How Family Crests Work

and it's helped quite a bit, helped heal you. You think, I think so. Yeah. I mean it's just like a jam pack dose of vitamin C every day, something on the order of like nine nine thousand milligrams. I think, really it could be up there event drinking a lot of vitamins, but it has helped. I strongly recommend it. Good Ardent's Garden. I take a lot of vitamins anyway, Yeah, the recommended amount. He's awesome too. Do you know Margaret Thatcher took a B twelve shot to her bomb every day? Yeah,

that's popular. Yeah. Do you want to talk family crests? Okay, have you just been waiting for me to ask that. Typically you intro the show somehow, so just stare at me. Have you do you have a family crest? Uh? Yeah, I mean I've got a you know, they're all different, but there is a Bryant Shield and I looked up a bunch of them and they're pretty similar. So okay,

it's probably something like that, as do you. So if you contacted a service, they would probably be like, here you go, give us a hundred and fifty dollars, here's your family crest. Go do whatever you want with it. And now that we've researched this article, Chuck, we could be like, Huck, sir, scammers. Yeah, I mean, I don't want to say that these services are all scams, but there's a very high degree of potential that these services are all scams. Do you want to know why? Let

me tell you why. Whether you want to hear it or not, Chuck, I'm gonna give you the straight facts. The family crest is so individualized and has been so personalized over the last eight centuries that there's virtually no way for you to find the family crest that you um rightfully owned. So anybody at the mall or whatever is probably taking you for something of a ride. Do they have people at the mall? They really do. I've never seen that they have kiosks at the mall that

you know. I'm sure you ran across the online. It's lousy, like it's a kind of a sub service of genealogy sites like find your Family Crest or whatever. Maybe I don't go to malls. That's a problem. Um, that is a problem. I have to go into the mall to see a mal chi ask. This is why the the economic stimulus didn't work. You don't go to malls, chuck. I buy things online, so chuck there. This is not to say that there is no way to possibly find a family crest that you're linked to, or that it

just simply doesn't exist. It's just that most likely the one you're gonna get back for a hundred bucks online is not necessarily legitimate. There are bona fide sources, the very people who keep authority over these things, um, that can help you, and we'll talk about them in a minute. But this is kind of this article turned out to

be cooler than I expected. Yeah, I'm nothing about this same here, and now I know a lot about it same here, and that's kind of how well, let's talk about the origin of family crests, right, Well, first, let's talk about the difference. On Twitter last night, I asked people if they had any questions about family crests, and the number one question was definitely, what's the difference between a family crest and a coat of arms? Yeah, there's

really no difference these days. I these days, yes, pretty interchangeable, it is. But if you go back further and further into history, um, I found three explanations for the difference. Let's hear. So. One is that the coat of arms was actually a coat for your armor and it basically was a cloth tunic that had your crest on it, um to keep your armor from heating up in the sun. Okay, that's that's one. Another one was that the the crest is the actual crest on top of your larger coat

of arms. That's true. Okay, that's like the College of Arms definition or distinction, right, I don't know. And then the third one is that the crest is belongs to a family, while a coat of arms is an individuals. I didn't see that, So those are possibly the three differences, gotcha? But where they come from. Uh, well, they come from

a long time ago. Uh. Originally in medieval times, in the mid twelfth century, they were used to distinguish knights on the battlefield once they're all covered with armor, they all looked alike. And then from that I think they evolved to eventually putting them on the actual shield that they used as protection, as just sort of a feather in their cap slash being able to know the enemy from one another. I think the cap with the feather

and it is a crest, it is actually Uh. Then eventually priests, well, then it kind of filtered down to people that worked with knights and noblemen like pages and squires, and then eventually priests started using them, and then eventually commoners and poor people peasants in the thirteenth century said you know what, I want to use the crest. Yeah. Apparently until the Middle Ages, most of the peasantry didn't have surnames, so they eventually started taking the surnames of

the people who well their feudal lords. That's how a lot of people are linked to prominent families that had family crests. Oh yeah, yeah, I did not know that. Um. And then after after Um, jousting and tournaments came about. Um, the crests became even more important because that was how your page would announce you, your herald would announce you. Sorry. Yeah, heraldry. That's what all this is really called under the big umbrella name. Yeah, it's all heraldry. It's the crest, it's

the design of them, it's the registry of them. It's the way you announced it. Like, um, when you were at a joust, your herald would say, like, here is Archduke Ferdinand a top his mighty steed. Um, he's ready to crack some skulls, and his crest is as follows, and that you know. Then they would describe what was on the on the crest us on the coat of arms. Sorry, um, And that's called blazoning. Yeah, well well we'll get into blazoning in a minute. That's uh, that's a whole different thing.

