What is the difference between a family crest and a coat of arms?

[Leanne.]

I found this answer - Does anyone know if it's true ?

There has never been a crest or a coat of arms allocated to a family - this is a common modern myth supported by misleading, fraudulent and unscrupulous "family heraldry" salespeople.

Coats of arms and crests were (and are) only ever awarded to an individual, usually a male, but sometimes to a woman. A man being awarded knighthood automatically had a coat of arms that he chose himself or had allocated to him. He could also (from about the late 14th century) choose to wear a crest on his helmet, often made of lightweight material such as boiled leather, wood or papier mache, with a "mantling" of coloured cloth flowing from this crest. The crest did not have to be in any way connected with the heraldic coat of arms, but it formed part of the overall heraldry.

[suzard]

there is this too

people.howstuffworks.com/culture-traditions/genealogy/family-crests.htm

Suz

[Graham47]

This is how I understood it to be which is why I suppose heraldry is shown as "belonging to a family of that name" which even then is slightly ambiguous. Not sure how that differs from those displayed by various counties across the UK though.

[stanmapstone]

There is a Board on RootsChat for Heraldry Crests and Coats of Arms http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?board=430.0
Where this subject has been covered many times 
See also http://www.college-of-arms.gov.uk/resources/faqs

Stan

[behindthefrogs]

In a full coat of arms the crest sits on top of the helmet.  While the full coat of arms was often inherited sometimes the crest was adopted from the wife's family in the circumstances where she was not herself entitled to a coat of arms.  You will thus find the crest changing between generations while the shield was unchanged.  Similarly while younger sons would adopt a shield with relatively minor differences, these differences would be reflected in a more major change to the crest.  Thus for example a cross added to the shield could also be hung round the neck of an animal that formed the cross.

Due to the fact that shields were often complex the crest rather than the shield was often used on small items like cutlery.

[gemmatubbrit]

You may find this a useful resource http://www.myfamilysilver.com/pages/heraldry-info.aspx The crest basically sits on top of the coat of arms. See this image is a full coat of arms including crest then if you look at this image it singles out the crest . images from http://www.acsilver.co.uk

[behindthefrogs]

Not quite a full coat of arms as there is no motto or helmet.  At least one of which would normally be expected.

[gemmatubbrit]

Ah i see your point. So I assume there are part coat of arms in the instance above. Forgive me im still learning  i refered to this link after your reply http://www.heraldryandcrests.com/273-2/ which as I need a visual was very helpful.
regards

[behindthefrogs]

I was being pedantic.  However each of the various parts of a coat of arms leads to details of the genealogy of the family concerned.  The shield is usually the most interesting, as in your case for example it shows a marriage between two families each of which had its own coat of arms. The sinister, right hand side as viewed coming from the wife's family.  If the "shield" is diamond shaped, it belongs to a woman.  Other shapes vary with the age of the shield.  The motto and crest often come from the more powerful family, although they may be changed later in the history of the family due to other marriages etc.  The helmet or crown will show the rank of person bearing the coat of arms.  Similarly the inclusion of supporters in a coat of arms is only granted to people of higher rank, that is peers and certain higher ranked knights like knights of the garter.