Wondering how to find your family crest? Maybe you’ve been struggling to find your coat of arms for a while? Read on…
STEP ONE: Understand where your crest came from.
Every design element that you see on a coat of arms or family crest holds a specific meaning.
The designs were typically granted around the 12th century by governing bodies and monarchs, mostly in Europe.
Coats of arms were originally created to make knights more easily identifiable on the battlefield.
The designs were of particular value when closed face shields came into use on helmets.
Where it was previously possible to identify an ally by looking at their face, knights could suddenly be easily mistaken for one another once in full armour.
Adding an external colorful design to their attire solved this problem, as a fellow knight only had to find your coat of arms instead of recognising your exact armour.
The crests and symbols were added to the coats worn over a knight's metal plates, hence the name, ‘coat of arms’.
The design was also added to their shields and the ‘caparison’ on their horses (a decorative horse jacket).
Why do I see different designs for my coat of arms?
If you’re searching online today to find your family crest, you may have noticed multiple design variations for your name.
As the centuries progressed, coats of arms became a more general symbol to represent a family name or house, and not just something worn on the battlefield. This led to the wider popularisation of coats of arms which means that several versions of a design may exist.
This can happen when family members developed their own versions of the design with slight adjustments over generations or at times could have represented different family groups in different regions.
It could also happen if a family name developed independently in multiple places at once. Which happened quite a lot, especially between France, Ireland, Scotland and England.
This commonly occurred when a family name emerged in different languages but were later combined together into a common name as English became the dominant spoken language of a country. All of which makes it even harder to find your family crest today.
STEP TWO: Understanding armoury records
The only real way to find your family crest is to research what's known as armoury records. These manuscripts and old books contain the original descriptions of each coat of arms, just as they were documented when first created.
Armoury records were needed in the middle ages because family coats of arms were considered so crucial to family members identity there had to be some kind of formal recognition of the design. You can imagine a scenario where a new coat of arms being granted could accidentally copy an existing design, which would have been a big problem for noble families in those times.
Armoury records also allowed officials to find a coat of arms or family crest design when needed in the middle ages, if for example new goods, weaponry or clothing were being made that should feature the design.
To find your family crest, you’ll need to know which country your family name originally came from. You can use a reference like Ancestry.com to help get some of this information.
Once you know where your family name comes from, you can begin researching armoury records from that country to try and find your coat of arms description.
STEP THREE: Find the correct Armoury record
There are hundreds of armoury records out there, but some popular resources include;
- Grantees of Arms to the end of the 17th century
- MacLysaght Irish Families: Their Names, Arms, and Origins
- Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage (and other Burke’s resources)
- Fairbairn's Book of Crests of the Families of Great Britain and Ireland
- The College of Arms/ Heralds' College Royal College resource
- General armorial of Europe by Rietstap
Since armoury records are very old by nature, you may need to contact publishers directly to track down a copy of a book or manuscript. Others can be found in used book stores and markets. It can take a while but be patient, as finding the correct armoury record is crucial if you’re to find your real coat of arms.
Once you’ve got your hands on a record that relates to the country you need, you can search within their alphabetical listings to find your name.
Be aware that the spelling of your family name most likely changed over the centuries, so you’ll need to look for variations of your name within the armoury records.
This was particularly the case for names that were brought to the United States and Canada. Due to the vast numbers of people immigrating into these countries and the low literacy levels at the time, many names were recorded incorrectly when someone landed at a port for the first time.
This happened simply because names were spoken out loud to immigration officials after disembarking a ship. Since many names of European origin had unfamiliar spellings to those officials, they simply wrote down the simplest phonetic spelling of the name in the official immigration document. Similar documentation of a name in this way led to it becoming the ‘official’ spelling over time within North America.
For example, the coat of arms for the name Eskey was actually recorded as ‘Esquay’ within ancient armoury records and you would have to search that original spelling to find your coat of arms.
STEP FOUR: Translate the record to English
Armoury records like those listed above were most often written in old English, ancient French and old German, so you’ll need to translate the record to modern English to understand what symbols and colors should be in your family crest.
