Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know
Speaker 1: from house Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant,
Speaker 1: and that makes this stuff you should know the podcast
Speaker 1: as I just welcome you to. Yeah, yeah, henceforth. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not quite a sick Chuck. That's good. You've recouped. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I've been on this sum orange lemon, grapefruit juice clans
Speaker 1: and it's helped quite a bit, helped heal you. You think,
Speaker 1: I think so. Yeah. I mean it's just like a
Speaker 1: jam pack dose of vitamin C every day, something on
Speaker 1: the order of like nine nine thousand milligrams. I think,
Speaker 1: really it could be up there event drinking a lot
Speaker 1: of vitamins, but it has helped. I strongly recommend it.
Speaker 1: Good Ardent's Garden. I take a lot of vitamins anyway, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the recommended amount. He's awesome too. Do you know Margaret
Speaker 1: Thatcher took a B twelve shot to her bomb every day? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's popular. Yeah. Do you want to talk family crests? Okay,
Speaker 1: have you just been waiting for me to ask that.
Speaker 1: Typically you intro the show somehow, so just stare at me.
Speaker 1: Have you do you have a family crest? Uh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I've got a you know, they're all different,
Speaker 1: but there is a Bryant Shield and I looked up
Speaker 1: a bunch of them and they're pretty similar. So okay,
Speaker 1: it's probably something like that, as do you. So if
Speaker 1: you contacted a service, they would probably be like, here
Speaker 1: you go, give us a hundred and fifty dollars, here's
Speaker 1: your family crest. Go do whatever you want with it.
Speaker 1: And now that we've researched this article, Chuck, we could
Speaker 1: be like, Huck, sir, scammers. Yeah, I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: want to say that these services are all scams, but
Speaker 1: there's a very high degree of potential that these services
Speaker 1: are all scams. Do you want to know why? Let
Speaker 1: me tell you why. Whether you want to hear it
Speaker 1: or not, Chuck, I'm gonna give you the straight facts.
Speaker 1: The family crest is so individualized and has been so
Speaker 1: personalized over the last eight centuries that there's virtually no
Speaker 1: way for you to find the family crest that you
Speaker 1: um rightfully owned. So anybody at the mall or whatever
Speaker 1: is probably taking you for something of a ride. Do
Speaker 1: they have people at the mall? They really do. I've
Speaker 1: never seen that they have kiosks at the mall that
Speaker 1: you know. I'm sure you ran across the online. It's lousy,
Speaker 1: like it's a kind of a sub service of genealogy
Speaker 1: sites like find your Family Crest or whatever. Maybe I
Speaker 1: don't go to malls. That's a problem. Um, that is
Speaker 1: a problem. I have to go into the mall to
Speaker 1: see a mal chi ask. This is why the the
Speaker 1: economic stimulus didn't work. You don't go to malls, chuck.
Speaker 1: I buy things online, so chuck there. This is not
Speaker 1: to say that there is no way to possibly find
Speaker 1: a family crest that you're linked to, or that it
Speaker 1: just simply doesn't exist. It's just that most likely the
Speaker 1: one you're gonna get back for a hundred bucks online
Speaker 1: is not necessarily legitimate. There are bona fide sources, the
Speaker 1: very people who keep authority over these things, um, that
Speaker 1: can help you, and we'll talk about them in a minute.
Speaker 1: But this is kind of this article turned out to
Speaker 1: be cooler than I expected. Yeah, I'm nothing about this
Speaker 1: same here, and now I know a lot about it
Speaker 1: same here, and that's kind of how well, let's talk
Speaker 1: about the origin of family crests, right, Well, first, let's
Speaker 1: talk about the difference. On Twitter last night, I asked
Speaker 1: people if they had any questions about family crests, and
Speaker 1: the number one question was definitely, what's the difference between
Speaker 1: a family crest and a coat of arms? Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: really no difference these days. I these days, yes, pretty interchangeable,
Speaker 1: it is. But if you go back further and further
Speaker 1: into history, um, I found three explanations for the difference.
Speaker 1: Let's hear. So. One is that the coat of arms
Speaker 1: was actually a coat for your armor and it basically
Speaker 1: was a cloth tunic that had your crest on it,
Speaker 1: um to keep your armor from heating up in the sun. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's that's one. Another one was that the the crest
Speaker 1: is the actual crest on top of your larger coat
Speaker 1: of arms. That's true. Okay, that's like the College of
Speaker 1: Arms definition or distinction, right, I don't know. And then
Speaker 1: the third one is that the crest is belongs to
Speaker 1: a family, while a coat of arms is an individuals.
Speaker 1: I didn't see that, So those are possibly the three differences, gotcha?
