Got Heraldry?

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Howdy Folks! I found my family's Coat of Arms yesterday, and I wanted to post it. It's pretty cool! It's also interesting when you look at what the different symbols, colors and shield styles mean.

Take a look at mine and see what you think...

http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Meadows/3011/ware.htm

My family motto is: Deo Favente - "With the Favor of God"

If your family has a crest or coat of arms, post it here. It would be cool to see what other family designs look like.

 

Did you find your heraldry online? If so, how'd you do it?

I have both my paternal and maternal coat-of-arms hanging inside my front door, but I have no way to upload a picture of it anywhere.

 

I just stumbled on it yesterday. I've been tracing back my genealogy and I found a few sites that had the coat of arms on it.

The hardest thing about tracing my family's history very far is the poor record keeping in the South United States in the 17 and 1800's. A lot of the records have several different spellings of the name "Ware." it's been misspelled quite often, so I have to look for the names Weer, Weyr, Waer, Wear, Weir, and even de la Warre from my ancestors in England.

I have a pretty good trace of history down to the 1780's then there is a gap because of all the spelling changes to the name.

 

That's pretty cool Sir Ware!

Do the oyster shells boast of your family's virility?

I'm also guessing you didn't do that to the dragon ... you don't seem the sort that would leave a perfectly good sword in a dragon's neck, just for the heck of it.

I've done some looking, and my family pretty much comes from the gutters of Holland. Our surnames were given when we immegrated into the USA (more or less) and speak more to our profession than our past. (Schaaf means shepherd). I made up a coat of arms for myself as a jr. high project, but it was not that great.

 

Learning about the different symbols is pretty cool!

The Blue and Gold on the shield were our families colors. The two blue lions (passant) were for the battles of Crecy and Poitiers that one of my ancestors fought for the King of England (which was why we were granted arms in the first place), and the escallop shells symbolized the commanding of troops and making long journeys. There are other descriptions of our family shield having roses in between the escallop shells, but I haven't found a copy of it yet.

I still don't know what the sword impaled dragon's head means, so if anyone finds out - let me know.

Also, the name "Ware" is old English/Welsh meaning "to defend" or "to protect." I thought that was pretty interesting since most of my family that I can trace has had a tradition for serving in the military or serving or helping others. Interesting stuff!

 

I know my Father has information on my Scottish side but my Mothers side is dying basically and nothing has been kept because we're used to be a rather military family.

My Grandad is famous round here though. well, South-England - Ringwood/Verwood area .

I'm sure that someone told me we hada coat of arms but it was lost/forgotten somehow.

 

Some of my father's ancestors...
A white tent covered with ermine fur and a cross on the top, in bright red shield. The helm is directed en face and there are three towers in the crest, the middle one being the highest. Sometimes they are sorrounded by a crown, sometimes not. In some versions they form a crown themselves. The legend is quite an old one, dated 1038 and with many legendary adherences, so I won't torment you with more than a brief shortcut. It's all about succesfully defending an undefendable siege. The guy who got the coat-of-arms was in command of his sovereign's capital city defence. The citizens begged him to surrender to the enemy as they didn't have provisions, weapons, arrows and so on, but he ordered do dig a huge pit in the earth, mix the ingredients (ekhm... flour & water) there and bake something close to bread to throw on the enemies, who then thought that if the defenders were throwing bread at them, they had plenty of everything to survive the siege. The other version stresses thu guy's attacking besiegers sword in hand in some cunning fashion leading to the destruction of their camp. The origins of the guy were Scandinavian, though it's stressed he was a knight, and the legend is full of similarities to Scandinavian legends including those with elves featuring.

@Sir Belisarius: Is the word 'ware' related to 'ward' vb or 'aware' adj?

[ January 02, 2003, 22:49: Message edited by: chevalier des Trois-Tours ]

 

I don't have a coat of arms that I know of (would be cool though...), but my granddad once told me that one of my ancestors is said to have a magical sword with a wolf encarved on it. Now THAT would be cool to find!

