Free family crest downloads

[KGarrad]

This website has some information:
http://www.theheraldrysociety.com/ukgrantsofarms.htm


Or see if your local library has a copy of "Armorial Bearings" by A.C. Fox-Davies.

[Guy Etchells]

Please note my remarks relate to Coats of Arms in England & Wales only as other jurisdictions have different rules.

Most early Coats of Arms were assumed rather than granted.
Assumed meant the person simply developed a design and started using it. Over time that design was recognised as belonging to him and his supporters.
Later (1530 to 1688) these designs were ratified by Heralds during their visitations (tours of inspection).

It is still legal in England and Wales for a gentleman to assume “arms” but they must be unique and not a copy of another’s “arms” and it will at eventually be required to be formalised by the Sovereign or her heralds in lieu.

A Crest is part of a formal armorial achievement and cannot exist alone. In other words a Coat of Arms may exist without a Crest but a Crest cannot exist without the complementary Coat of Arms.

It is often stated that a Coat of Arms belongs to one person but this is not entirely accurate, although today it is commonplace.
A Coat of Arms was developed to identify a landowner in battle. As a result there is a tangible link between the person and the land he/she owns.
That being the case the Coat of Arms is as much linked to the land as it is to the name.
It is this link between the person and the land that distinguishes a man as a gentleman or nobleman.
A successful tradesman though today may be called a gentleman in reality is not (unless he/she has been ennobled by the sovereign).

The use of Coats of Arms as supplied by bucket shops is not only illegal but immoral also.

There is a very useful discussion under the title Heralds’ College and Prescription (starting on page 113 of the Ancestor, Volume VIII, January 1904 and carrying on in Vols. IX & X.).
Cheers
Guy

[ThrelfallYorky]

I'm delighted that I've no ennobled or arms-bearing ancestors at all. It's one fewer thing to have to find out! Whoopeee!

[BushInn1746]

Most of these sites just list them without referencing them. I've known there is a crest for my surname for decades (from a stand at a fair), wonder how you find out to whom the crest was awarded?

Not all unique Family Seals and Crests are Armorial and therefore some are not part of a Coat of Arms.

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Arms are unique to a particular individual of that surname who was granted the Arms personally, some granted for a gracious Act toward, or in support of the Sovereign or Parliament.

I have seen quite a few different designs of the British HOOD Coat of Arms and my Father tells me that we don't have any entitlement or Grant from the Queen via Her Government Department to use any HOOD Arms.

Very few of us have Arms entitlement.

Mark

[mirl]

I think the only arms I'm allowed to use are the two I was born with.

[ThrelfallYorky]

Yes, I know that there are at least three variants of the Arms granted to one branch of my name, but each was to a SPECIFIC person - and I've no more right to flourish any of those three than a budgie has, just because my surname is the same, even though in one case it was a far-distant ancestor!
A crest is the twiddly bit atop the shield-shaped main bit, and that cannot exist unless there is a coat of Arms for it to be abstracted from. Crests, as earlier posters have mentioned, were used for family silver, cutlery, and signet / seal rings, where the whole image would have been impractical.
ALL these firms who flog coats of Arms / family tartans etc are simply selling you some souvenir with an attachment to the name. I really can't see the point of flourishing something you're not entitled to bear. And they make a good profit from it. Caveat Emptor!
The College of Heralds exists to (sell) sort out such issues and proofs formally, as well as to design and issue and verify new grants for people. I'm afraid I won't be petitioning them for a grant of Arms for me anytime soon.

[Mart 'n' Al]

I don't know much about it but the Society for Creative Anachronism might be of interest.

https://www.sca.org

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_for_Creative_Anachronism

Martin

[whiteout7]

If you have a odd surname looking in Fairbairn's book of Crests of Families of Great Britain and Ireland sometimes turns up a description of a Crest

Volume I
https://archive.org/details/fairbairnsbookof01fair/page/n6

Volume II
https://archive.org/details/fairbairnsbookof02fair/page/n4

[Mart 'n' Al]

They are reall nicely scanned and OCR'd, and the images in volume 2 are amazing.

Martin