Speaker 1: But where they come from. Uh, well, they come from
Speaker 1: a long time ago. Uh. Originally in medieval times, in
Speaker 1: the mid twelfth century, they were used to distinguish knights
Speaker 1: on the battlefield once they're all covered with armor, they
Speaker 1: all looked alike. And then from that I think they
Speaker 1: evolved to eventually putting them on the actual shield that
Speaker 1: they used as protection, as just sort of a feather
Speaker 1: in their cap slash being able to know the enemy
Speaker 1: from one another. I think the cap with the feather
Speaker 1: and it is a crest, it is actually Uh. Then
Speaker 1: eventually priests, well, then it kind of filtered down to
Speaker 1: people that worked with knights and noblemen like pages and squires,
Speaker 1: and then eventually priests started using them, and then eventually
Speaker 1: commoners and poor people peasants in the thirteenth century said
Speaker 1: you know what, I want to use the crest. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Apparently until the Middle Ages, most of the peasantry didn't
Speaker 1: have surnames, so they eventually started taking the surnames of
Speaker 1: the people who well their feudal lords. That's how a
Speaker 1: lot of people are linked to prominent families that had
Speaker 1: family crests. Oh yeah, yeah, I did not know that. Um.
Speaker 1: And then after after Um, jousting and tournaments came about. Um,
Speaker 1: the crests became even more important because that was how
Speaker 1: your page would announce you, your herald would announce you. Sorry. Yeah, heraldry.
Speaker 1: That's what all this is really called under the big
Speaker 1: umbrella name. Yeah, it's all heraldry. It's the crest, it's
Speaker 1: the design of them, it's the registry of them. It's
Speaker 1: the way you announced it. Like, um, when you were
Speaker 1: at a joust, your herald would say, like, here is
Speaker 1: Archduke Ferdinand a top his mighty steed. Um, he's ready
Speaker 1: to crack some skulls, and his crest is as follows,
Speaker 1: and that you know. Then they would describe what was
Speaker 1: on the on the crest us on the coat of arms. Sorry, um,
Speaker 1: And that's called blazoning. Yeah, well well we'll get into
Speaker 1: blazoning in a minute. That's uh, that's a whole different thing.
Speaker 1: But yeah, well, I like it basically became like your
Speaker 1: corporate logo for your family, and they would put it
Speaker 1: on everything from swords and banners in your house to
Speaker 1: burning it into bread for special dinners. That was neat,
Speaker 1: I would think. So yeah, I couldn't find any examples
Speaker 1: of that I don't think that photography in the Middle Ages,
Speaker 1: but I'd like to see that. You can get um
Speaker 1: little uh brands for your barbecue to see her into
Speaker 1: steak with like your initials. Now, that's stupid. It's very cool.
Speaker 1: There's nothing cool about that there, it is. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of things that is, but it's not cool. It
Speaker 1: is very cool. You can get anything you want and
Speaker 1: just branded in the steak when you're done and then
Speaker 1: eat it with your initials. Right, it is cool. Are
Speaker 1: you from Texas? I bet people in Texas do that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll bet those are big sellers in Texas. Um, so
Speaker 1: you've got you've got the family crest, you have the
Speaker 1: coat of Arms, and we're going to use these interchangeably agreed. Okay?
Speaker 1: Um from what I saw, the College of Arms uh
Speaker 1: that originated all of these heralds us the Coat of
Speaker 1: Arms the UK version of the United States UK. The
Speaker 1: one in the United States is the American College of Heraldry,
Speaker 1: where in the UK, UM it's the College of Arms.
Speaker 1: And those are the best sources on the Internet for
Speaker 1: stuff like this, by the way, Yeah, but you know
Speaker 1: they cost you some coin. Yeah, but they just have
Speaker 1: good info period. And I think it's the legit info.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of other stuff floating around out there, UM,
Speaker 1: so check the College of Arms. UM. These heralds, they
Speaker 1: actually became part of the households of these you know,
Speaker 1: royal families, UM. And they all banded together and formed
Speaker 1: a corporation and was actually granted a charter in fourteen
Speaker 1: eighty four, I think by Richard the Third UM who said,
Speaker 1: you guys are now the College of Arms. And they've
Speaker 1: been around ever since basically keeping track of arms, registering
Speaker 1: new arms, UM, linking you know, broken chain of title
Speaker 1: um too. You know people who are alive today um.
Speaker 1: And they've been doing it NonStop since fourteen eighty four. Three.
Speaker 1: They open on Christmas, No, they have. They're open eleven
Speaker 1: a m. To four pm. I think Monday through Thursday
Speaker 1: is what it's called. But it's self sufficient. They they
Speaker 1: they subsist on funds they charged for this research. Um.
Speaker 1: They don't. They don't exist on public minds. They say, yes,
Speaker 1: well that's good. Yeah, So chuckers, how was how are
Speaker 1: these handed down? Well it gets kind of complicated, but
Speaker 1: it's a man's world back then, and they're generally passed
Speaker 1: on from male air to male air for the most part.
Speaker 1: And uh, cadency you talked about every like individual like
Speaker 1: siblings can add their own little mark to their shield
Speaker 1: or to their coat of arms. And that's cadency. That's
Speaker 1: the little system they use for each person to have
Speaker 1: their own individual coat of arms. Right, So you've got
Speaker 1: your father's coat of arms. And if you have up
Speaker 1: to nine sons, if you're a tense son, you're in trouble.
