Are those get your coat-of-arms businesses for real?

Question:

Are those get your coat-of-arms businesses for real?

I'm Filipino with Spanish ancestors, so my last name traces back to Spain. Are these websites and carts in the mall that say they can get your coat-of-arms legit or just a novelty thing?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: I tend to think it is a little bit of both, like anything else, you have to have your BS detection goggles on when you deal with these kinds of things.

About 20 years ago, I noticed my dad had some glasses in the cupboard that were new and had strange seals on them. I asked him about them, and apparently he got them from his deceased father. No idea where his father got them from.

Anyway, we are French-German Americans, and the coat of arms had the muslim crescent moon under a large ribbon and above that ribbon were two fleur-de-lis. I didn't think too much about it, but I did some research on the crescent and it claimed this symbolized my ancestors were active in the crusades.

So, fast forward almost 15 years later, me at a Renaissance Fair, I looked over at the booth, paged through their book and found my name, asked the guy to show me my coat of arms, lo and behold, same as I saw 15 years earlier. Of course, my name is old royal French blood line, and easily traceable, RENAULT.

I like to think everything is a scam, so I go into things with a skeptic mind, so the best I can figure is that these companies either share their results with one another (which makes no sense) or there is at least SOMETHING to it. I wouldn't call it 100% verifiable data though. Since Renault is such a common name in France, and the Americanized version of it, RENO, is not that uncommon in America, I suppose I could really hit the books and find out - but, for 20 bucks, I got a nice coat of arms that I am fairly certain is accurate and is a good conversation piece hanging on my wall.

And to answer the other guy re: Erickson, he is right, I lived in Norway and that is a fairly common name over there, definitely Swedish in origin. Most likely his experiences were with bonafide scam artists.