Family Coat of Arms

“If you look deeply into the palm of your hand, you will see your parents and all generations of your ancestors. All of them are alive in this moment. Each is present in your body. You are the continuation of each of these people.” - Thich Nhat Hanh (Vietnamese Monk, Activist and Writer. b.1926)

When I first started using Ancestry.com I imported everybody that was “hinted” as related; every spouse, every child, etc. Belatedly I discovered that this had created a mess. Consider my mother; she has a brother; he has a wife. My uncle’s wife has a twin sister who is married and he has parents. By this point I am so far off the main branch of my tree and in no way related to the persons I’m importing.

As part of my pruning effort, I thought I would assign an image for every person that I am directly descended from. This picture replaces the generic man/woman face in the tree and makes it easy to spot my main branch. For distant relatives I’m using the family coat of arms as the image.
This has been fun but exhausting. For some names multiple Coats of Arms are available. Which is correct? For others I can find no Coat at all and must find a substitute image. In this post I’ll share some of the things I’ve learned about Heraldry – the profession of managing Coats of Arms or Blazons.

Family arms are much like university logos. It makes it easy to spot who is playing on a field of combat. Once a coat of arms was adopted by a noble family, the design was placed on shields, embroidered on tapestries, carved in stone about the castle, placed on swords and even burnt into the top of breads for special occasions.

As everybody who was anybody created a Coat of Arms, heraldry became essential to keep track of the images and who was who during the Crusades. Rules were established in medieval times and a language of symbols and colors created. For instance:

Yellow = generosity
White or Silver = peace and sincerity
Blue = loyalty and truth
Red = strength and military might
Green = hope, joy and loyalty in love
Purple = royalty
A lion = courage
A tiger = one who is fierce in battle
Escallop shell = long naval journeys or naval command
A crescent = one who has been honored by the sovereign

Unfortunately this new language got carried away with specialized terms in English and French. It now requires a bit of learning to understand official Heraldry speak:

"A lion's head erased azure langued gules"

translates as

“A lion's head cut off at the neck with a flourish in blue, with a red tongue.”

Or this

“Azure a bend Guiles, fimbriated and embattled Argent, three quills or surrmounting three ink bottles Sable; separating six over seven mullets of the third.”

See How do you blazon a Coat of Arms for the description.

The earliest coats of arms were fairly simple -- bars or wavy lines, a lion rampant or an eagle displayed. The designs became more complex as the years passed, and the practice of quartering developed (i.e. adding in the arms of other families acquired through marriages).

A full Coat of Arms has several parts:
· A motto on a ribbon scroll at top
· The “crest” – an animal or item placed above the shield.
· Shield elements – this can represent two, four or even more families via quartering.
· Supporters – typically two animals holding the shield

Bottom Line

It is a mistake to call a Coat of Arms (CoA) the family crest. The crest is just one part of the complete “blazon of arms”. It also a mistake to assume that there is an official coat of arms for your surname. Often a CoA was assigned to a specific noble in recognition of a new title or lands or in exchange for favors done to the crown. The noble could pass the blazon to the heir of his title and authority. It was never meant to cover all future descendants.

Today CoAs are just a fun way to link ourselves to possible noble ancestors and hope that a little bit of that nobility rubs off on us.