Speaker 1: But I bet they have a system you can take
Speaker 1: the you take your father's coat of arms as your own,
Speaker 1: but then you add a certain something and depending on
Speaker 1: the order of birth. Um, let's say you're the fifth son,
Speaker 1: You're gonna add an amulet to it, which is a ring.
Speaker 1: An annulet is a ring? Yeah, annulet, that's what I
Speaker 1: That's what I find. What is an amulet? An amulet
Speaker 1: is like, um, it's a watch that you swing in
Speaker 1: front of somebody and say like you're getting get too confused. Um,
Speaker 1: and and ulet I think it has two ends. It's
Speaker 1: a ring. It's a ring like a gold ring. So
Speaker 1: you add that to a family crest. You can be like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is the fifth son's family crest, right, the third
Speaker 1: son is a mullet. I know, I saw that too, um.
Speaker 1: But when you can see very quickly, like if you're
Speaker 1: the third son of a fifth son, the the you know,
Speaker 1: over the course of several generations, these crests are going
Speaker 1: to become different very quickly. And if you want to
Speaker 1: claim title to these things, you have to trace your
Speaker 1: your you're lying back to you know where this crest
Speaker 1: left off, right, Yeah, and like you have to prove
Speaker 1: it each time too. Yeah, I think it's at kinky.
Speaker 1: I think the further back you go probably. Yes, Well,
Speaker 1: that's one of the good things about the College of Arms,
Speaker 1: as you go to them with a wheelbarrow full of
Speaker 1: money and your birth certificate and your father's birth certificate
Speaker 1: if you can get your hands on it and say
Speaker 1: here you go, call me when you're done, and they
Speaker 1: will do the research for you. Yeah. And the rules
Speaker 1: get really complicated with the ladies, don't they. Yes, very
Speaker 1: let's hear that. Well, if you are a woman and
Speaker 1: you were born to a man who um had a
Speaker 1: coat of arms, and by the way, if your family
Speaker 1: has a coat of arms, it's called an our mid
Speaker 1: dress family. So if you're born into an armadress family
Speaker 1: and you're the only child and you're a girl, Um,
Speaker 1: you can inherit the coat of arms, the family coat
Speaker 1: of arms. But um, as a woman, it has to
Speaker 1: be modified. Like, for example, UM, the shield in the
Speaker 1: coat of arms has to be changed into a lozenge
Speaker 1: which is a diamond shape or an oval, because shields
Speaker 1: are thought of as a man's implement of war, they're
Speaker 1: not appropriate for women. Yeah. And this article too said
Speaker 1: the shield shape was important, but I didn't find that
Speaker 1: to be true. I found it to be rare that
Speaker 1: the shield shape matters, and like in some cases it might,
Speaker 1: but usually it doesn't. Yeah. So and I think also
Speaker 1: that it may have been important at one point in time,
Speaker 1: but then it's important was lost to the ages. Maybe.
Speaker 1: But if you have if you see a circle or
Speaker 1: a diamond, um coat of arms, then you're going to
Speaker 1: say that's a woman's But um, this coat of arms
Speaker 1: changes depending on the course of her life. Like if
Speaker 1: she marries a man um who is also from an
Speaker 1: armidrious family. Uh, they're going to combine them together, and
Speaker 1: there's strict details on how they're going to combine them.
Speaker 1: Like she can take her coat of arms and put
Speaker 1: them next to his coat of arms on a larger shield.
Speaker 1: If she's married, she can be on a shield, but
Speaker 1: hers needs to be sinister, which is the left. If
Speaker 1: you're wearing the coat of arms, it'll be on your left.
Speaker 1: And then his is dexter, which is right. That's right.
Speaker 1: Have you ever heard that before? Dexter for right. I
Speaker 1: haven't heard of any of this stuff. So that's passing
Speaker 1: down the coat of arms. And in a lot of
Speaker 1: cases these things were just kind of lost. They just stopped.
Speaker 1: And the point is now it's a backtrack to find
Speaker 1: where your coat of arms left all and if you're
Speaker 1: if you're allowed to inherit it, then you can pick
Speaker 1: it up and start over again. Yeah. Well, Kate Middleton
Speaker 1: just had one done for the first time because she
Speaker 1: needed one to get married to Prince William, so she
Speaker 1: had one designed by Well. First, she had to pass
Speaker 1: an eminence test, which basically means you gotta prove you're important.
Speaker 1: She's like, I'm marrying this exactly, So she passed that
Speaker 1: pretty quick and she got uh. Mr Woodcock Thomas Woodcock
Speaker 1: designed her her new crest, which was as you can
Speaker 1: see here it is as the diamond and they asked
Speaker 1: for acorns, the Middleton's did, so they got three acorns,
Speaker 1: one representing each of the children, Kate, Peppa and Jimmy,
Speaker 1: Jimmy James. Okay, it's like we're close. Uh. There's a
Speaker 1: go old chevron in the center which is sort of
Speaker 1: like an inverted V, and it represents the mountains. And
Speaker 1: it's gold because her mother's maiden name was Goldsmith and
Speaker 1: it it repreences mountains because they're big, they're into skiing.
