What is a site that I can either MAKE a coat of arms or look up mine? FOR FREE?

Question:I want to learn about my heiratage and I was wondering what my coat of arms looked like... I also need it for a project and My family cannot find ours.. can you help PLEASE

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: I want to learn about my heiratage and I was wondering what my coat of arms looked like... I also need it for a project and My family cannot find ours.. can you help PLEASE

because i need to answer this i will. a coat of arms was given to an INDIVIDUAL not a family. The companies out there that will sell youa coat of arms or give you one or whatever does not belong to you. Coast of arms were given to individuals but they could be passed down from father to son. Only if you can prove that you are directly related to an individual that has sent there coat down can you use it.

http://www.ask.com/web?qsrc=http://answers.yahoo.com/question/178&o=0&l=di...

Oh, no! - Here we go again!
I'm not going to answer this. Just wait for the next dozen replies!

Goole coat of arms and your name.

They DO NOT belong to surnames. The companies that peddle them on the internet, at shopping malls, at airport, in magazines and sometimes by soliciting through the mails sell them based on a surname and that is not valid.

Not everyone is entitled to a coat of arms.
They were and are granted to individuals and are passed down through the direct male line of descent. Actually there might have been, for instance, 15 different men with the same surname, not all necessarily related, that were each granted their own coat of arms, all different. The peddlers that sell them won't have all 15. They don't need to in order to sell to gullible people. Now if a name crosses national boundaries sites like House of Names might have one for each nation. For instance some of the same surnames are found in England and France and sometimes England and Germany or Scotland. So if a coat of arms was granted to individuals with the same surname for each of the countries they will show one for each.

See the links below, one from the British College of Arms, another from the most prestigious genealogical organization in the U.S., The National Genealogical Society and one regarding making a coat of arms. Actually on the link from the British College of Arms you can click on the various headings at the top and come up with quite a lot of information.

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

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

http://www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/microsites...

Now, you might have more than one in your family tree. That does not means that you are entitled to any one of them. It just means that if after doing research you have found ancestors that were granted a coat of arms, it is quite legitimate for you to put pictures of your ancestors' coats of arms in any book you might have printed or even published on your family history. However, it would not be valid if you just put pictures of ones that were granted to people who just happened to have the same surname.

For Americans, if you have any English lines that goes back to early colonial days in the American South, you have an excellent opportunity of finding several in your family tree. Actually, there are some in the South that have the ones their ancestors brought over from England 300-400 years ago, and they aren't those dinky little walnut plaques that silly people have on their den walls. People who dispaly those things are just displaying one that was granted to someone with the same surname and might not even be related.
Those in the South that have them as a rule do not display them. Afterall they aren't a least bit good for buying groceries and Walmart won't even take them. Darn!

There are no laws regarding heraldry in the U.S. and those merchants of deceit take advantage of American. In some countries a person would risk prosectution for usurpation for displaying a coat of arms without documented proof that they are entitled to it.

If this is a school assignment, please print off the links from the British College of Arms and the National Genealogical Society and give them to your teacher. Also, feel free to give him/her a copy of what I am posting here.

Dear, let me tell you, if you do one up yourself, you will probably be the only one in your class with one could possibly be considered valid, though if you applied to the College of Arms and send them your family tree, it might not meet their criteria

If you want to find out your family tree go to ancestry.com but some of it costs money just some not all of it

Yeah, what Shirley said.

There is no such thing as a family crest. It is a part of the Coat of Arms. Coat of Arms were granted to INDIVIDUALS, not assigned to surnames. Just because someone of your last name MAY have been granted one at some point does not make it yours. Also, it may be that several men of the same surname were granted a coat of arms....each one different.....and maybe none of the men were related to each other. Likewise, it may be that NO ONE of your surname was ever granted one. In order for you to be able to claim any Coat of Arms you must be able to do the following:

1. research your family tree to see if you have any ancestors that were granted a Coat of Arms.

2. If you do have an ancestor who was granted one, then you can only claim it IF the following is true: The person who rightfully can claim a Coat of Arms that was granted to their ancestor is a male descendant who is the first born son, of the first born son, of the first born son, of the first born son, etc., all the way back to the person who was originally granted the Coat of Arms. If you do not fall in that line, then you cannot claim it. If you do fall in that line, then chances are you are already aware you have one.

To use a Coat of Arms based on your last name is meaningless. It is about as accurate as buying a picture frame at the store that has a piece of paper in it showing an image of a child holding a flower and claiming that is actually a picture of your child.

But if you want to make one up for the heck of it, more power to you......but it will not be legal unless you register it with the Heraldic Authorities.

If you wanna do it for fun and not take it seriously, just search the surname + family crest or coat of arms under google images. You should find it.

You can look up a coat of arms that was assigned to an individual in the past - but just because the last name is spelled the same as yours does not make it "your" coat of arms. This doesn't mean you can't enjoy one as an object of interest.

houseofnames.com

Enjoy!