Hi All,
I was looking up the meanings of everything on my ancestor’s coat of arms, and I found out we were very war and battle oriented.
I know most families back then were probably, but I was wondering, if you know your ancestor’s coat of arms, do you know what everything means?
Here, go to this site: http://www.fleurdelis.com/meanings.htm and tell me what your family was all about. 
Thanks.
Family Coat Of Arms Meanings?
Archived in the category: Answers
Posted by Admin on 07 Feb 10 - 2 Comments
2 comments for “Family Coat Of Arms Meanings?”
1
storkarh
The “meanings” on the site are bogus, and are based on an old book in which the author made up meanings (W. Cecil Wade’s “The Symbolisms of Heraldry or A Treatise on the Meanings and Derivations of Armorial Bearings”. Published in London in 1898).
Each person who designs his arms intends certain meanings for the charges, ordinaries, and tinctures. There are only a few charges that have universal meaning, e.g. some religious symbols. Otherwise, it’s up to the armiger. For example, a heart could mean “love,” or it could tell the story of a battle, or it could be a pun on the armiger’s name, such as for Mr. Haertfield.
Bottom line: you have to know who the original armiger was in order to know what he intended, and even then the design may remain a mystery.
–added–
In our family history, we find (on maternal lines) the arms of Jason Fargo (New London, CT) and the Munro clan chief (Scotland). The Fargo arms have a lion, and no one knows what it means. The Munro arms have an eagle’s head, and they are probably derivative of the Ross eagle supporter. The Munros were vassals of the Earls of Ross.
2
Shirley T
Families as a rule don’t have coats of arms. The only exception in Europe might be France or Poland. They definitely don’t belong to surnames.
They were granted to or assumed by an individual man and only his direct legitimate male line descendants are entitled to them.
Now if you received your coat of arms from your father and he got it from his father and so only back down the line it it legitimately yours. However, if it is one being sold by one of the peddlers on the internet, at shopping malls, in airports, in magazines what you have is a coat of arms that belongs to one man and one man alone. To display it as yours would be considered usurpation of identity. If you have pride in yourself and your family, you certainly don’t want to take on another’s identity.
Here are some links to various countries regarding heraldry.http://www.college-of-arms.gov.uk/Faq.ht…
This is the British College of Arms. They grant coats of arms for England, Northern Ireland and Wales.http://www.bothwell.cx/arms.shtml
This link regading the Bothwell arms gives you information on Scottish arms.http://www.heraldry.ws/info/article10.ht…
This link is regarding Irish heraldry.http://www.regalis.com/onom.htm
This link is regarding Italian heraldryhttp://www.szlachta.org/heraldry.htm
This link is regarding Polish heraldryhttp://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_gen…
This link gives valuable info on coats of arms
The bad think about those selling coats of arms like they belong to everyone with the same surname is that usually a family history comes with them. That family history will not be the family history of everyone with that particular surname. Surnames were not taken in Europe until the last millennium. In England most had one by the end of th 14th century and still it was a few more centuries before the same name was passed down to subsequent generations in many cases. In the Netherlands it was 1811 during the reign of Napoleon. They were not started so much to identify a person as a member of a family but for taxation purposes. Too many Waldos in the same town or village and they had to tell them apart.
When they got through it wasn’t impossible for legitimate sons of the same man to have a different surname and still each could have shared their surname with others unrelated. Some will say we are all related if we go back far enough. However, the root person of your surname will not necessarily be the root person of someone else with your surname.