Speaker 1: It's a family, So this is what a modern that's
Speaker 1: what you asked for in a modern face exactly. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's a blue ribbon tied at the top, which means
Speaker 1: she's unmarried, and um it's red and white because that's
Speaker 1: the colors of the flag of the UK. And they
Speaker 1: emerging them now is the married are maryl Arms? And
Speaker 1: I think I think William is losing the unicorn then
Speaker 1: the right. You can't lose the lion. I wouldn't lose
Speaker 1: either of them. You have to. So what's what's what's
Speaker 1: support is she bringing into it? Then? Well, I don't know,
Speaker 1: but it's just tradition. Like basically you're messing with the
Speaker 1: House of Windsor's coat of arms. So it's a pretty
Speaker 1: big deal. I know that is a big deal. But
Speaker 1: I'm saying, like, you're bringing her um shield in her
Speaker 1: elements in but I didn't see a support on that picture. Well,
Speaker 1: have we even said what a support is? No, we
Speaker 1: should probably talk about this. There's some common elements to
Speaker 1: any coat of arms um as hodgepodge. As they look
Speaker 1: is often detail. They're as sparse as they look. If
Speaker 1: you look closely, you're going to see certain elements about
Speaker 1: five things that you're going to find on every single
Speaker 1: European coat of arms. Right, yeah, take it, chuck. Well,
Speaker 1: you got your shield. That's the main part in the center.
Speaker 1: Generally in the center. The background of the shield is
Speaker 1: called the field, right, like it's a color. Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: it's just the color of the shield, right, that's the field.
Speaker 1: So if you have a red field and it's red,
Speaker 1: although they won't say red and the blazon, we'll get
Speaker 1: to that though, supporters, if you'd sketch this out, they
Speaker 1: have stick figures as my support. And that's like if
Speaker 1: you look at a common thing, it will be like
Speaker 1: like the house of windsor has a lion on one
Speaker 1: side holding it up and then a unicorn for some
Speaker 1: reason on the other side holding it up. It's a
Speaker 1: cool unicorn, I know, and I'm sure there's a great
Speaker 1: reason for it, which we will find out. But yeah.
Speaker 1: Usually it's a human or an animal or something that's
Speaker 1: on two legs and then has the front two legs
Speaker 1: or arms holding up the shield. They're called the supporters,
Speaker 1: and that means if they're on two legs, it means
Speaker 1: they're rampant, which is another part of the blazoning process. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and did you notice how they when they describe them,
Speaker 1: it is you gotta you have a description to read, right, Yeah? Okay, good,
Speaker 1: because this this is gonna be That's my favorite part
Speaker 1: of this whole thing is a blazoning, is it Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think so. I like the pictures. The pictures. So
Speaker 1: atop of the shield you probably have a cornet, which
Speaker 1: is a small crown sitting on top of that, you
Speaker 1: have the helm, which is a helmet like a knight's
Speaker 1: helmet with mantling coming off of the helmet, which is
Speaker 1: sort of just flowery little stuff. It could be like
Speaker 1: ribbons or something some adornment. Yes, And then you have
Speaker 1: a small wreath called a torse on top of the
Speaker 1: helmet and then the crest on top of that, right,
Speaker 1: and the crest is the topmost thing. It can be anything.
Speaker 1: It can be like a shaft of wheat, um, or
Speaker 1: a lion, or um, a dude with his tongue sticking out.
Speaker 1: It's a lot of lions, yeah, because lions are courageous,
Speaker 1: you know, mess with lions. And a lot of times
Speaker 1: you got a motto on the top or the bottom,
Speaker 1: and that's on a scroll and the scroll is on
Speaker 1: top of the compartment which the whole thing sits on.
Speaker 1: So like there's a lot of physics involved in this.
Speaker 1: Even though you know unicorns show up in it. They
Speaker 1: all follow the laws of Newtonian physics, like everything's resting
Speaker 1: on something else. This actually I didn't notice this. This
Speaker 1: is a belt. That's a belt around the shield on
Speaker 1: the House of windsor now that chuck, it's one of
Speaker 1: those cheesy old braided belts to that in um that
Speaker 1: is actually Scottish in origin. That means that they are
Speaker 1: followers of a clan leader. They're members of a clan
Speaker 1: Um Scotland has their own set of crests and they
Speaker 1: have their own authority. The Lord Lion King of Arms
Speaker 1: is responsible for registering them in Scotland. But that means
Speaker 1: they're members of a clan and followers, not even leaders.
Speaker 1: The belt um looped in like that means you're a follower,
Speaker 1: a clan member. So complicated it is. Uh. The shield,
Speaker 1: we also should mention is many times uh divided into
Speaker 1: different compartments or panels. Yeah, many times it's quartered. In
Speaker 1: the case of the House of Windsor, you've got panels
Speaker 1: representing Ireland, Scotland too, for England. I think there used
Speaker 1: to be one for France that they were placed like.