But yeah, well, I like it basically became like your corporate logo for your family, and they would put it on everything from swords and banners in your house to burning it into bread for special dinners. That was neat, I would think. So yeah, I couldn't find any examples of that I don't think that photography in the Middle Ages, but I'd like to see that. You can get um little uh brands for your barbecue to see her into steak with like your initials. Now, that's stupid. It's very cool.

There's nothing cool about that there, it is. There's a lot of things that is, but it's not cool. It is very cool. You can get anything you want and just branded in the steak when you're done and then eat it with your initials. Right, it is cool. Are you from Texas? I bet people in Texas do that. Yeah, I'll bet those are big sellers in Texas. Um, so you've got you've got the family crest, you have the coat of Arms, and we're going to use these interchangeably agreed. Okay?

Um from what I saw, the College of Arms uh that originated all of these heralds us the Coat of Arms the UK version of the United States UK. The one in the United States is the American College of Heraldry, where in the UK, UM it's the College of Arms. And those are the best sources on the Internet for stuff like this, by the way, Yeah, but you know they cost you some coin. Yeah, but they just have good info period. And I think it's the legit info.

There's a lot of other stuff floating around out there, UM, so check the College of Arms. UM. These heralds, they actually became part of the households of these you know, royal families, UM. And they all banded together and formed a corporation and was actually granted a charter in fourteen eighty four, I think by Richard the Third UM who said,

you guys are now the College of Arms. And they've been around ever since basically keeping track of arms, registering new arms, UM, linking you know, broken chain of title um too. You know people who are alive today um. And they've been doing it NonStop since fourteen eighty four. Three. They open on Christmas, No, they have. They're open eleven a m. To four pm. I think Monday through Thursday is what it's called. But it's self sufficient. They they

they subsist on funds they charged for this research. Um. They don't. They don't exist on public minds. They say, yes, well that's good. Yeah, So chuckers, how was how are these handed down? Well it gets kind of complicated, but it's a man's world back then, and they're generally passed on from male air to male air for the most part. And uh, cadency you talked about every like individual like siblings can add their own little mark to their shield

or to their coat of arms. And that's cadency. That's the little system they use for each person to have their own individual coat of arms. Right, So you've got your father's coat of arms. And if you have up to nine sons, if you're a tense son, you're in trouble. But I bet they have a system you can take the you take your father's coat of arms as your own, but then you add a certain something and depending on

the order of birth. Um, let's say you're the fifth son, You're gonna add an amulet to it, which is a ring. An annulet is a ring? Yeah, annulet, that's what I That's what I find. What is an amulet? An amulet is like, um, it's a watch that you swing in front of somebody and say like you're getting get too confused. Um, and and ulet I think it has two ends. It's a ring. It's a ring like a gold ring. So

you add that to a family crest. You can be like, oh, this is the fifth son's family crest, right, the third son is a mullet. I know, I saw that too, um. But when you can see very quickly, like if you're the third son of a fifth son, the the you know, over the course of several generations, these crests are going

to become different very quickly. And if you want to claim title to these things, you have to trace your your you're lying back to you know where this crest left off, right, Yeah, and like you have to prove it each time too. Yeah, I think it's at kinky.

I think the further back you go probably. Yes, Well, that's one of the good things about the College of Arms, as you go to them with a wheelbarrow full of money and your birth certificate and your father's birth certificate if you can get your hands on it and say here you go, call me when you're done, and they will do the research for you. Yeah. And the rules get really complicated with the ladies, don't they. Yes, very

let's hear that. Well, if you are a woman and you were born to a man who um had a coat of arms, and by the way, if your family has a coat of arms, it's called an our mid dress family. So if you're born into an armadress family and you're the only child and you're a girl, Um, you can inherit the coat of arms, the family coat of arms. But um, as a woman, it has to

