I didn’t think that Jews of Eastern European ancestry even HAD family crests, but that shows how wrong I can be. My proud crest features what looks like a hedgehog over a black chevron, with some more hedgehogs at the bottom. Apparently my family had knights in it, because there’s also a knight’s helmet. I certainly hope that none of my knightly ancestors took part in the crusades and killed other members of my family living in the Holy Land…
Most definitely.. I did a google search for “family crest” and found tons of places offering crests. When I have more time (I’m at work now) Iplan to look at several of my so-called crests to see if they’re similar.
OTOH-- a friend who works in my office DOES know his family crest and it was pretty similar to the one on that site. I guess the site has legitimate, known crests and simply tries to match you up by the closest spelling (Bynum, in my case).
I KNEW I had Jute blood in me. Everytime I go through a small impoverished village I get the urge to pillage and plunder, and I inexplicably turn everytime someone yells, “Hey Hengst”!
Sorry Bloomfield but it’s on the internet, and therefore can’t be wrong.
Just because you have the same last name as somebody with familial arms does NOT entitle you to those arms. Those so-called bucket shops practice a mild form of fraud, really.
“legitimacy” means that one of your ancestors bore ams in the past, and they descended directly to you. It does NOT stem from having the same last name.
Design yer own. That’s how it was done in days of yore, and there’s absolutely nothig wrong with the practice.
3: How can I find my coat of arms or my family’s coat of arms?
This is a difficult question to answer; it requires a great deal of
research and skill.
In most countries in the world, you can bear any arms you want. This is the
way in which arms were originally adopted, before codification and
regulation by European heralds and rulers.
However, many people consider it wrong to adopt someone else’s arms. In some
countries, notably Scotland, this is not only dishonourable but illegal.
In particular, there are no laws regulating the use of non-governmental
arms in the US. The American government neither grants nor recognizes
armory. You can adopt any arms you choose and use them however you want
(unless you infringe on someone’s trademark, which is an entirely different
subject that has been beaten to death on this newsgroup so please don’t ask
about it); but you have no particular right to those arms or any other.
If you are descended from someone who was granted arms by some heraldic
authority then you may have some claim to those arms within the
jurisdiction of that authority. The chances are very good that you do not
have any claim on any actual arms. Most people in the world do not.
Exactly what conditions you have to meet to establish such a claim vary
considerably from one country to another. At the very least, you will have
to prove that a recognized holder of the arms is your ancestor. In some
countries, you would have to prove that you are the legal heir of that
person. Getting an official recognition of your claim is likely to be
expensive and time-consuming; in England, for example, it costs thousands
of pounds.
*** Your last name has nothing to do with the matter. ***
Arms are not associated with surnames, but with individuals and, in some
countries, with families. The important thing is who your ancestors are,
not what surname you happen to bear. The fact that your name happens to be
“Smith”, for example, gives you no claim whatsoever on any of the thousands
of arms borne throughout history by various people named “Smith.”
Unfortunately, there are lots of unscrupulous businessmen worldwide who are
happy to promulgate false information about the subject of armory. They will
happily take your money to tell you “Your Family Arms”, which they supply
simply by finding an armigerous family that happens to share your surname.
We suggest that you avoid these companies; if you want anything more than a
decorative wall-hanging, they are a waste of your money. And if you will
be happy with any pretty picture to hang on your wall, you can save
yourself the trouble of dealing with these companies, and simply choose
arms that you like.
Well mine has two lions holding a crown! I’ve always thought I had royal blood. I am from the tribe called the Sueben and we drove the Celts to France in the 1st century. So you can thank us for the fact that Irish music is in Ireland and not in Germany.
I’m gonna get me a baseball cap with my crest on it:
The grandaddy of all crest hoaxsters is Halbert’s I think, out of Ohio. You oughta see the phony one they came up with for me. My uncle ordered it back in the 70s. My last name is Beeson, which is though to either be a variant of a Norman French names, like Besson, or Beçon or something, or a matrilineal name, like Beth or Bee- son (for Elizabeth, Beth whatever).