Speaker 1: It's changed a lot over the years, and a lot
Speaker 1: of times when it changes it's because of marriage that's
Speaker 1: bringing in elements from the um the wife's family crest
Speaker 1: and adding it in, right. So I guess the House
Speaker 1: of Windsor will have acorns. I guess maybe that'll be
Speaker 1: the port of a giant acorn instead of a universe, right,
Speaker 1: but a mutant one that's like growling or something like
Speaker 1: the fun So those are the elements. Those are the
Speaker 1: I guess aspects um that you're gonna find in any
Speaker 1: European shield, right or coat of arms. Yeah. And by
Speaker 1: the way, Mr Woodcock who designed the Middleton's. He he
Speaker 1: does this a lot. And he said he had a
Speaker 1: surgeon contact in one time that wanted a colon on
Speaker 1: his and he said it looked rather like a red worm,
Speaker 1: but he did it. Good for him. I was gonna
Speaker 1: say the same exact thing, old Mr Woodcock. Um. So
Speaker 1: there are certain rules that these things have to follow.
Speaker 1: Like you said there there has to be a helmet,
Speaker 1: there has to be a crown. Um, the the helmet
Speaker 1: that's showing. If you are a knight, Um, then you
Speaker 1: can have the helmet a certain way like usually the
Speaker 1: visors open and it's facing forward. Um. If you are royalty,
Speaker 1: your helmet is gold. It's golden helmet. Um. And so
Speaker 1: like if you're designing your own, which will get to
Speaker 1: in a minute, Um, there's just certain elements you can't use.
Speaker 1: Like you can't be like, well, I want a gold helmet.
Speaker 1: It's like while you're not royal, so you can't have that.
Speaker 1: Um this if you want to be bonafid, right, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna make my own and it's gonna have a gold
Speaker 1: helmet and it's also gonna be colored with crayon. Um.
Speaker 1: The speaking of the colors, one that kind of transcends
Speaker 1: all nobility or commoners. Um, there's you can't have and
Speaker 1: I went and double checked this, but this is true.
Speaker 1: You can't have color on color in a field or
Speaker 1: metal on metal in the field. Do you see your
Speaker 1: you're coat of arms R See how it's yellow on
Speaker 1: the shield? Yellow on blue. I guarantee you that originally
Speaker 1: that yellow was gold. It's supposed to be golden. Yeah.
Speaker 1: If you look at every single one, there can be
Speaker 1: white on the color. There can be black on the color.
Speaker 1: But there's um there can't be like red on bluetch
Speaker 1: so though there but there can be like metal like
Speaker 1: silver gold or bronze on blue or yellow or whatever. Um,
Speaker 1: but there also can't be like silver on gold. And
Speaker 1: if you go look closely there, you're not going to
Speaker 1: find a crest that has metal on metal color or
Speaker 1: color on color and authentic one at least. Yeah. Right,
Speaker 1: did you know yours has ducks? Has was it ducks?
Speaker 1: That those geese? I don't know those geese. I think
Speaker 1: they're geese. Yeah, that's a goose for sure. And it's
Speaker 1: fun when you just look up the generic Google image
Speaker 1: or image search for your own. If you find the
Speaker 1: case that there are a lot of them look pretty similar.
Speaker 1: Then that's probably a good idea that that's what years
Speaker 1: may have looked like. But I wouldn't necessarily like print
Speaker 1: that out on a T shirt and say this is mine.
Speaker 1: For sure. My family has a long history of mistreating geese.
Speaker 1: For flag scott three geese right now. This is the
Speaker 1: English version of it. Um the there's a Scottish version,
Speaker 1: in an Irish version. All of Clark probably same with me,
Speaker 1: And the English version is the one that has the
Speaker 1: geese on it. Every time I was oh Bryant at
Speaker 1: some point probably well now it's because I come from
Speaker 1: my land. But the brant Ones all look about the
Speaker 1: same yellow cross, kind of classy. I wish I had
Speaker 1: an animal, though I got no animals on mine. I
Speaker 1: got three geese. I know. I'm so jealous on the
Speaker 1: English one at least. But mine's missing a crown. Oh
Speaker 1: that is it. Yeah, it's missing a crown and it
Speaker 1: doesn't have a wreath. It just has the what is
Speaker 1: the mantling? Has mantling coming off of a helmet turned
Speaker 1: to the side with the visor down. Oh actually I
Speaker 1: don't have a crown either, but look my helmet goes straightforward,
Speaker 1: left and right. It's almost as if the Bryants are
Speaker 1: always looking in all directions. That's facing forward usually indicates
Speaker 1: some sort of title or nobility or something. So well,
Speaker 1: this is facing left, right and forward. That's awesome. And
Speaker 1: what's the flag sticking out of the top is the crest?
