Where Can I find My Family Crest?

[Acsenray]

1. It is about 99 percent likely (or more) that you have no right to bear any existing coat of arms.

2. If you were one of the few people who did have a right to bear arms, it is very unlikely that your family name would have anything to do with it. Arms (in England and Scotland, especially) were granted to individuals and only their direct descendants or their direct heirs have the right to display such arms.

3. If you are a European, there might be a law in your country that restricts displays of arms to those recognised by some heraldic authority to have a right to display arms. This is particularly true in England and Scotland.

4. If you are American, you are free to display whatever arms you like; however, it would be extremely discourteous and presumptous to display arms that actually belong to someone else. Feel free to invent your own arms, but make sure the design doesn’t already belong to someone else.

5. Please, please, please do not go through books looking up arms by family name. This method is guaranteed to help you find the wrong arms.

6. Take a look at http://www.heraldica.org/faqs/mfaq

[Sparc]

1. It is about 99 percent likely (or more) that you have no right to bear any existing coat of arms.

Absolutely correct acsenray.

[quote]
2. If you were one of the few people who did have a right to bear arms…quote]Well, there was never a law against displaying arms without a peerage, only registered arms that belonged to someone else and arms with certain additions like rank coronets and what-not.

it is very unlikely that your family name would have anything to do with it. Arms (in England and Scotland, especially) were granted to individuals and only their direct descendants or their direct heirs have the right to display such arms.

Actually it is very likely that the surname would have everything to do with it. People have been more consistent in keeping the surname inheritance intact than keeping track of armorial genealogy. The rules of inheritance in the country of origin would determine if the armorial bearing would have passed intact, passed with modification or been forfeited. All this requires a more or less complete genealogy back to the last known ancestor that bore the arms.

3. If you are a European, there might be a law in your country that restricts displays of arms to those recognised by some heraldic authority to have a right to display arms. This is particularly true in England and Scotland.

Heraldry is protected much the same way trademarks and names are except for in Scotland which has very special heraldic customs and where usurpation of certain heraldry is a criminal act. In Europe it tends to be that certain names and certain insignia are restricted through protection for historical, cultural and social reasons.

In no case does this make it impossible to display armorial bearings, as stated earlier you can go ahead and register new arms as well. You won’t get the royal protection that a peerage carries, but they will still be protected along the lines of a trademark as long as you use them actively (in other words pretty weakly). If they are not noble arms they will pass to your heir unchanged, if noble they will pass according to the heraldic customs of change at inheritance and quartering (the merger of arms through marriage) if this is customary in the heraldic jurisdiction.

Of course none of this applies to state and royal heraldry, which is protected the same way all official insignia are, e.g. you can’t put up a sign on your house with a national coat of arms and the word ‘Embassy’ under it.

Sparc

[Thylacine]

Just for fun I went looking around some of those dodgy sites to see if they could come up with my family crest. Nope, they all got it wrong which is mighty silly given it goes with an inheritable title and is therefore still very much on display and in use so not hard to find at all. They aren’t even trying to be accurate

[Acsenray]

Actually it is very likely that the surname would have everything to do with it. People have been more consistent in keeping the surname inheritance intact than keeping track of armorial genealogy.

But the realities of inheritance and plain statistics (failure of pure male-line descendancy) mean that it is much more likely that the actual heir now has a different family name than the original bearer.

[Sparc]

But the realities of inheritance and plain statistics (failure of pure male-line descendancy) mean that it is much more likely that the actual heir now has a different family name than the original bearer.

Well yes, but this is exactly why the surname will have much to do with it. If the coat of arms did not belong to your mothers or your father’s ancestry on the male side it is very unlikely that you have any right to it according to the rules of male primogeniture laid down in salic law.

It is of course strictly speaking more complicated than that, since male primogeniture is not purely applied in this case and that the civil laws of inheritance have shifted over time. You can however be pretty safe that it will only get complicated if you belong to one of the old and established families with hereditary peerage, in which case the surnames in both lines are most often known anyway.