be modified. Like, for example, UM, the shield in the coat of arms has to be changed into a lozenge which is a diamond shape or an oval, because shields are thought of as a man's implement of war, they're not appropriate for women. Yeah. And this article too said the shield shape was important, but I didn't find that to be true. I found it to be rare that the shield shape matters, and like in some cases it might,

but usually it doesn't. Yeah. So and I think also that it may have been important at one point in time, but then it's important was lost to the ages. Maybe. But if you have if you see a circle or a diamond, um coat of arms, then you're going to say that's a woman's But um, this coat of arms changes depending on the course of her life. Like if she marries a man um who is also from an

armidrious family. Uh, they're going to combine them together, and there's strict details on how they're going to combine them. Like she can take her coat of arms and put them next to his coat of arms on a larger shield. If she's married, she can be on a shield, but hers needs to be sinister, which is the left. If you're wearing the coat of arms, it'll be on your left. And then his is dexter, which is right. That's right. Have you ever heard that before? Dexter for right. I

haven't heard of any of this stuff. So that's passing down the coat of arms. And in a lot of cases these things were just kind of lost. They just stopped. And the point is now it's a backtrack to find where your coat of arms left all and if you're if you're allowed to inherit it, then you can pick it up and start over again. Yeah. Well, Kate Middleton just had one done for the first time because she needed one to get married to Prince William, so she

had one designed by Well. First, she had to pass an eminence test, which basically means you gotta prove you're important. She's like, I'm marrying this exactly, So she passed that pretty quick and she got uh. Mr Woodcock Thomas Woodcock designed her her new crest, which was as you can see here it is as the diamond and they asked for acorns, the Middleton's did, so they got three acorns, one representing each of the children, Kate, Peppa and Jimmy,

Jimmy James. Okay, it's like we're close. Uh. There's a go old chevron in the center which is sort of like an inverted V, and it represents the mountains. And it's gold because her mother's maiden name was Goldsmith and it it repreences mountains because they're big, they're into skiing. It's a family, So this is what a modern that's what you asked for in a modern face exactly. Uh, there's a blue ribbon tied at the top, which means she's unmarried, and um it's red and white because that's

the colors of the flag of the UK. And they emerging them now is the married are maryl Arms? And I think I think William is losing the unicorn then the right. You can't lose the lion. I wouldn't lose either of them. You have to. So what's what's what's support is she bringing into it? Then? Well, I don't know, but it's just tradition. Like basically you're messing with the House of Windsor's coat of arms. So it's a pretty

big deal. I know that is a big deal. But I'm saying, like, you're bringing her um shield in her elements in but I didn't see a support on that picture. Well, have we even said what a support is? No, we should probably talk about this. There's some common elements to any coat of arms um as hodgepodge. As they look is often detail. They're as sparse as they look. If you look closely, you're going to see certain elements about five things that you're going to find on every single

European coat of arms. Right, yeah, take it, chuck. Well, you got your shield. That's the main part in the center. Generally in the center. The background of the shield is called the field, right, like it's a color. Yeah, right, it's just the color of the shield, right, that's the field. So if you have a red field and it's red, although they won't say red and the blazon, we'll get to that though, supporters, if you'd sketch this out, they

have stick figures as my support. And that's like if you look at a common thing, it will be like like the house of windsor has a lion on one side holding it up and then a unicorn for some reason on the other side holding it up. It's a cool unicorn, I know, and I'm sure there's a great reason for it, which we will find out. But yeah. Usually it's a human or an animal or something that's on two legs and then has the front two legs

or arms holding up the shield. They're called the supporters, and that means if they're on two legs, it means they're rampant, which is another part of the blazoning process. Yeah, and did you notice how they when they describe them, it is you gotta you have a description to read, right, Yeah? Okay, good, because this this is gonna be That's my favorite part of this whole thing is a blazoning, is it Yeah?

I think so. I like the pictures. The pictures. So atop of the shield you probably have a cornet, which is a small crown sitting on top of that, you have the helm, which is a helmet like a knight's helmet with mantling coming off of the helmet, which is sort of just flowery little stuff. It could be like ribbons or something some adornment. Yes, And then you have a small wreath called a torse on top of the helmet and then the crest on top of that, right,

and the crest is the topmost thing. It can be anything. It can be like a shaft of wheat, um, or a lion, or um, a dude with his tongue sticking out. It's a lot of lions, yeah, because lions are courageous, you know, mess with lions. And a lot of times you got a motto on the top or the bottom, and that's on a scroll and the scroll is on top of the compartment which the whole thing sits on. So like there's a lot of physics involved in this.