 

@Frostmage: seek anything related to the wolf, especially the wolf's head and the sword. Check the name, maybe the word is somehow related to 'wolf' in your language.

 

My dad has a coat-of-arms plaque, which he duplicated on computer and changed to suit me and my brothers (ie colour and a certain symbol). The problem is, the main theme of the plaque is French, but the symbol I just mentioned is, AFAIK, British. I'll see what I can do to have it posted somewhere on the internet.

As for my family history, I haven't really tracked my family's history person by person, so much as I've found ancestors here and there.
One such confirmed ancestor was a Frenchman (his first name escapes me at the moment) who moved to Canada between 1660-1670, who worked a sizeable piece of land, but who got caught by his landlord, sleeping with his (the landlord's) wife. Neither my ancestor or the wife survived (of course, at the time my ancestor already had a big family, with *his* wife). When he moved to Canada changed his name from "Roy"(alternate spelling of "king" in French) to "Desjardins"(In French this could mean "of the gardens" or "some gardens", I assume the former meaning). I've also found a website that claims that this ancestor I spoke of was descended from Charlemagne (which would explain his original last name, "Roy"), but I haven't found any evidence to prove or disprove this claim, and I lost the adress for the website.

 

http://www.gowdy.org/

My Scottish heritage.
The motto: Honesty.

Symbols of the coat:
Argent- Peace
Trefoil- Fecundity
Tortoise- Invulnerability

Basically, my clan owned land in the Scottish Highlands, high atop a rocky cliff where no army in their right mind would dare try and reach. So they lived out happy, honest, simple lives without outside threat.

Sounds quaint.

Amon-Ra

 

Amon-Ra: Did they take part in Jacobite uprisings?

 

My grandfather on my Mom's side did a complete family tree from his computer. It has pictures and everything into the black and whites of course. Unfortunately he also loses the bloodline somewhere just before the name comes to North America. Im interested to know what my blood lines are through my dad and you have now sparked my interest Sir Bel

/me starts searching google *grin*

 

Why do I get the impression your coat of arms would have whips, chains and leather on it?

 

Well my granddad was rather involved in tracing the bloodline and we have a coat of arms. He went back to around 1600 or something like that!

 

My clan's (McDonald) coat of arms is apparently a pair of yellow arches on a blood-red field.

PH33R THE CLOWN!

 

Ah ha! I finnally found it! Here it is. That's right, I'm Irish and proud of it!

 

@chev:
Not anyone from which I can truly trace my lineage. My direct ancestry along the Gowdy line, [that is all the males that passed the Gowdy name all the way down to me] were simple millers and farmers and sheepherders.

Amon-Ra

 

I found the Coats of my families
I couldn't find pictures of them though - I would have had to pay for them
Even though the site says I havea right to them, so here are descriptions instead

My Fathers Side
The Shield is: Red with a silver chevron on which there are three red starfish between three silver arrowheads.
The Crest is: A stag's head.
The motto is: "Tout Droit".

My Mothers' side
The Shield is: Black with three silver spear heads, on a gold stripe at the top , three blue poleaxes.
The Crest is: An arm holding a truncheon.
The motto is: Labor ipse voluptas"

 

8people: impressive And clear... Hahah, not like my damned full-length story... ah, you asked about the nick... 'chevalier des Trois-Tours' is just from the legend I briefly presented above

Shield (escutcheon): In the shield red is a white camp tent covered with ermine cape and crowned with a cross.

Crest: *Three towers* either rising from a crown or forming one themselves, the middle one being the highest of them
Supporters: Not needed

Motto: As for finding them just check where the biggest slaughter is and as for call I supposed they just roared and swore. Close to me when 'God guide my blade' doesn't seem particularly appropriate

[ January 11, 2003, 02:39: Message edited by: chevalier des Trois-Tours ]