Coat of Arms & Family Crest Details
J. B. Rietstap, Armorial Général, Gouda: G. B. van Goor Zonen, 1884–87
Blazon (the actual original written record)“D'azur à une cloche, acc. en chef à dextre d'un croiss. et à sen. d'une étoile, le tout d'arg.”
A record of documented arms, meaning and origin, researched for the Dandrea family of France.
J. B. Rietstap, Armorial Général, Gouda: G. B. van Goor Zonen, 1884–87
Blazon (the actual original written record)“D'azur à une cloche, acc. en chef à dextre d'un croiss. et à sen. d'une étoile, le tout d'arg.”

The Dandrea arms were recorded in Ile-de-France, c. 1663.
Ile-de-France is the country around Paris, and proximity to the court mattered. Families who served the crown were rewarded with land near it, and land near the capital carried arms almost as a matter of course.
This is where the arms were entered in the register. Families often moved to other parts of the country, so the same name can turn up in more than one region.
In France, a coat of arms was a mark of honor that passed down through the male line to all legitimate descendants. Families often used the same shield without changes to show their shared heritage. If a branch wanted to stand out, they could add a small mark to their shield to show their specific place in the family tree.
The surname Dandrea is a patronymic name, which means it was originally formed by combining a prefix with the given name Andrea. In the context of the family’s presence in the Île-de-France region by 1663, the name suggests a lineage rooted in the cultural transitions of the seventeenth century. During this period, families in the area around Paris often moved between rural estates and the growing urban centers to find work in trade or local administration. The structure of the name indicates that early ancestors were likely identified by their connection to a specific patriarch named Andrea, a common practice used to distinguish families in parish registers and tax documents of the time. As these families settled into the Île-de-France, they became part of the social fabric of the French countryside, contributing to the agricultural and artisan communities that defined the region before the turn of the eighteenth century.
Derived from the Greek word for man or manly.