Even though you know unicorns show up in it. They all follow the laws of Newtonian physics, like everything's resting on something else. This actually I didn't notice this. This is a belt. That's a belt around the shield on the House of windsor now that chuck, it's one of those cheesy old braided belts to that in um that is actually Scottish in origin. That means that they are followers of a clan leader. They're members of a clan Um Scotland has their own set of crests and they

have their own authority. The Lord Lion King of Arms is responsible for registering them in Scotland. But that means they're members of a clan and followers, not even leaders. The belt um looped in like that means you're a follower, a clan member. So complicated it is. Uh. The shield, we also should mention is many times uh divided into different compartments or panels. Yeah, many times it's quartered. In the case of the House of Windsor, you've got panels

representing Ireland, Scotland too, for England. I think there used to be one for France that they were placed like. It's changed a lot over the years, and a lot of times when it changes it's because of marriage that's bringing in elements from the um the wife's family crest and adding it in, right. So I guess the House of Windsor will have acorns. I guess maybe that'll be the port of a giant acorn instead of a universe, right, but a mutant one that's like growling or something like

the fun So those are the elements. Those are the I guess aspects um that you're gonna find in any European shield, right or coat of arms. Yeah. And by the way, Mr Woodcock who designed the Middleton's. He he does this a lot. And he said he had a surgeon contact in one time that wanted a colon on his and he said it looked rather like a red worm, but he did it. Good for him. I was gonna say the same exact thing, old Mr Woodcock. Um. So there are certain rules that these things have to follow.

Like you said there there has to be a helmet, there has to be a crown. Um, the the helmet that's showing. If you are a knight, Um, then you can have the helmet a certain way like usually the visors open and it's facing forward. Um. If you are royalty, your helmet is gold. It's golden helmet. Um. And so like if you're designing your own, which will get to in a minute, Um, there's just certain elements you can't use. Like you can't be like, well, I want a gold helmet.

It's like while you're not royal, so you can't have that. Um this if you want to be bonafid, right, I'm gonna make my own and it's gonna have a gold helmet and it's also gonna be colored with crayon. Um. The speaking of the colors, one that kind of transcends all nobility or commoners. Um, there's you can't have and I went and double checked this, but this is true. You can't have color on color in a field or

metal on metal in the field. Do you see your you're coat of arms R See how it's yellow on the shield? Yellow on blue. I guarantee you that originally that yellow was gold. It's supposed to be golden. Yeah. If you look at every single one, there can be white on the color. There can be black on the color. But there's um there can't be like red on bluetch so though there but there can be like metal like silver gold or bronze on blue or yellow or whatever. Um,

but there also can't be like silver on gold. And if you go look closely there, you're not going to find a crest that has metal on metal color or color on color and authentic one at least. Yeah. Right, did you know yours has ducks? Has was it ducks? That those geese? I don't know those geese. I think they're geese. Yeah, that's a goose for sure. And it's fun when you just look up the generic Google image

or image search for your own. If you find the case that there are a lot of them look pretty similar. Then that's probably a good idea that that's what years may have looked like. But I wouldn't necessarily like print that out on a T shirt and say this is mine. For sure. My family has a long history of mistreating geese. For flag scott three geese right now. This is the English version of it. Um the there's a Scottish version,

in an Irish version. All of Clark probably same with me, And the English version is the one that has the geese on it. Every time I was oh Bryant at some point probably well now it's because I come from my land. But the brant Ones all look about the same yellow cross, kind of classy. I wish I had an animal, though I got no animals on mine. I got three geese. I know. I'm so jealous on the English one at least. But mine's missing a crown. Oh that is it. Yeah, it's missing a crown and it

doesn't have a wreath. It just has the what is the mantling? Has mantling coming off of a helmet turned to the side with the visor down. Oh actually I don't have a crown either, but look my helmet goes straightforward, left and right. It's almost as if the Bryants are always looking in all directions. That's facing forward usually indicates some sort of title or nobility or something. So well,

this is facing left, right and forward. That's awesome. And what's the flag sticking out of the top is the crest? Myn also doesn't have a crest. I think that was a cadency. I think someone added that, like one of my relatives from Arkansas or something just stuck a flag in the top of it, a rebel flag in the time, so I was. I was looking online and um, there are different registries for just about every European country. Portugal