As well as using a dictionary to translate the basic language, you’ll need a resource such as this to help as a glossary of Heraldic terms. Heraldic words are from a language used to communicate exactly how the design and symbols should be laid out on every coat of arms.
STEP FIVE: Find a designer for your family crest
You may be thinking, “Once I find my family crest, then what?”. Then you just have to get someone to design it for you.
You can search online using websites like 99designs to find a designer who can recreate the design based on your new translated description. A good designer typically costs between $30-$50 per hour of work.
If you’ve done a good job of translating your coat of arms description, an experienced designer should be able to create the design in two hours of work.
Don’t have time to find your family crest yourself or struggling to find your coat of arms? Let our team do the work for you. Our products include all professional research on your behalf and also includes all design work by our professional artists. Shop now to learn more.
Heraldry is the process of creating, displaying and granting use of coats of arms and family crests along with the detailed methods by which family histories and crests are traced and brought back to life.
Heraldry is closely related to genealogy with many of the same skills employed by heraldry researchers. The key difference is that heraldic artists and experts also possess a deep knowledge of ancient armours and armorial symbolism.
Heraldry became estblished in many European countries such as England in the early 1100s. It began as knights first introduced helmets with face shields that made it difficult to recognise a specific person within armour. To solve this problem, knights began to add designs, symbols and illustrations to the outside of their armour, to make them more easy to recognise. Over time, these designs became what are known as coats of arms. Family crests became established when a knight or person of nobility used the same design over time.
Not long later, coats of arms became something that were granted to a family member and registered in order to keep track of who 'owned' and used each specific design. As the centuries passed, other family members of the same name often began to use the design as a means of identity.
As more people were granted coats of arms, it became increasingly important to keep track of them.
The more crests that came into existence, the more important it became to differentiate the designs with specific colors and symbols such as animals, weapons and other elements.
Each color and symbol then took on a specific meaning and told the earliest story of the achievements and values of the family to which it belonged.
There were even specific rules about how and when each symbol could be used and how they should be arranged on a coat of arms.
These 'rules' and the knowledge of how to interpret the meaning of the symbols is what heraldry is all about.
Rest assured, we only use official historical documents, first-hand research and society records to re-create your official family crest. As members of multiple heraldry societies and collectors of unique coats of arms records, our team has access to the resources needed to accurately bring any crest back to life, with the same detailed symbolism as when it was first created.
Our process starts when you purchase a coat of arms. Our researcher will begin by searching your family name in our collection of armoury records, many of which date as far back as the 1100s.
These records span many countries in Europe where coats of arms were most often granted in medieval and middle ages, and in total cover hundreds of thousands of family names.
At times, your family name may have been originally recorded with a slight spelling variation, since the exact spelling may have changed in the centuries since the family crest was first recorded. Rest assured, our team knows how to trace such finer points and will do so as part of the base cost of your coat of arms purchase.
Once a record has been identified, our researcher will translate it into modern English. This is essential since most coats of arms were recorded in ancient English, French, German or a combination of all three.
Once translated, our researcher works with our heraldic artist to recreate your family coat of arms exactly as it was documented in its official armoury record, meaning the symbols, colors and layout will be precisely as it was centuries ago, just as your family name ancestors would have seen it.
Our team has almost 3 decades of combined experience in coat of arms research and design. We know how to recreate original crests and coat of arms from official documents and research notes to an exacting standard unmatched by competitors.
Almost all other competitors that you will find online will provide a coat of arms product that is premade and delivered to you automatically after you purchase. This makes it difficult to be sure you’re getting a family coat of arms that genuinely applies to your name.
Our team operates differently. We research every family crest when a customer places an order, using official armoury records. This means a researcher will review every order placed and work with our artists to recreate your crest to an exact specification. So you can rest assured that your coat of arms will be one that has a genuine and traceable connection to your family name.
We only use the highest standard materials in our physical prints to ensure your print shines with the kind of love and quality that your family crest and name deserves.
Luxury aged parchments and ultra sharp non-fading inks are our standard and we won't use anything less.
For more details about our products and team, please read our story.
