modify the designs and/or colors.  That gives you a starting point.

Or, you can choose a particular design and adopt that.  The overriding rule is that you shall not take Arms that belong to someone else.  If you select a design today, and 10 years later see someone with the same design—you could "challenge" (I use the word with reservation) that person to see who used it first.  If he’s been using it for one hour longer than you, favor goes to him.

Anyway .... what is your name?  Even guests should sign their name.  After that, we can perhaps assist you a little better.

Regards,

—Guy Power

Michael,

You beat me to the punch by one minute!!

Michael Swanson wrote:

(there is no need to identify yourself)

I thought that all posts had to be signed, or the person’s identity registered in the profile?

I hope that is the case as I will not assist anyone who insists on remaining nameless.

—Guy

Guy Power wrote:

Dear Unknown Guest:

If you are within the same family you can bear the same arms only if you are the senior male heir; otherwise, you would need to modify the shield somewhat.

 

I agree with everything Guy and Mike wrote other than this sentence.  Although Guy qualifies it somewhat in his next paragraph (different countries, different customs), even in England the arms are inherited equally through all male lines.  Differencing for cadency has not been enforced for centuries and is now (according to English officers of arms) a matter of courtesy, not law.

Scotland is another matter, but as far as I have been able to learn is the only place where modification of the arms by younger sons is necessary.  Whether arms of Scottish origin borne by Americans have to be differenced (and matriculated in Lyon Court) is a valid question for debate.

But the overall point is that you almost certainly have no right to arms sold to you by anyone who has not done extensive genealogical research on your male-line ancestors.  I would hate to estimate the odds of the coincidence that you might actually have a valid claim to such arms; I suppose it depends on how common your family name is.  In any case, taking heraldry seriously demands that you not use such arms unless you can prove a hereditary right to them.

You can, of course, do what most of us in this group have done—design original arms of your own to pass down to your own children.  That’s a perfectly valid alternative, and much more honorable than usurping arms that don’t belong to you.

Guest, first let me welcome you to our forums.  We will do our best to answer your questions and point you in the right direction.  If you find that you have no right to bear those arms or any others and still want to create some to assume then we will give some basic pointers however, we are not a design firm.  If you want to join, then in the members section we have an area set aside where members help each other design theirs and others arms inwhich you will be welcomed with open arms.

Secondly, what the above gentlemen said is absolutely correct.  I wish you best of luck in finding what you are looking for and again welcome, feel free to ask and learn.

Guy Power wrote:

I thought that all posts had to be signed, or the person’s identity registered in the profile?

I hope that is the case as I will not assist anyone who insists on remaining nameless.

 

—Guy

We only require AHS Members to use their real names, either in their post or as their username. (I prefer username, but that’s just me)  Our guests are encouraged to use their real name but being guests we can’t require anything.

I really wish there was a way to shut those bucket shops down once and for all!  Looks like they serperated another individual from their hard earned money.

Scream1227-  If possible, I would strongly recommend that you cancel your order and request your money back.  The arms that you have ordered are the property of someone else, and while there is no law in this country from preventing your display of those arms, it is considered very bad form for you to do so.  I would recommend that you join this society and ask as many questions as you can, and begin the process of either assuming arms of your own or begining the petition process with a foreign heraldic authority.  If you be of English ancestry, you could contact the College of Arms in London.  If you are of Scottish ancestry, you could contact the Court of the Lord Lyon and follow that route.  There are others, and the links to them are here in the "Links" section of this website.

Comming here was a step in the right direction, and we’d be happy to help you as much as we can.

RE: signing one’s real name—besides Guy’s moral objections (which I tend to share, tho’ perhaps a bit less religiously) there is a practical problem attempting to assist an anonymous inquirer seeking to design new arms.

Not all armorial designs are based on the surname—many are more or less arbitrary geometrical or other designs that have captured the owner’s fancy, which is perfectly fine if somewhat arbitrary.  However, when starting from scratch, one of the possibilities is to look for some "canting" reference to the surname (bells for folk named Bell, etc.) or allusions to the etymology of the name (e.g. Williams - derived from Wilhelm = "shinkng helmet" in an old Germanic dialect - tho’ AFAIK that allusion hasn’t been used yet - but I have someone in mind…).  Or if the surname from certain cultures (e.g. Scottish or Irish) there is long-established custom, optional here of course, but often followed—e.g. Joe’s arms & my own—of adopting the same general "tribal" design theme(s) as others of the same Name or Clan with sufficient differences to avoid a misleading visual claim of proven blood relationship.  Without the surname, these options are closed to us & we’re shooting in the dark—"well, what are your favorite colors?  What doodads capture your fancy?  Ya like horseshoes?  How about frogs?  Will those charges mean anything to your siblings/parents/cousins" etc.