has one. UM. The Scandinavia has the best ones, the Scandinavian Registry, which is like all these Nordic countries except for the Netherlands by the way they do, but they have they have, in my opinion, the coolest ones. UM. You can go check it out. It's the Socitias Heraldica Scana Navca is going to take you to this registry UM and a lot of them were created in the seventies. I guess there was a resurgence in interest in heraldry

in Scandinavia in the nineteen seventies, in Scandinavia periods in Scandinavia. UM, if you're Irish, you want to contact the Office of the Chief Herald of Ireland. Uh. Scotland again. UM the lord lyon King of Arms. That guy is in charge of not just registering us but also tartans um and you have to trace your lineage back to claim a tartan. Tart it's your you know, like um plaid, I've never

heard that one. Well, yeah, it's like kilts are different types of plaid, like like Malcolm and black Watts and all that stuff. Those are clan just like a crest. That pattern is um. It's associated with a specific plan. And like you or I can't just go put on

some kilt. We shouldn't be doing that anyway. But if we did and we went to Scotland, they'd be like, oh, you're a Malcolm, and I'd be like, well, it's my middle name, but I don't think that's my and then they just start beating me up and I wouldn't understand what they were saying, but they would be beating me up at the time. You just can't you just like we can't wear a T shirt. That's like, check out my family crest, even if we haven't made an official

claim to it. In the US, it's kind of willy nilling. We'll talk about that. In Great Britain, you can get in trouble. It's basically like miss miss using a copyrighted piece of material or trademark or something like that. Yeah, there's laws to it. It's called bearing arms. You have to register to bear these arms. The coat of arms. I did not know that in America means you can wave a gun around exactly. Uh so where are we can we talk about? Where are we Pistians all over

the map? It really was this Uh this thing had strange flow. I guess you would say it, Um, well, you want to keep talking about, um, how you can will them to people? In some countries you can't. I didn't know that you can will them to people. UM. So, let's say you were an American and you want your register. You're a new family crest in England? Can you do that?

I couldn't get a definitive answer. Possibly if you're a fairly recent British descent, But your best bet is to go to the American College of Heraldry, which is founded in nineteen seventy two, so then went on in the seventies UM in New Orleans, UM. And it's now a registered corporation in Alabama somehow. But at any rate, this is the official organization for registering in America. And all of them are new. All the the ones that they register are new. Yeah, they don't. They don't track back

because that's just not how it's done in America. There's no nobility, there's nothing like that. UM. So it's like you create your own and register it and started there. Oh that sounds like something that's worthwhile. Yeah, if you're into that, I'm into it. Now are you gonna do it? I think so good. All right, let's talk about blazoning, which we mentioned earlier. Blazing is the description of the

coat of arms UM. And it's really specific and it's got its own language and syntax and which is all over the map. Well not really, it's actually really like if you can read it, then it's that's the point is it's not all over the map. Because what you want to do is you want to be able to hand your blazon over to an artist and not say what I'm looking for is this. You just hand it over and they look at that and they know exactly

where everything goes. So it is the description of what it looks like without having to put I'd like this lion to be this color, and move him over here a little bit and put him on the left and him on the right, dexter and sinister exactly. So, Um, the rules are sort of an overview. Um, you begin by describing the field, which he said was the background. It's usually just a color that you're gonna say, and this is of the shield, right, Uh, this is of

the whole coat of arms. So you begin by describing the field which is of the shield. And um, if it's a complex field, though, you know, you've got to describe the variation after the color, like red, checker or checkered red and white. Uh. And you can't just say that it's like in a different language to which will go over. Um. If the shield is divided, you gotta

describe how it's divided with its quartered or halved. And if it's horizontal or vertical, you gotta describe the colors of each sub field and use words like dexter and chief which means the top, and sinister and they know what all this means because they're really smart. Uh. The principal charge, which is anything you see on your coat of arms, like a tree or a flower, is a charge. Uh. Basically any emblem, you gotta describe that next, and the

color h then the charge. Anything that's around the charge, like if you're lion is holding a thing of arrows or a thing of daisies, you've gotta describe that or spitting those errors out of his mouth exactly. Um, then you have to describe. You do the panels one panel at a time. If your shield has many panels, you gotta go from left, top to bottom and left to

