If you think you've found your family crest or coat of arms, you might want to keep reading this as we look more closely at the so called clan crest. For me, it all began with hope and excitement! I can remember thinking when I initially started to search for my English family crest and coat of arms that it would be a pretty quick and painless procedure. However, the more I got into it, the more confusing the whole saga became. If you do your research online, then you'll come across these outfits offering to find your families crest for a fee! Beware! It's just a wild goose chase! A scam! These online services are nothing short of a con! Let me explain this in more detail. Keep reading, it'll save you time & money.
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Unique Family Crest Symbols and the Crest Meaning! |
Just like many other people out there, I too believed that every family in the United Kingdom had their own unique family crest, or family crest symbols. All I wanted was our English family crest taking pride of place in the home. Unfortunately to find family crest symbols or a full regal coat of arms cannot be done! Here's how the story goes…
Since I started thinking about getting proud possession of our English family crest, I couldn't stop visualizing the day it came to be. I heard chanting in my dream; ' find family crest, find family crest', and I just knew it was to be my mission in life to seek out and unearth our lost crest and coat of arms from wherever it was stored. Sadly, my deep dreams turned into day dreams! The nearer I thought I was getting the further away I seemed to be from ever seeing unique family crest symbols belonging to our family and our family alone.
There's another misconception about what exactly the family crest and coat of arms are. What they are not is one of the same. Someone searching tirelessly for say their English family crest are in actual fact looking for a specific part of the coat of arms. So before you rush out with what you think are your family crest symbols and make them into family crest tattoos somewhere on your person, you really should keep reading this piece.
Here's some useful information for anyone who's hoping to find family crest symbols. The crest itself is not the coat of arms. It is merely a portion of the coat of arms that is displayed to summarise the achievements of an individual. It is possible that you will not find family crest art on a coat of arms if that individual has no achievements to add. In fact, this is not a family crest or a family coat of arms at all, it is something which belongs to an individual as you may have gathered from the above.
So what do we mean by 'individual' exactly? Well, both the Scottish and English family crest are in fact issued to a single person (see above), and just because everyone born into this world is part of a wider family, this does not make a crest a family crest no more than an educational degree belongs to anyone other than the person who achieved it. To read up on family crest information that states otherwise is just part of a moneymaking swindle.
We've said it before on this site and we'll say it again; the internet is full of great and useful information, but it's also notorious for being endemic with misinformation too, and there are certain types out there that just love to prey on the vulnerabilities of ignorant web surfers. You will family crest symbols and you will find places to get your family crest tattoos, but if you're hoping to find an Scottish or English family crest online which is unique to your family, then keep reading.
Let us just reiterate the above agin so that everyone wanting to find family crest services online are aware of the facts. Those family crest symbols you see, and decorative coats of arms do not actually belong to a family at all, but are presented to an individual. So before you rush in and spend money on finding that English family crest, or worse still, gets some kind of permanent family crest tattoos on your visible skin, you have to know that it ain't yours to claim! Think about it for a minute. An individual gets awarded an OBE by her majesty the Queen of England for their contribution to society, but when they die, the title doesn't get passed down to the offspring. Sure, they'll get to keep the physical medal, but they've only inherited the decoration, not the status.
One award issued by the British is called the OBE which many say should stand for ' Other Bugger's Efforts', but even so, it, like all awards, belongs to the receiver and no one can lay claim to it after the person is deceased. The same applies to any English family crest and any family crest symbols that folks think they may have found and hope to claim on behalf of their family name.
If you sit back and think about it seriously, why do you think there are so many websites all offering to do a family crest search no matter who you are and at zero cost? Can't help but smell a rat right! The web is full of headlines like 'We Find Family Shields for Free!', or, ' 1000's of FREE Irish crest and coats of arms'. Find English Crests at no cost!' Scottish Crest searched for without charge from the archives of Scotland, ad infinitum. If something sounds is too good to be true folks, then it usually is!
Actually, I should have begun there in the first place. The individuals who came before me are far more important than a coat of arms, and you might be surprised what you manage to dig up from the archives of the family ancestry. If nothing else, it will certainly take you on an interesting journey.
Remebmer the Warning!
The family crest arms, or family crest coat of arms I should say, is a nice idea in theory, and I'm sure every family would love to display their unique family crest and coat of arms proudly around the home, but the reality is that there is no such thing as the Family Coat of Arms, as arms are actually granted only to individuals by right of patent. However, this doesn't stop the search and despite all the writings about this, many folks continue to dispute and purse their own family coat of arms regardless.
If you have any doubts about this and are really interested in family history genealogy and all that jazz, then why not join a community where this is discussed freely with others that are pursing family tee issues. It's not difficult to find a genealogy forum, and you will learn a lot more in a place like this than independently hopping from one website to the next in a clumsy search for all things historic.
Readers Comments.
| Discovering your Family Crest – submitted by George Fame Thank you George
More people these days seem interested in tracing their roots, their ancestry if you like, and I first saw real evidence of this when I visited Australia. The Ozzies are obsessed with it, as they dig around into the murky past trying to find out what criminal stock they came from, if any. But now we in the USA are also going through a bit of an identity crises, as we try to track our family surname and discover the family crest and coat of arms.
There are many great resources for this online, but as this article points out, some of it may not be quite as it seems. There must be more to this than meets the eye because there is no seeming letup of people trying to discover their family crest, no matter what the supposed facts of disappointment appear to be. Folks, I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but you will NOT find a family coat of arms for a family surname, as they are awarded to individuals and not families or surnames. |
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