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Some Special Interests => Heraldry Crests and Coats of Arms => Topic started by: harewoodhouse on Thursday 17 May 07 02:47 BST (UK)
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how would you know what family that coat of arms is for? how would I find out what two coat of arms that have come down my husbands family mean, I have looked in books but have not seen any like them?...sue
Moderator Comment: Split off from another topic and moved to Common Room
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Sue
If you post a picture of them in the common room here* there are a number of us who have access to various resources on this subject. If you have it include the crest (on top of the helmet) and motto as they often gives further information.
David
(*) Moderator Comment: topic now moved to Common Room :)
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thank you David I will get a couple of pictures of them sent over from england and I will post them as soon as I can...my mother-in-law only uses snail mail so may take a week or two...the motto is in solo deo salus, one has what look like two stags holding a red shield with an arm coming out the top holding a sword and two swords either side of the stags, the other is a red shield with a sword going up the middle with two snakes facing each other either side of the sword and two crescent shapes above them, then on top of the shield it has a knights helmet thing with a boars head coming out the top of that and feathery things down the side of the shield...sorry about the crappy descriptions..her family name is Quinn, but the family also have deknight and gisbitzky as family names so these crests could of come from anywhere ::)I made a tapestry of them thats how I can tell you what they look like...but my tapestry is only slightly less crappy then my description..ha-ha...sue
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The only immediate response is that the motto "In solo deo salus" was used by the Harewood or Lascelles family. In particular the Earl of Harewood and Baron Viscount Lascelles. Their crest (on the helmet) would be a muzzled bear's head. Black head, red muzzle with gold buckles. I have no information about the shield.
David
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Thank you for that David, I was just reading a book about folklore and it mentioned how some people got the crest pictures on their shields and it mentioned the muzzled bear...spooky! it says there is a story that the wealthy land owner killed a servant and as punishment went to the tower, he was told if he could make a muzzle in one night and put it on the bear (apparently there were two bears being kept at the tower at that time) in the morning that the bear would kill him or he would get his freedom...he managed to do it and stuck the muzzled bear on his shield...very strange how harewood house keeps coming into my life...sue
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thank you for doing that for me David...I must say this board is very interesting and seems full of great people who dont mind helping a newbie like me :P...sue
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It is probably worth just giving you a few heraldic terms so that any future responses don't confuse you.
The coat of arms is often wrongly referred to as the crest. The crest is what sits on top of the helm (helmet). A picture on the shield is called a charge and is usually in relief.
The helmet is different according to the rank of the person to whom the arms were granted. The mantling which flows from the helmet is usually just decoration but in the case of nobility represents their cloak and so again shows the rank of the person. Supporters which hold up the shield are only only granted to peers of the realm.
David
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Hi there David so let me see if I have this right
on the first one (the oldest looking one) where it has the arm holding a dagger or short sword sticking out of the top of the sheild..that is the "crest" on this one their is no helm (helmet) it just comes from the top of the shield(charge), the "charge" is very plain looking and no picture on it just red, it is being held up by two stags who are looking away from each other (only in my tapestry they look more like reindeer ha-ha) there are no frills "mantilling" on this one just two swords either side of the stags.
the other one looks more like I have seen.. with the charge with a sword going up the middle the snakes facing each other and the cresant shapes, with a helm and with a crest of a boars head looking straight up at the sky and mantilling.
does that sound right? talked to my M-I-L tonight and she will post me pictures tomorrow. with the stags in it I thought it might belong to the gisbitzkys as that name sounds polish and this coat of arms with the stag on looks very european but her M-I-L brother seems to think that that is the one from the quinn side :P so who knows
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:D oh and before you ask...yes I am trying to earn brownie points with the mother-in-law, after this week finding out she had one ancestor up for murder and another in debtors prison, I would like to give her a bit of good news in that she can at last know whos coat of arms they are...sue
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Sorry I have confused you.
The charge is a picture of say a bear's or lion's head actually on the shield.
Your plain red shield supported by two stags has me completely confused. I need to see the picture of that one. A plain red shield with everything else surrounding it doesn't sound like an English or Scottish Coat of Arms and so your Polish guess could well be right. I have vague recollections of seeing European Continental Arms like that.
David
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thanks once again...yes the stagg one looks old and according to M-I-L they used to have in the family a tankard type of mug in silver that had the same crest on but it was pretty old and beaten up when she saw it as a kid and she doesnt know who in the family had it or where it went, which is a shame as the silver mark on that could have been interesting she is going to try and track it down. Both tobias and james quinn were married to women from the deknight family so it could of come from there we just dont know
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Hi there, M-I-L's brother just sent me a copy of the stag crest that someone in the family carved, I don't know if they made any better job of the stags then my attempt and I see that they have the shield as white or silver..but as I said just plain and also it is a different shape then mine, I suspect that I used artistic license and changed them but cant remember as I did the tapestry over 20 years ago, I am waiting on M-I-L to send me the proper photos but thought I would put this up to show you so you get a basic idea of what I am talking about
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There is no such thing as a family coat of arms. A coat of arms was awarded to an individual and is only valid when passed in unbroken descent from the recipient to elder son to elder son. until it becomes extinct due to a break in births of Sons.. The son has to apply to the College of Arms for permission to use the Arms and it has an addition made to it to distinguish the descent.
The Lord Lyon, Chief Herald for the Scottish College of Arms (Heraldry) has made it quite clear on his site what he considers the use of Arms not awarded to the person himself being used.
The Court of the Lord Lyon, The Heraldry Society of Scotland - UK Heraldry (http://The Court of the Lord Lyon, The Heraldry Society of Scotland - UK Heraldry)
Also interesting is this site done for the benefit of America n researchers by Dick Eastman their senior genealogist. Psst want to buy a coat of arms (http://Psst want to buy a coat of arms)
The British College of Arms also set out the rules regarding them.