right as if you're reading. And all this is done basically so they know exactly what to do, and you have license after that to draw it however you want. So oh like what like like this is what? Yeah, exactly and as long as you get all the components right, then that's legit. It can be drawn a number of ways and it doesn't matter. What about like anime, you

could do anime, I guess uh. And a lot of it's in French because um, a lot of the English clerks wrote in French at the time that this was was big, and we did mention the animals, and I said, rampant means standing on their legs. Rampant garden because when you're standing on your legs and facing the person or whoever is looking at it. Passent means you're walking. Sagent means you're sitting in couch. It means you're lying down. I thought that was kind of funny. Gets you're on

the couch just hanging out. So here's one of example. I'm looking at a shield that has a tree. It's split down the middle green on one side, white on the other, and then the against the white background. The tree is green against the green background. The tree is white, and it's uprooted. You see the roots of the tree. So the way this is described, it's party per pale, argent, invert,

a tree, eradicated, counter changed. Yes, So whoever does this reads that and they say, oh, I know that means parted means it's divided, and half pale means it's split vertically, argent, invert means silver and green, and an eradicated means the tree is pulled up by the roots. And counter changed is when it's you know, the white color on the green and the green color on the white. Somehow that makes sense. I mean, it's just like learning another language.

That's exactly what it is. And once you do, then yeah, that's pretty cool. I tried to tre to speak in that, like not speak. I was kind of hoping you're gonna it in like a British accent. But once you know enough of these words, if you see a sentence like that, you can kind of suss it out a little bit. So what you just did, like that's not just a description for the artist, it's also blazoning. Is what the herald, like Paul Bettany would have said, Is that what happens? Yeah,

I didn't see anything about that. Yeah, if that's that was what they did, that's how they described. So if the night pulls up with the lance, he would say party, propel, argent and vert blah blah blah. Yes, wearing this basically, it's almost like in this corner, wearing the black trunks with the white trim is tyson. I wonder if they followed it up the tree eradicated counter changed a K A Ricky right, just to make it easier maker exactly Ricky the widow maker? Um and uh do we say

where these came from. Where they started Europe? No, well Europe, yeah, no, Um, it's it's either it's fully European, Western European. Either it started in England in the the um, maybe the twelfth century, early thirteenth century, or it came from northern Europe right like Scandinavia and was brought down by William the Conqueror in about the twelfth century and really took root in

England and then just kind of spread from there. But you think of England as the heart of this, and for good reason, and it started there, really started to spread to the rest of Western Europe from England. Well, and you can get beaten severely if you do it wrong there by Scott's whereas we don't carrere by begbie Um. Governments a lot of times will have like uh, like each state has a seal. The United States has the Seal of the United States, the Great Seal of the

United States. Um, not quite the same, but sort of the same as a coat of arms, like a lot of states have them. I'm sorry, it's only a few states have a coat of arms. They all have a seal, but some have a you have them have both but there's a difference. Yeah, a seal is what they use on um documents, like the state seal. Uh, the heraldic device, which is the coat of arms, represents the state itself. I don't know technically what the difference is, although they

you know, they look different. Well, yeah, I guess the seal of Ohio that has a bunch of wheat with a sun on some you know, farmland that doesn't follow the heraldic um rules. Yes, but well some of them, like Vermont has a seal and a coat of arms, but both contain a pine tree, a cow, and cheese of grain, so there can be similarities. I don't know.

And Ronald Reagan's you know, a lot of presidents, most presidents have had their coat of arms done up nicely because their presidents, well, yeah, it's a big deal for them. And Ronald Reagan's has a stallion, a black stallion atop his shield with an actor's mask, the little drama mask on the horse's chest. You know what that kind of looks like. It looks like the the logo that Rocky Balboa war on the back of his totally does because it's yellow and black. That's totally Rocky and then there's

his shield is divided. I wish I could speak it in blazoning terms, but his shield is divided horizontally, black on top, yellow in the bottom, with an eagle and a bear representing I think California. Yeah, and then fact a non verba is his motto, which is deeds not words. Uh, the breaking bear? That bear. Did you notice his tongue sticking out? Um? And he's holding what's called that's a mullet? Oh, the star on the front or business in the front, party in the rear. What else you got? Um? Oh?

