How do i know what coat of arms is mine?

Question:I would really like to find out which one is mine But there is 4 to choose from with the smae last name.. Anyone good in this department please help!

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: I would really like to find out which one is mine But there is 4 to choose from with the smae last name.. Anyone good in this department please help!

You were very lucky you encountered 4. If only one was listed you probably would have your check in the mail. There has been a surge in what we call "armchair genealogy" in no small part due to some rather popular TV shows in the UK and US. And as a result, many "businesses" have sprung up to gladly take the money of these people. Coat of Arms sales (in the US primarily because in the UK and most European nations the display of a coat of arms not certifiably yours is considered usurpory which is a crime), "origin" of your surname documents (of course handsomely mounted in a simulated mahogony frame) and ancestral DNA testing are some of these "businesses". And all their blatant displays tell you what you want to hear - It's yours, it applies to you, we can tell you your ancestry.....but, somewhere there is usually very fine print (often on page 4 of the ordering process) that disclaims everything.

As far as coats of arms....

A coat of arms was granted to an INDIVIDUAL, not to a family. And for it to be YOUR coat of arms, you would have to show direct paternal descendency from that person (not his brothers, or uncles who likely bore the same surname - for it was not their coat of arms).

Without that direct descendancy, what you have is a way-cool coat of arms that at sometime way back when was granted to someone who happened to have your surname (there can be many coats-of-arms for a given surname). Nothing to do with you.

That said, there are a bizzillion places that will gladly sell you a coat of arms, and even one that likely was in fact granted to someone with your surname. Any Stuckey's along US interstates has racks of coffee mugs and key chains with coats-of-arms with a surname.

But there is no family (surname) coat of arms, in fact, many coats-of-arms were granted before surname usage was common or stable. It is the coat of arms of the direct paternal descendants of the person granted the coat of arms. And surname is irrelevant. Somewhere in that paternal line, someone could have changed their surname for any number of reasons -- but as a direct descendent, you can consider it your coat of arms even though you don't have the surname of the original grantee.

Little known fact. A person can have only ZERO or ONE coat of arms. No more. Why? Because each person has only one paternal parent and that is how a coat of arms passed from grantee to descendants

None are.

If your family had the right to legitimately have one - you would have known already.

The reason for 4 of them is because 4 different men with the same last name were granted them. Which simply reinforces the reality that they ARE NOT granted to a family. And, those 4 men may be related, or maybe not.
Nothing to choose about it. If you go to the mall some Saturday, you'll find a cart or something, with people ready to sell you a coffee cup and a "verified" history of your name. If you had not stopped here first, you would not realize how bogus these guys are.

I think Mind Bender and Wendy have laid it on the line. A lot of Americans are taken in by surname product peddlers. (There are some on this board that resent my using the word peddler). It's funny. Actually there might be more than four that was granted to someone with your surname.

Now, if you do research you might find some in your family tree, not that they would belong to you. It might be you are descended from persons that were granted them but back down the line you come from a female line on those persons. You wouldn't be entitled to any of them. A large portion of the Anglo Saxon people of the American South, even those of humble means, have them in their family trees. That doesn't mean they are entitlted to them. Some in the South have the one their ancestor brought over from England 300-400 years ago. They don't display them. They are not a bit of good for paying for things at the supermarket.

Anytime you go into someone's home in the U. S. and you see one of those dinky walnut plaques on their den wall, you can rest assured that they probably aren't entitled to it. Any genealogist visiting them is probably amused. To be polite, they probably don't laugh at them to their face.

A lot of teachers who know nothing about genealogy or heraldry ask their students to find their coat of arms or a misnomer that is applied "family crest." A crest is a part of a coat of arms and not all have one.

See the links below, one from the United States' National Genealogical Society and the other from the British College of Arms

http://www.ngsgenealogy.org/comconsumerp...

http://www.college-of-arms.gov.uk/Faq.ht...

"You" do not have a Coat of Arms, nor does your family!
The Arms that are sold to unsuspecting people via the web etc are Arms that were awarded to a particular person at some time in the past! The fact that that person's surname and yours are the same does not mean the Arms are yours!
The only person who could say the Arms are his would be a direct blood descendant of that person, in which case they would know exactly which Arms are theirs!
They would be the only people legally entitled to use them.
Arms are still being awarded today and the right to bear them can also be purchased, but the cost of this makes them only available to the very, very rich!
This should help you to understand:
http://www.college-of-arms.gov.uk/
This is an excellent example -
The Arms of George Martin who was the Beatle's record producer - note the beetles!:
http://www.college-of-arms.gov.uk/Martin...
The reason several Arms may exist for a particular name is as stated, but they are sometimes very similar due to the bearers being related.

Mind Bender is right on the money with his answer.