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Question:im looking for my family coat of arms. if there is anyone out there with the same or similar last name any info would be appreciated!!


Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: im looking for my family coat of arms. if there is anyone out there with the same or similar last name any info would be appreciated!!

This one I can answer with complete certainty. I, too, am a descendent of Jacques Billadeau and Genevieve Longchamps. ALL Bilodeau/Biladeau/Billadeau in North America descend from these original settlers of New France.

We DO NOT have a noble heritage and DEFINITELY DO NOT have a "family coat of arms". Jacques was from Poitou and our ancestors were the founders of the Ile d'Orleans. He would have fought under the colors of the Duc de Poitou-Charentes and used this coat of arms: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Catego...
You could also legitimately use this one, as his family was from Poitiers, Vienne: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:...

http://www.linkpendium.com/genealogy/USA...

check this site out!

houseofnames.com will show you a Coat of Arms that was (probably) once issued to someone with the same surname as yours, BUT:

Coats of arms were originally designed so knights could tell each other apart. They were given to individuals, not surnames or families. If, for instance, every knight named "Smith" (Carpenter, Baker, Johnson . . .) used the same coat of arms, there would be a crowd of knights riding around with the same coat of arms painted on their shields. It would be as confusing as a football game where both sides wore blue uniforms and all the players were number 12.

They were not given to just anyone, either; you had to be rich and want to brag, or else be born to a noble family.

The eldest legitimate son inherits his father's Coats of Arms. He passes it on to his eldest legitimate son, and so on; that's where the myth of a "Family" Coat of arms comes from. Only one person can have a given coat of arms at one time.

People who sell T-shirts and coffee mugs encourage the gullible to believe Coats of Arms are for a surname. Let us suppose Sir Peregrine Reginald Smith, born in 1412, had a wondeful Coat of Arms, a rampant dragon argent on a field azure.

Which would be easier - to sell that Coat of Arms on coffee mugs to everyone in the world named Smith, or to track down the eldest son of the eldest son of . . . Sir Peregrine, 14 generations later? That 14th great grandson might buy a coffee mug for everyone in his household, but that would only be four mugs.

If you could get 1% of the 3 million people in the USA named Smith to buy a mug, you'd be in retailer's heaven. Some of their ancestors might have been Schmidt in Germany or Smithowski in Poland, but who cares? 30,000 mugs at $11.95 each . . .

Coats of arms DO NOT belong to surnames.

They were and are granted to individuals. Actually there might have been 12 or even more individuals named Biladeau that were each granted their own coat of arms. However, the peddlers that sell them won't have all of them. They don't need to in order to sell to gullible people.

If this is a school assignment, go ahead and print off any that you find, but also print off the links I am furnishing you and give them to your teacher. To find a picture of one if there is one, just put coat of arms in your search engine.

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

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

There are no laws in the U.S. regarding heraldry and there are merchants of deceit that take advantage of Americans. In some countries a person would risk prosecution for displaying a coat of arms if they did not have documented proof that they are in the legitimate direct male line descent of the individual who was granted a coat of arms.
Actually if you were entitled to one, you would have it or your father or grandfather would have it if he is living.

Now, you might have several in your family tree. That does not mean you are necessarily entitled to any one of them. What it means if you have a book printed or even published on your family history, it is quite legitimate of you to put a picture of your ancestors coats of arms in your book. However, it would not be legitimate for you to put pictures of ones that just happened to have your ancestors' names underneath them.

If you are an American and you have any English lines that goes back to early colonial days in the American South, you have an excellent opportunity of having several in your family trees. Some in the South have the one their ancestor brought over from England 300-400 years ago. They aren't those dinky little walnut plaques that silly people have on their den walls or over their firerplaces. They usually don't display them. As I have posted many times on questions like yours, they can't buy groceries with them. You can't use them like a credit card.

If you can't find any, then print off what Ted and I have posted and the 2 links I am furnishing you and give all of it to your teacher.