Actually I could read Reagan's if you want um a bear rampant sable armed in languid gills, holding between its four palls a mullet argent silver star on a chief sable standing on a ducal coronet, or a falcon argent armed and languid ghul's wings displayed and inverted. It's pretty interesting, it is we now know that a silver star is a mullet argent. Yeah, exactly. Oh, tell them about the Japanese thing. That's kind of well. Japan um has its own set of family christ and actually there's about ten

thousand of them, they estimate. Um. They don't have nearly strict standards. I read that supposedly they were originally given out to people of Samurai class are higher. Remember Samurai were pretty high up in the central strata. Um, but apparently that has been relaxed and over time, lots of families have a crest called a man show or a

car what is it? Man show? Or come on or mon poor poor porter um And like a number of different families can have the same crest, right, and they use theirs on their tombstones too, right, Yeah, that's a good way if you're of Japanese relatively recent Japanese descent. Um, if you can get a picture of your grandparents tombstone, or ask your grandparents, um, if they're still living, they should be able to tell you what your family crest is.

But usually they're um circular, compact kind of geometrical representations of things like flowers or leaves or bells or something like that. And there's times, I mean I looked up lists of coats of arms and it's like every country and even cities and states and people, and I had no idea what people with that into it? To be honest, do you mean I are going to make ours. I think Harold Harold R. Harold Harold E. Yeah, I wonder, Uh, Emily's Sinabogan boy that be German, big time German or Dutch?

Sounds Dutch to me. I don't know she German, but I mean, I don't know. Maybe further back it was duch he knows. Do you know who knows thee of heraldry? Yeah? Or the German version of it? What do you got to plunk down for that? Any idea? I don't I know? To find your families? Um uh mansho is a hundred bucks. I found a place called christia quistia q y s t i a dot com. I think it was like a hundred bucks to do the research flights give me

would have a mancho Yeah. Interesting, yes, but again be wary of There are legitimate authorities that you can that deal directly with the public for money, that are that will give you the real deal info and they may say there is no crest that you have any kind of claim to whatsoever. And if you're American, you can turn to the American Registry and be like, all right, I want to start and then start right yeah, and

then register your own it. Even says on the on the document that they give you, like you have to name your heir, because that through that document they legally are entitled to the family crest. And then they can create a document saying this is who I'm leaving it too as much UM. So you can start if you're American, if you're British you can start too. I believe all of the different countries let you start registering your own

UM like Kate Middleton um. But they're also the places where you want to go to find if there's one already in existence that you can claim right or that you could add a cadence to right. Yes, and patronatal plasma screen t exactly. I think a lot of the family pride thing is I don't know, it doesn't seem to be as big of a thing these days. Yeah, it's kind of sad. Um. Yeah, I guess it is. It's the it's kids these days, it's the it's emblematic

of the breakdown of society. Agreed. Okay, so that's it for family crests a k A coats of arms a k A held. Yes, if you want to know more about it, you can well just type in family crests on how stuff works dot com and that will give you some pretty good background and then do a lot

more research. Yeah, you should also UM if you want to do if you want to look for your family crest the real thing, look for like type in France or registering family crest in France, or registering coat of arms in France or Germany or whatever, and it's you should be able to find like the official UM government version for that country, and it's a good place to start. Cool. So what else you got? You got ducks, you got geese, I think, said, I said, well, at least you don't

have geese. That's how that's worse than nothing. I think it's kind of point. When I saw that, I definitely thought it was pretty funny. And also, my last name Clark is a variation of clerk, which means I come from a long line of pencil pushers and look at you. I thrived My family thrives in cubicles. He probably had an E on the end of that. At some point too, write yes or it meant cleric, which I find doubtful,

you think. Yeah, Well, at some point in the last like minute and a half, I said handy search bar, which means it's time Chuck for a listener mail. That's right. You know, my dad claims he traced our family back to the Vikings. He told he told me that like a month ago, because I remember he had traced our family tree back pretty well. I said, how far did you get he went to the Vikings? I went really? He meant, like, um oh, I wish I knew some

Viking football players and Randy Moss. Yeah, sure, he traced Victory. All right, listener mail today. This is actually Facebook gaming with Chuck and Josh. I don't know if you saw last week. I had a little I do these little fun games from time to time, like like this one, which was I give the fans a synopsis for a movie and you title it and people go wild for this stuff. And so here was the movie. I came up with natural disaster sweeps through a rural small town,

destroying the only school. When no funding and with no funding and little help, a young Buck carpenter rebuilds it as an old timey one room schoolhouse. Along the way, the project becomes in the national sensation, and he wins the heart of the beautiful young teacher. So we got lots of good titles. Brian Day Lessons of the Heart, Samantha Smith Back to Basics, todd E Step Home Room,

