Find your family crest/s...

Find your Family Crests...

Finding your family crest.

I was wondering the other night where does my family come from? So from my mom side my elders come from Holland with the surname DeHaan. So I Googled the surname and came up with a really cool family crest. Seen below.

A great site to go to, to see your own family crests, would be "www.houseofnames.com". It would be unlikely that you do not have a family crest as we all come from somewhere, so go ahead and have a look. Here you can see the history of your family, where they came from and what they stood for. Almost like noblemen with a cause. This is really cool as you can see what prided your four fathers. Each symbol has a meaning the background pattern on the shield and colours. 

For example, the colour Green would mean "Hope, joy, and loyalty in love". "Gold would mean Generosity and elevation of the mind". A cock symbol as seen above, meant "Courage and perseverance; hero; able man in politics". There are a huge amount of symbols each with their own unique meaning, who would have thought an acorn meant "Antiquity and strength". 

Once I have my family crest I'm thinking of making a gold signet ring with the crest on the front, maybe add my initials somewhere as well. This is a nice reminder of what your ancients stood for and adds character when wearing the ring and is a fashionable man ring (if you're into that). Wearing Gold stood for royalty back in the day so you never go wrong with it on your person.

See some nice examples below:

Another awesome thing is you can pass the ring down to someone in your family one day. Similar to a lot of French people these days who wear their grandparents silver signet rings when travelling abroad, this usually has their grandparents initials on it. Typical French style...

We all should have two family crests, one from your moms side and one from your dads, you can choose which family to represent. Mostly people will use their fathers but if you prefer to use your mom's that's also fine. I will use my mom's because I have my grandfather's genes on her side.

My other family crest is The Matthews crest which apparently comes from Ireland and Wales. Interesting considering the fact that my family has been in Cape Town South Africa for 350 years if not more.

I have a good Jeweler here in the Cape Town CBD named Pol Art. I can take my crests there and sit down to discuss making the gold ring. They are really professional and have lots of experience. And they are really friendly Polish folk. Ill be using 9ct gold and have a full ring, no hollow areas so that the ring feels more solid. And hopefully pass it on to someone one day.

Some cool signet rings.