Speaker 1: Myn also doesn't have a crest. I think that was
Speaker 1: a cadency. I think someone added that, like one of
Speaker 1: my relatives from Arkansas or something just stuck a flag
Speaker 1: in the top of it, a rebel flag in the time,
Speaker 1: so I was. I was looking online and um, there
Speaker 1: are different registries for just about every European country. Portugal
Speaker 1: has one. UM. The Scandinavia has the best ones, the
Speaker 1: Scandinavian Registry, which is like all these Nordic countries except
Speaker 1: for the Netherlands by the way they do, but they
Speaker 1: have they have, in my opinion, the coolest ones. UM.
Speaker 1: You can go check it out. It's the Socitias Heraldica
Speaker 1: Scana Navca is going to take you to this registry
Speaker 1: UM and a lot of them were created in the seventies.
Speaker 1: I guess there was a resurgence in interest in heraldry
Speaker 1: in Scandinavia in the nineteen seventies, in Scandinavia periods in Scandinavia. UM,
Speaker 1: if you're Irish, you want to contact the Office of
Speaker 1: the Chief Herald of Ireland. Uh. Scotland again. UM the
Speaker 1: lord lyon King of Arms. That guy is in charge
Speaker 1: of not just registering us but also tartans um and
Speaker 1: you have to trace your lineage back to claim a tartan.
Speaker 1: Tart it's your you know, like um plaid, I've never
Speaker 1: heard that one. Well, yeah, it's like kilts are different
Speaker 1: types of plaid, like like Malcolm and black Watts and
Speaker 1: all that stuff. Those are clan just like a crest.
Speaker 1: That pattern is um. It's associated with a specific plan.
Speaker 1: And like you or I can't just go put on
Speaker 1: some kilt. We shouldn't be doing that anyway. But if
Speaker 1: we did and we went to Scotland, they'd be like, oh,
Speaker 1: you're a Malcolm, and I'd be like, well, it's my
Speaker 1: middle name, but I don't think that's my and then
Speaker 1: they just start beating me up and I wouldn't understand
Speaker 1: what they were saying, but they would be beating me
Speaker 1: up at the time. You just can't you just like
Speaker 1: we can't wear a T shirt. That's like, check out
Speaker 1: my family crest, even if we haven't made an official
Speaker 1: claim to it. In the US, it's kind of willy nilling.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about that. In Great Britain, you can get
Speaker 1: in trouble. It's basically like miss miss using a copyrighted
Speaker 1: piece of material or trademark or something like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's laws to it. It's called bearing arms. You have
Speaker 1: to register to bear these arms. The coat of arms.
Speaker 1: I did not know that in America means you can
Speaker 1: wave a gun around exactly. Uh so where are we
Speaker 1: can we talk about? Where are we Pistians all over
Speaker 1: the map? It really was this Uh this thing had
Speaker 1: strange flow. I guess you would say it, Um, well,
Speaker 1: you want to keep talking about, um, how you can
Speaker 1: will them to people? In some countries you can't. I
Speaker 1: didn't know that you can will them to people. UM. So,
Speaker 1: let's say you were an American and you want your register.
Speaker 1: You're a new family crest in England? Can you do that?
Speaker 1: I couldn't get a definitive answer. Possibly if you're a
Speaker 1: fairly recent British descent, But your best bet is to
Speaker 1: go to the American College of Heraldry, which is founded
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy two, so then went on in the
Speaker 1: seventies UM in New Orleans, UM. And it's now a
Speaker 1: registered corporation in Alabama somehow. But at any rate, this
Speaker 1: is the official organization for registering in America. And all
Speaker 1: of them are new. All the the ones that they
Speaker 1: register are new. Yeah, they don't. They don't track back
Speaker 1: because that's just not how it's done in America. There's
Speaker 1: no nobility, there's nothing like that. UM. So it's like
Speaker 1: you create your own and register it and started there.
Speaker 1: Oh that sounds like something that's worthwhile. Yeah, if you're
Speaker 1: into that, I'm into it. Now are you gonna do it?
Speaker 1: I think so good. All right, let's talk about blazoning,
Speaker 1: which we mentioned earlier. Blazing is the description of the
Speaker 1: coat of arms UM. And it's really specific and it's
Speaker 1: got its own language and syntax and which is all
Speaker 1: over the map. Well not really, it's actually really like
Speaker 1: if you can read it, then it's that's the point
Speaker 1: is it's not all over the map. Because what you
Speaker 1: want to do is you want to be able to
Speaker 1: hand your blazon over to an artist and not say
Speaker 1: what I'm looking for is this. You just hand it
Speaker 1: over and they look at that and they know exactly
Speaker 1: where everything goes. So it is the description of what
Speaker 1: it looks like without having to put I'd like this
Speaker 1: lion to be this color, and move him over here
Speaker 1: a little bit and put him on the left and
Speaker 1: him on the right, dexter and sinister exactly. So, Um,
Speaker 1: the rules are sort of an overview. Um, you begin
Speaker 1: by describing the field, which he said was the background.
