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Right on! Thank you. I have an uncle that has tracked the family way, way back. I've been asking him about our 'family crest' and he said we didn't really have one, just a coat of arms. He said he didn't know to much about that either. Thank you!!


Ah I can answer that too... technically a "crest" is a symbol used by the individual, and is located above the helmet displayed on top of the "coat of arms", which is the symbol of a family. So the eldest son of each generation will continue to have the same coat of arms, but each will have a different crest. Sometimes a family will also have a motto or cri de guerre (war cry) displayed on a banner under the shield, most commonly with the Scottish clans.
Today, the crest usually remains the same as the whole thing is passed down, because the "rules" have gotten archaic, except in the UK in the case of actual titled nobility, where the old rules are very much still in force.

And yes, I read all of Fleming's Bond books as a teen... got the heraldry bug from mom's research into family though. Let me tell you how hard it is to find a Prussian coat of arms from the 1400s...

SFC, US Army (Ret)