In a word you are not entitled to Arms simply because you have a certain surname.
http://www.sog.org.uk/leaflets/arms.pdf (http://www.sog.org.uk/leaflets/arms.pdf)
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Differences are applied to Coats of Arms for two reasons
1) When the father is still alive to create a coat of arms for the various sons. Once the father dies the son usually adopts the father's arms without difference unless his wife comes from a family which also has a coat of arms. The differences for sons are constructed in a standard manner.
2) When a descendent down a male line becomes entitled to a coat of arms then these are often created by adding a difference to the coat of arms of the main line. Differences were also added whenever there was any doubt about the pedigree.
That said the rules are different for every couhtry including England and Scotland and of course the royal family seem to bend them at their own convenience.
David
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::) cant find the old topic.(*)
got the photo of M-I-L's crest, and you know how I told you behindthefrogs that there were two quinn crests...well I have found some of it...look...this is all she has of the painting of the crest that was done in the 1800's a little scrap and sad to say there was some writing on the back and it turns out the family history had been written down there but some little kid got into the box it was kept in and tore it all up...the other crest was of the snakes and cresants that I told you about, well part of that is on the dunraven crest see, but look how they have the arm with the dagger on that one and the quinns have it on the one with the stags...strange
Moderator Comment: topics merged
(*) Go to your profile and click on "Show the last posts of this RootsChatter" to find any of your previous postings :)
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:'( this is the back of it, and the carving I must of seen when I did my tapestry as it has a red shield
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these are the shields as they are on my tapestry that I did about 20 years ago :P so I was only very young ;D
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I think the crest was painted by edwin quinn who lived 1854-1925 and the part of the name that you see is his grandson edwin who was born in 1910 as the other edwins were 1882 and 1933 so dont think it was them.
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Hi Harewoodhouse
The shield which you have reproduced has no crest. The helmet and crest are replaced by the coronet which show that the coat of arms belongs to an earl. (I stand corrected)
The shield (which our US cousins insist on calling a crest) is quartered with the two pairs of quarters identical. This shows that the shield is of the second generation or later of the two families which had those arms. The original husband and wife would have their shield halved with the two arms side by side.
The paternal line is the one in the first and fourth quarters (top left and bottom right as you look at them). The wife would have been an heraldic heiress, that is had no surviving brothers or issue of brothers who would inherit the arms in preference.
I don't recognize either of the shields which have been combined but the wife's is sufficiently complicated for it to have been differenced a number of times (had bits added) indicating that it is probably some distance both in terms of generations and involving younger sons from the original grant.
David
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:) thank you for that, and at least I now know what parts of the design are from the quinn side and the other bits must of come from the polish side the GISBITZKY's who I have just found out probably were not called that at all but GRZYBICKI but in english that is what it sounds like and according to JAP there are about 18 000 hits for that name on google so I might take awhile tracking them down :o thanks once again....sue
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The Dunraven coat of arms that was posted on you reply no 14 shows an earl's coronet above it. The quarter with the red background is the Quin of Thomond coat of arms. The other quarter is for the Quin of Annaly family.
It is not unusual to find similar charges (e.g. crescents, lions, horses) on totally unrelated coats of arms. The shield with the stags on it looks more continental than British, but that is just an opinion.
Nell
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just been looking on this site
http://genealog.home.pl/
and the GRZYBOWSKI family have an arm holding a sword coming from the top above the helmet...interesting
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just been looking on this site
http://genealog.home.pl/
and the GRZYBOWSKI family have an arm holding a sword coming from the top above the helmet...interesting
In the early days of coats of arms it was not unusual for the crest (on the helmet) to be the same as the charge on the shield. The crest often goes unchanged through many grants of arms and can be another lead to the origin of a family. It also often comes from the most prestigious line from which a family is descended and not always through the hereditary line.
For example the swans neck crest on the avitar that I use is believed to have originated from the Count of Boulogne and to have been brought over with William the Conquerer even though the Count of Bolougne was not in fact a Norman. This in turn is supposed to come from the count's marriage to a female descendant of Charlemagne. The story of the Swan Knight as told in Wagner's opera Lohengrin is said to come from the same origins.
David
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this is a little like it
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:-[ sorry about that it didn't attach
there are 15 shields in peerages of England , Scotland and Ireland 1790
and then there is the Irish viscount taaffe who has the same arm but a horse and dragon are holding it
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although these ones have their heads turned. oh and I meant that there are 15 with stags on :P
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The stag is a common supporter on many coats of arms. It does not necessarily imply that there is a connection between the owners of the coats of arms. Supporters in the early days of heraldry were often the same on each side, but in modern times it is common for them to be non-identical e.g. the Royal Arms has a lion and a unicorn as supporters.
The right to bear supporters is now restricted to those to whom they have been granted.
Nell
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:) Thamks for that Nell,
as you can see I know nothing about crests. I was hoping that there may be a clue in the crest that told me which part of poland the Gisbitzkys came from :-\
should of known it wouldnt be that easy
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:) sent the M-I-L a copy of the grzybowski coat of arms with the arm out the top by snail mail and she phoned straight away when she got it as the design on the shield (a funny looking cross) is one that is on the inside of a ruby and opal ring her father gave to her when she was 16 and which she gave my daughter her only grand daughter on her 16th...so now I just have to get a hold of my daughter who is living in the hills on a kibbutz in Israel to check and see if she has got it there with her or if it is amongst the huge pile of cr** she left here for me to mind :P it is not proof positive that gisbitzky is grzybowski...but it is somewhere to go from