how do i go about finding a family crest?

Question

i need an actual picture. last name is schildknecht...ive looked it many ways on google. im finding there is one out there but cannot find an actual picture!

Answer 1

http://www.allfamilycrests.com/

http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.dirkschildknecht.de/bilder/hintergrund/schildknecht_wappen_gut_rel.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.dirkschildknecht.de/&h=458&w=397&sz=29&hl=en&start=2&um=1&tbnid=0D8ObSvCcqiGOM:&tbnh=128&tbnw=111&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dschildknecht%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN

Answer 2

Sweet Pea, there is no such thing as a family crest.

Any number of people on this board can give you links to peddlers like House of Names but we would be totally dishonest with you if we did not tell you that what you find might not have anything whatsoever to do with anyone to whom you are related.

A crest is part of a coat of arms. Coats of arms DO NOT belong to surnames. They were and are granted to individuals and only their direct legitimate male line descendants are entitled to them. See the links below, one from the British College of Arms and the other from the most prestigious genealogical organization in the U.S., The National Genealogical Society.

http://www.college-of-arms.gov.uk/Faq.htm

http://www.ngsgenealogy.org/comconsumerpsst.cfm

If this is a school assignment go ahead and pull up the House of Names website and print off one for Schildnecht if you find one, but also print off the two links I have furnished you. Your teacher should be impressed with your research and it should be a learning experience for her.

Actually, there might be 8 different coats of arms granted to 8 persons named Schildknecht and not all related. However, the merchants of deceit that sell them will not have all of them as they don't need to in order to sell to gullible people.

Then it might be that no one named Schildknect was ever granted a coat of arms.

Coats of arms were originally the knight's armour. The crest was the plume on the knight's helmet when he went into battle. That way his soldiers could see where the lines were.

Then they were granted to noblemen. At first they did not have a crest. A crest was added for some deed pleasing to the crown.
About the Elizabethan period all coats of arms granted had crest.

Eventually they were granted to men of prominence.

If you work your family tree, you might find several in it. That doesn't mean you are entitled to any one of them. It just means if you have a book printed or even published, you can put a picture of your ancestors' coats of arms in it. However, it would not be valid for you just to put a picture of ones that just happened to be granted to persons with the same surname as your ancestors.

If you are an American, you have an excellent chance of finding more than one in your family tree if you have any English lines that goes back to early colonial days in the American South.

Some in the South have the ones their ancestor brought over from England 300-400 years ago. They aren't those dinky little walnut plaques that silly people have on their den walls or over their fireplace.

They don't display them. They can't buy groceries with them. Walmart won't take them. I had a neighbor when I was a child that I visited and the father and children were using his as a dart board.

If you can't find one, then print off what I have here along with the two links and give to your teacher.

There are a few on this board that resent those of us who warn about the dishonesty in the coats of arms "family crest" business. I don't know if they are in the pocket of a surname product peddler or if they have one of those dinky walnut plaques over their fireplace and they don't won't the whole world to know it is phony.
Any professional genealogist visiting their homes would not laugh only to be polite.

Answer 3

I have emailed you through your profile.