Also—in "vetting" arms for uniqueness, the worst duplications IMO are those where both the arms & name are the same as an earlier historical example.  We all know (IMO sadly) that many simple designs are not unique—different families, hopefully from different countries, may have borne the same design for centuries.  Where the names are different, it’s obviously just coincidence & no apparent intentional misrepresentation.  If the name AND arms are the same, however, the "coincidence" is likely to be viewed as too great to be credited—or at best the "new" armiger was too lazy to check for duplication—since searching most published records by name is easier by far than trying to search by design elements.  Since we don’t have unlimited time & resources to search the armorial universe, same name checking is nearly always our "first stop" and often as far as we can afford go—& for that, we need the name.  Absent that, some of us (e.g. but not only Guy) are reluctant to participate.

I am OK with helping someone who does not give his or her name, but is willing to give the paternal great-grandfather’s name.  When leaving messages on a new forum where the messages are public, I think it is within the parameters of sanity that one would not post their name at first, or ever.  These forums are googlable.

Ideally though, if the person is serious, he or she will join ($) and the discussion can occur in the member’s area which is not googlable.

Mike S has a point—all we really need is the relevant ancestral surnames.

Still, IMO if one isn’t ready to trust the group with one’s own name, why would one trust us with one’s armorial future?  Ah well…

Michael F. McCartney wrote:

Mike S has a point—all we really need is the relevant ancestral surnames.

Still, IMO if one isn’t ready to trust the group with one’s own name, why would one trust us with one’s armorial future?  Ah well…

Again, it is not about the trust in the group.  It’s access by the world that is, and should not be, trusted.

I never really thought of this like this before. However, I think that Mike has a very good point. Why is it that our member’s only section is not googleable but the rest is?

In this age of identity theft et al I’m not sure if it is a good idea to have one’s name so easily googleable. Of course I am so not tech savvy, so I may be very accessible to would be bad guys just logging on despite my firewall, spam guard and virus protection…

Anyway I think it is a good point and one to which I had not really thought much about. Thanks Mike for bringing this up and I am going to think about it more… maybe something could be done? What? I don’t know. But, at least it is good to talk about it to bring out some ideas…

Michael Swanson wrote:

Again, it is not about the trust in the group.  It’s access by the world that is, and should not be, trusted.

Honestly This is why I was so reluctant to post my name originally. I am still reluctant, but since Names, especially the last name, is so important in heraldry it’s kind of a Catch-22. I thought about having my member’s page as C. B. Shisler (Yes my initials are CBS, yet I digress) just to kind of protect that.

On a different note

Scream

Are you still looking here. The bad news is that You Cannot use the arms you have found in the bucket shops online

The good news is that you can design your own and the world is your oyster. I suggest spending the $20 to become a member and using all the resources in the members only page to get the basics for desiging your own. There’s a great basics by P. Blanton and also Joe’s Code of Conduct threads describe a lot of stuff too.

Also anyone will help where they can, and people were instrumental in designing my and my wifes coat of arms

I’ve never understood why having your name googlable puts you at any greater risk of identity theft than being listed in the telephone book.  I would think that what matters is how much other information you associate with your name, not that your name appears.

Joseph McMillan wrote:

I’ve never understood why having your name googlable puts you at any greater risk of identity theft than being listed in the telephone book.  I would think that what matters is how much other information you associate with your name, not that your name appears.

One low-level risk is that people can know what you are interested in.  For example, an employer might see that you are really into heraldry, and posting from work, or he may think heraldry is for elitists, etc.  He may even find that you are passionate and argue about things, which may not be a virtue for a particular employer.

A higher level risk is that people can assemble a interest and activity profile from a simple google search of forum postings.  This can be used for targeted email, even though on our forum email is generally not accessible.

Of course, the highest level risk is identity theft.  Revealing middle names, and possibly maiden names, birth dates, and locations can be used to find additional information.  Small facts such as these can be used to trick people into giving social security numbers, or passwords, etc.

But I don’t want to make too much of these risks.  I only wanted to suggest that not giving a real name in a public forum is rational.  This is especially true for people with high-profile jobs or aspirations.