Speaker 1: It's usually just a color that you're gonna say, and
Speaker 1: this is of the shield, right, Uh, this is of
Speaker 1: the whole coat of arms. So you begin by describing
Speaker 1: the field which is of the shield. And um, if
Speaker 1: it's a complex field, though, you know, you've got to
Speaker 1: describe the variation after the color, like red, checker or
Speaker 1: checkered red and white. Uh. And you can't just say
Speaker 1: that it's like in a different language to which will
Speaker 1: go over. Um. If the shield is divided, you gotta
Speaker 1: describe how it's divided with its quartered or halved. And
Speaker 1: if it's horizontal or vertical, you gotta describe the colors
Speaker 1: of each sub field and use words like dexter and
Speaker 1: chief which means the top, and sinister and they know
Speaker 1: what all this means because they're really smart. Uh. The
Speaker 1: principal charge, which is anything you see on your coat
Speaker 1: of arms, like a tree or a flower, is a charge. Uh.
Speaker 1: Basically any emblem, you gotta describe that next, and the
Speaker 1: color h then the charge. Anything that's around the charge,
Speaker 1: like if you're lion is holding a thing of arrows
Speaker 1: or a thing of daisies, you've gotta describe that or
Speaker 1: spitting those errors out of his mouth exactly. Um, then
Speaker 1: you have to describe. You do the panels one panel
Speaker 1: at a time. If your shield has many panels, you
Speaker 1: gotta go from left, top to bottom and left to
Speaker 1: right as if you're reading. And all this is done
Speaker 1: basically so they know exactly what to do, and you
Speaker 1: have license after that to draw it however you want.
Speaker 1: So oh like what like like this is what? Yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly and as long as you get all the components right,
Speaker 1: then that's legit. It can be drawn a number of
Speaker 1: ways and it doesn't matter. What about like anime, you
Speaker 1: could do anime, I guess uh. And a lot of
Speaker 1: it's in French because um, a lot of the English
Speaker 1: clerks wrote in French at the time that this was
Speaker 1: was big, and we did mention the animals, and I said,
Speaker 1: rampant means standing on their legs. Rampant garden because when
Speaker 1: you're standing on your legs and facing the person or
Speaker 1: whoever is looking at it. Passent means you're walking. Sagent
Speaker 1: means you're sitting in couch. It means you're lying down.
Speaker 1: I thought that was kind of funny. Gets you're on
Speaker 1: the couch just hanging out. So here's one of example.
Speaker 1: I'm looking at a shield that has a tree. It's
Speaker 1: split down the middle green on one side, white on
Speaker 1: the other, and then the against the white background. The
Speaker 1: tree is green against the green background. The tree is white,
Speaker 1: and it's uprooted. You see the roots of the tree.
Speaker 1: So the way this is described, it's party per pale, argent, invert,
Speaker 1: a tree, eradicated, counter changed. Yes, So whoever does this
Speaker 1: reads that and they say, oh, I know that means
Speaker 1: parted means it's divided, and half pale means it's split vertically, argent,
Speaker 1: invert means silver and green, and an eradicated means the
Speaker 1: tree is pulled up by the roots. And counter changed
Speaker 1: is when it's you know, the white color on the
Speaker 1: green and the green color on the white. Somehow that
Speaker 1: makes sense. I mean, it's just like learning another language.
Speaker 1: That's exactly what it is. And once you do, then yeah,
Speaker 1: that's pretty cool. I tried to tre to speak in that,
Speaker 1: like not speak. I was kind of hoping you're gonna
Speaker 1: it in like a British accent. But once you know
Speaker 1: enough of these words, if you see a sentence like that,
Speaker 1: you can kind of suss it out a little bit.
Speaker 1: So what you just did, like that's not just a
Speaker 1: description for the artist, it's also blazoning. Is what the herald,
Speaker 1: like Paul Bettany would have said, Is that what happens? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't see anything about that. Yeah, if that's that
Speaker 1: was what they did, that's how they described. So if
Speaker 1: the night pulls up with the lance, he would say party, propel,
Speaker 1: argent and vert blah blah blah. Yes, wearing this basically,
Speaker 1: it's almost like in this corner, wearing the black trunks
Speaker 1: with the white trim is tyson. I wonder if they
Speaker 1: followed it up the tree eradicated counter changed a K
Speaker 1: A Ricky right, just to make it easier maker exactly
Speaker 1: Ricky the widow maker? Um and uh do we say
Speaker 1: where these came from. Where they started Europe? No, well Europe, yeah, no, Um,
Speaker 1: it's it's either it's fully European, Western European. Either it
Speaker 1: started in England in the the um, maybe the twelfth century,
Speaker 1: early thirteenth century, or it came from northern Europe right
Speaker 1: like Scandinavia and was brought down by William the Conqueror
Speaker 1: in about the twelfth century and really took root in
Speaker 1: England and then just kind of spread from there. But
Speaker 1: you think of England as the heart of this, and
Speaker 1: for good reason, and it started there, really started to
Speaker 1: spread to the rest of Western Europe from England. Well,
Speaker 1: and you can get beaten severely if you do it
Speaker 1: wrong there by Scott's whereas we don't carrere by begbie Um.