Dave Bingham back to Basics. Uh, and not Kumar the Education Uh cub Kube's Don Kubie Lecture of Love not bad rust Vick, You know Russ making love out of nothing at all? Uh. Andrew neil Wind swept to Mona our buddy, Mona hot for teacher. There was a few hot for tea true. By the way, Rich Marmora learning curves. That sounds almost like two moon junction or console trigger. David Robinson Learning to Live. Chris Crawford gave us erecting hope.

That's probably what they would call it in Hollywood. Maybe key A Latimer Foundations, Tammy You Saved by the Bell, b E L L E Wow. Uh. Michael Needel measure twice kind of clever measure twice. Cut once is the carpenters saying, although I usually cut once and then cut two or three more months, and then measure and then measure. J. J. Bryce four walls, one roof, endless hope. And then there were some funny ones. Drew Chandler. His title is this

one room Schoolhouse, is a metaphor. Jimmy Raby Colford hers was Smickey what sm like? That's the carpenter's name. I don't know. Kyle Bett's captain squaw Bear in the House that God Built Jason Carpenter, The Hookiest Movie Ever starring Tom Hanks, Terry eck Meyer, The One Roomed House, the story of a one roomed house. And then our own Rob Chet, son of Twister. Nice, It's fun. That's Rob

Chet from Stuff to Make You Smarter. Yeah, which you can find on the Zoom Network, Zoom Marketplace, Zoom Marketplace. You know what else you can find out there? I don't know if it's on Zoom, but out there on the internet, say, I don't know iTunes audio book a specific audio book, number two in an ongoing kind of sputtery series, long running and sporadic series, The super Stuff Guy. This one is the stuff you should know. Super Stuff

Guide to Happiness. Yeah, that's right, starring my niece Isabella. That's right. Who kicks the whole thing with a quote from the DOLLI Llama. And then we have about an hour and fifteen minutes of really cool investigation into happiness. And here's here's the here's the clincher. It's not that happy of an audiobook. We uncover a lot of really sad stuff about happiness. Right. We talked to all sorts of experts. We talked to one of the founders of

the trans human movement, David Pierce. We interviewed folks. Yeah, we we had a lot of interviews. Um gussied up sound design. It was Jerry just pulled out all the stops, all the It's three nine nine on iTunes. Apparently it's a little more in other places like the Asse's are having to pay six nine, which is crazy because the dollar is weak right now, That's what they said. Um, but I'm not happy. So I remember in two thousand and eight Canada went crazy because they're like, we're not

paying more for this book. Are dollars they're worth the same as a dollar, and booksellers up there were like, okay, take it up with iTunes man. No, they said, okay, oh they did. In England. I think they said it was to forty nine to quit forty nine pins. No, not even know how they say this. I think you just nailed it, is that right? Yeah? To forty nine

pounds two pounds? Yeah, I think that's about right. Yeah, so, um, you can get on iTunes right now, just search go to the iTunes store and searched um super Stuff Guide to Hackiness, and I will bring it up. And if you don't have our Economics super Stuff Guide, it's right there is Evergreen. Yes is it? Somebody asked, and and yeah, I mean it's about economics work. I mean it was

framed through the collapse the recession. But buddy, anybody tells you there's over, punch them in the stomach, cans true. All right, um. And then also if you want more s Y s K, you can listen to us on wfmu h what is it not one point one in the New York, New Jersey, Connecticut metropolitan area and what is it for the Hudson Valley nine one Hudson Valley? Okay? And then coming soon everything goes right, you'll be able to hear us in Alaska, right, yeah, college radio station

and uh was it Anchorage? It's it's you have like a thirty three chance of what that's coming down the pike. Yeah, we're excited about that. And then if you want to play fund Facebook games, visit Facebook dot com slash stuff you should know Um. You can tweet to us we are at s y s K podcast, and you can send us good old fashioned electronic mail to Stuff Podcast at how stuff works dot com. Be sure to check

out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join how Stuff Work staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow, brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you