So the Harbert’s crest has six bees on it. Yeah, right…Very cute.
Thanks to Internet genealogy, info on these outifts is widely available but there is a sucker born every minute so…
That’s not %100 true, actually.
My family is from Wales, and our crest differs slightly from the two or so others that circulate.
At first we though the name occoured in three places simultainiously, but after years of research and a few trips to Wales to study what records may be and, more importantly, the folklore of the current family that lives there, we discovered that we were all the same line. The account differs slightly, depending on whose account you hear. one of the common threads in each story follows; There were four brothers at one time (year disputable, not totally sure yet, but hopefully on our next trip we can find out) there were four brothers Morris who had a dispute (reasons are various and sundry) who parted ways in angst towards each other, and altered their crest to be different fromt the other.
There are other stories that vary greatly from those… The word of mouth bit is a little hard to research, so we dont know for sure what really happened…
I may be totally off base, I dont know.
Years of daily work and three generations. I have an aunt and uncle who dedicate their retired lives to the work of researching the name and line. Recently I have caught the bug, so to speak.
I’m going back to Wales next spring to continue. I’ve ben trying to learn Welsh, because there are some in the line who still do not speak english, or prefer not to.
oh - I have complete admiration for those that CAN go back and find their ancestory. Tom has his traced back to 16something and the first Strother to come to America.
But - my relatives didn’t come here until 1880’s - and I haven’t the foggiest WHERE in Germany they came from (on mom’s side, I’ve got the choice of Thomas or Dietrich). And those surenames all very common German ones, so they would be almost impossible to trace, and know that we were talking the same familiar line.
That’s where it gets difficult. Thats where a merger of what exists on paper as records and what still exists as folklore (I use the term ‘folklore’ to describe the verbal records and traditions that some families still keep) is helpful, but not always. Sometimes, as was in our case, it might help to start as far back as one can go in a given culture and work forward.
Tyler wrote:
“…it might help to start as far back as one can go in a given culture and work forward…”
true - but since my understanding of German is limited to dumkauf and daschund, that would probably be prohibitive, too (when my grandfather was alive, he would talk to our dog in German -she should have understood it, cuz she was German, right? - at least that’s what HE thought).
Do you have a community college or small university where you could take German courses. My sister speaks semi-fluent high german, and she always is bragging on about how close it is to English.
I suppose she’s right though, because of the Vikings that invaded England in AD 750-1050, and later the Danes. German is one language I have yet to dabble in, due to the fact that it serves me no purpose yet.
I don’t feel that I would be that interested in just having a list of names and birth dates and death dates and places. I wouldn’t be able to know the people or really have a connection to them. I guess I would be interested in seeing photographs of relatives, but even that doesn’t seem to mean that much to me unless I knew that person. Even if, for example, I could find out something about my father’s recent family history, I really doubt that it would mean much to me because it would still just be names of people I didn’t know. It doesn’t seem as if there would be much chance of stumbling across someone’s diary or anything.
I think it is a fine pursuit for those who find it rewarding of course.
This is why the folklore of your family and line are important. It brings them ALIVE in ways that even meeting someone in person cannot do.
This is probably a bad example, but I never knew my grandfather. he died when my father was five years old…but as I grew to adulthood, people would say “you look so much like Wayne,” or say that some of my behavior or mannerisms belonged to him. He was very widely loved,and even to this day, there are some who see my name (Tyler Wayne Morris) and ask if I was related…then they would usually procede to tell me tales about my grandfather that I never knew. With each tale that people would tell, though, I could imagine him more clearly and close to me. Somehow he became a part of me, though dead he be, and seems to speak to me in my soul. I suppose that is where the desire to find more ancestors came from.
You never know what you might find; you may find one or two kept a journal…
I am from the tribe called the Sueben and we drove the Celts to France in the 1st century. So you can thank us for the fact that Irish music is in Ireland and not in Germany.