Nevertheless it still remains that you will need to have a pretty complete genealogy back to the last known bearer in order to make any claim or work out what rights you have to a modified armorial display. Hence the name issue becomes pretty much moot since you still have to go step by step backwards. A quick check on your surname and your mother’s maiden name might however indicate if it’s worth the effort of compiling a genealogy in the first place - with the caveat that one has vague idea of the region that the family was in and that the name is not a Smyth type of name (there are a surprising number of Smyths and Smiths even in the Anglo-Saxon nobility).

Sparc

[handy]

Our family bible has one in it.

One time I went to a famous Irish bar on Cannery Row, Calif, & on the wall was a big fancy Irish Coat of Arms for the name of the guy who owns the place. I asked him where he got it & he said at a garage sale & that he didn’t have a clue what the words on it meant

[Walloon]

One of the most misunderstood things about Heraldry and Coats of Arms is that a coat of arms is granted to only to a particular family, not every family with that surname. No more than, say, the Lincoln Memorial in Washington honors everybody with the name Lincoln.

The Society of Genealogists writes:

Surprisingly few people who use a coat of arms and crest today have any actual right to do so. Armorial bearings do not appertain to all persons of a given surname but belong to and identify members of one particular family. Coats of arms and crests are a form of property and may rightfully be used only by the male-line descendants of the individual to whom they were first granted or allowed…

Unfortunately, over the centuries, many families have simply assumed arms and crests belonging to other families of the same name, usually without authority and without demonstrating any relationship between the families. It follows that mere usage of a coat of arms, even over a long period, does not necessarily indicate a descent from the family for whom it was first recorded. Indeed, more often than not, there is no such connection.

http://www.sog.org.uk/leaflets/arms.html

[Polycarp]

Just to stress again a point made in passing by others above, you have no more right to “a family crest” than you do to “a family estate” – by English, French, etc. law, it belongs to the person who is heir of line in your lineage.

In American usage, you are free to adopt any coat of arms you wish, including one modified from your family’s historically valid coat, provided that you do not encroach on someone else’s arms. (I have a design based on the escutcheon one of my ancestors wore, but with the colors reversed, on purpose since I know I’m not heir of line.)

[My_Darn_Snake_Legs]

Well, they got “my” coat of arms correct on that first website cited. At least that’s the one that has been hanging in my kitchen since I can remember. I don’t think that I’m the heir since I am the oldest child of the family, but through the daughter. Dang the luck.

[astorian]

First, a quick rundown of my family, then a true story of our “coat of arms.”

My Mom’s family came from Ireland, and moved to America in the 1920s. The family name is NOT of Irish descent, however, and nobody really knows where it came from. We know that there was no one in or around Tralee (the ancestral home town) until late in the 19th century. So, my great-great-grandmother seems to have popped up in Tralee out of nowhere, with a non-Irish name, and nobody really knows where she came from. There’s a family legend that she came from Australia. IF that’s true, there’s a good chance she was there as a convict!

Suffice it to say, our family does NOT have an illustrious history or a noble heritage. We don’t really have ANY History at all.

However, 8 years ago, when we held an extended family reunion in Ireland, I met several distant cousins who had bought coats of arms for our family!

Bear that in mind any time you’re tempted to mail away money to see your family’s “coat of arms.” Most of the people selling these things are frauds. They’ll take your money and send you something that looks good but means nothing.

Heck, if you tell them your name is Tarquin Fintinlimbimwimbimlimbimbusstopptangptangolebiscuitbarrel, they’ll still take your money, and send you some phony design with a phonier document stating that the Fintimlimbimwimbimlimbimbusstopptangptangolebiscuitbarrel family was the most noble clan in Ireland.

[Sparc]

Before I start this addition I would like to state one thing: this thread is way overstating the importance of the rules of heraldry. Heraldry is in most parts a social custom, and you will be hard pressed to make an ass out of yourself if not moving within the tiny circles where it still counts, and even there people take it mostly with a shrug of the shoulder. In my personal experience I can’t think of anyone who really cares deeply, not even amongst old peerage, as long as we are not speaking of sovereign arms such as those of royalty and state. I’ll get back to that further down.

• My Darn Snake Legs*

I don’t think that I’m the heir since I am the oldest child of the family, but through the daughter. Dang the luck.

