Family Crest and Coats of Arms

A coat of arms should correctly be called an armorial achievement, armorial bearings or often just arms for short. Yet in European tradition it is a design belonging to a particular person and used by them in a wide variety of ways. Historically, they were used by knights to identify them apart from enemy soldiers. In Continental Europe, commoners were able to adopt burgher arms.Today they are affectionately traced by family members to help provide a sense of belonging to there ancestors by means of an better understanding of the Family Crest or Coats of Arms.

Arthur Charles Fox-Davies may not be overly famous in the ancestry world, but he is responsible for an encyclopedia called “Armorial Families”. This was the first directory of Coats of Arms and Family Crests. The book was full of heraldy coats of arms in Britain, with illustrations and brief descriptions of the family histories and heads of family for each crest.

This encyclopedic publication is now fully available on-line and can reveal interesting information on the history of your family name. Its often available for download on the main web sites.Another powerful research tools for looking into family roots.

Google Family Crest

Just found a few more sites that enable you to search and find your family crest. One tip is to type “family crest” into Google and select images, or type your surname followed by the words family crest and you should find yours unless its incredibly rare.

I’m interested in the Creswell family crest so i’ll let you know how i get on in a future post

Related posts:

1. Creswell Family Crest
2. Your Family History Popularity
3. Family Surname Guide
4. How to do a Family Tree
5. Free Online tools for Family History