That all depends. First of all strict male primogeniture is illegal in most parts these days. Nevertheless it lingers partially in some more traditional fields and heraldry and peerage happens to be amongst those. This is how it used to work:

The art of Heraldry, Arthur Charles Fox Davies, pp 362

A woman is an “heir” or “heiress” (1) if she is an only child; (2) if all her brothers die without leaving an issue to survive, either male or female; (3) she becomes an heiress “in her issue” as it is termed, if she die leaving issue herself if and when all the descendants male and female of her brothers become absolutely extinct.

Generally in these times the eldest child of a mother who in her turn is the eldest child of the holder of a title or a coat of arms is the heir in line. However, in some rare cases - primarily titles of certain order of precedence and rank - it could pass to an uncle or male first cousin should she have one who survives her, if this happens the line of heritage branches off to the uncle’s or cousins family. If, however, the mother is the oldest surviving member of the family and all uncles and male cousins are accounted for by Mr. S. Peter the next in line would be her firstborn child. In no case can it in these times come to pass that a female first cousin gains a claim through her deceased father.

Since I would presume that MDSL’s mother was born before the 1970s and that we are not talking of a royal, ducal or same such family, and that I seem to understand that she held the arms, I would guess that she gained right through the old rules of primogeniture, meaning that she had no living brothers and no living uncles and that branches sprung from issue of brothers or uncles never existed or are extinct. If this is correct MDSL is the heir in line.

Polycarp

I have a design based on the escutcheon one of my ancestors wore, but with the colors reversed, on purpose since I know I’m not heir of line.

A practice that I might add was often enough applied in olden times. Before the UK College of Arms became a proper institution in 1687 English arms were registered during so called visitations by touring heralds. These would forcefully change tinctures, charges (motive), add bordures, change arrangement and so on to achieve difference. Later on cadency (the term for order of seniority) was marked through a variety of methods (Fox-Davies lists 14 acceptable methods).

The most frequently one used is still the “mark of cadency” which is the addition of a small charge to the coat. The most notable use of this would be the “the label”, a sort of thin beam at the top of the shield with three tongues that hang down. The label is the sign of the heir in line and used in the arms of the Prince of Wales who carries the UK Royal Arms with this addition, until he becomes king of course when he simply drops the label. The signs of cadency are:

1st heir: the label
2nd heir: crescent
3rd heir: mullet
4th heir: marlet
5th heir: annulet
6th heir: fleur-de-lis
7th heir: rose
8th heir: cross moline
9th heir: double quatrefoil

This leads me back to my first point, which was that I get the feeling all this business with arms is truly being taken too seriously in this thread. As I have said before, the only place where it is really taken to any extreme legal point is Scotland, even in England it’s more a sport for genealogists and heralds, who quite frankly tend to be pompous airbags – although well aware that it is not the end of the world. For instance, regarding cadence marks:

*The art of Heraldry, Arthur Charles Fox Davies, pp 346 *

The use of these difference marks are optional. Neither officially nor unofficially is any attempt made to enforce their use in England – they are left to the discretion of the bearers; though it is a well-understood and well-accepted position that that, unless [differentiated through other means] it is neither courteous nor proper for a cadet to display the arms of the head of his house: beyond this, the matter is usually left to good taste.

So in the end my recommendation is that if you feel that display of arms is an affectation that suits you, and that it seems to part of your identity do as your heart tells you. As has been stated time and again, the peddlers of arms on the net are pretty much universally frauds. Personally I only actively use my monogram, feels less old fashioned, but even that has people raising their eyebrow when they receive letters from me or spot the embroidered socks on my wood clubs.

Sparc

[waterj2]

As I have said before, the only place where it is really taken to any extreme legal point is Scotland, even in England it’s more a sport for genealogists and heralds, who quite frankly tend to be pompous airbags – although well aware that it is not the end of the world.

And from the looks of the link I posted about Scotland, it seems all they can really do there is fine you £100 and make you stop using the arms. It also looks as if the Lord Lyon has a pretty low bar on who can get arms registered.

The Lord Lyon is permitted to grant arms to any “virtuous and well-deserving person” with Scottish connections [either through an ancestor or through owning property in Scotland]