Speaker 1: Governments a lot of times will have like uh, like
Speaker 1: each state has a seal. The United States has the
Speaker 1: Seal of the United States, the Great Seal of the
Speaker 1: United States. Um, not quite the same, but sort of
Speaker 1: the same as a coat of arms, like a lot
Speaker 1: of states have them. I'm sorry, it's only a few
Speaker 1: states have a coat of arms. They all have a seal,
Speaker 1: but some have a you have them have both but
Speaker 1: there's a difference. Yeah, a seal is what they use
Speaker 1: on um documents, like the state seal. Uh, the heraldic device,
Speaker 1: which is the coat of arms, represents the state itself.
Speaker 1: I don't know technically what the difference is, although they
Speaker 1: you know, they look different. Well, yeah, I guess the
Speaker 1: seal of Ohio that has a bunch of wheat with
Speaker 1: a sun on some you know, farmland that doesn't follow
Speaker 1: the heraldic um rules. Yes, but well some of them,
Speaker 1: like Vermont has a seal and a coat of arms,
Speaker 1: but both contain a pine tree, a cow, and cheese
Speaker 1: of grain, so there can be similarities. I don't know.
Speaker 1: And Ronald Reagan's you know, a lot of presidents, most
Speaker 1: presidents have had their coat of arms done up nicely
Speaker 1: because their presidents, well, yeah, it's a big deal for them.
Speaker 1: And Ronald Reagan's has a stallion, a black stallion atop
Speaker 1: his shield with an actor's mask, the little drama mask
Speaker 1: on the horse's chest. You know what that kind of
Speaker 1: looks like. It looks like the the logo that Rocky
Speaker 1: Balboa war on the back of his totally does because
Speaker 1: it's yellow and black. That's totally Rocky and then there's
Speaker 1: his shield is divided. I wish I could speak it
Speaker 1: in blazoning terms, but his shield is divided horizontally, black
Speaker 1: on top, yellow in the bottom, with an eagle and
Speaker 1: a bear representing I think California. Yeah, and then fact
Speaker 1: a non verba is his motto, which is deeds not words. Uh,
Speaker 1: the breaking bear? That bear. Did you notice his tongue
Speaker 1: sticking out? Um? And he's holding what's called that's a mullet? Oh,
Speaker 1: the star on the front or business in the front,
Speaker 1: party in the rear. What else you got? Um? Oh?
Speaker 1: Actually I could read Reagan's if you want um a
Speaker 1: bear rampant sable armed in languid gills, holding between its
Speaker 1: four palls a mullet argent silver star on a chief
Speaker 1: sable standing on a ducal coronet, or a falcon argent
Speaker 1: armed and languid ghul's wings displayed and inverted. It's pretty interesting,
Speaker 1: it is we now know that a silver star is
Speaker 1: a mullet argent. Yeah, exactly. Oh, tell them about the
Speaker 1: Japanese thing. That's kind of well. Japan um has its
Speaker 1: own set of family christ and actually there's about ten
Speaker 1: thousand of them, they estimate. Um. They don't have nearly
Speaker 1: strict standards. I read that supposedly they were originally given
Speaker 1: out to people of Samurai class are higher. Remember Samurai
Speaker 1: were pretty high up in the central strata. Um, but
Speaker 1: apparently that has been relaxed and over time, lots of
Speaker 1: families have a crest called a man show or a
Speaker 1: car what is it? Man show? Or come on or
Speaker 1: mon poor poor porter um And like a number of
Speaker 1: different families can have the same crest, right, and they
Speaker 1: use theirs on their tombstones too, right, Yeah, that's a
Speaker 1: good way if you're of Japanese relatively recent Japanese descent. Um,
Speaker 1: if you can get a picture of your grandparents tombstone,
Speaker 1: or ask your grandparents, um, if they're still living, they
Speaker 1: should be able to tell you what your family crest is.
Speaker 1: But usually they're um circular, compact kind of geometrical representations
Speaker 1: of things like flowers or leaves or bells or something
Speaker 1: like that. And there's times, I mean I looked up
Speaker 1: lists of coats of arms and it's like every country
Speaker 1: and even cities and states and people, and I had
Speaker 1: no idea what people with that into it? To be honest,
Speaker 1: do you mean I are going to make ours. I
Speaker 1: think Harold Harold R. Harold Harold E. Yeah, I wonder, Uh,
Speaker 1: Emily's Sinabogan boy that be German, big time German or Dutch?
Speaker 1: Sounds Dutch to me. I don't know she German, but
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know. Maybe further back it was
Speaker 1: duch he knows. Do you know who knows thee of heraldry? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Or the German version of it? What do you got
Speaker 1: to plunk down for that? Any idea? I don't I know?
Speaker 1: To find your families? Um uh mansho is a hundred bucks.
Speaker 1: I found a place called christia quistia q y s
Speaker 1: t i a dot com. I think it was like
Speaker 1: a hundred bucks to do the research flights give me
Speaker 1: would have a mancho Yeah. Interesting, yes, but again be
Speaker 1: wary of There are legitimate authorities that you can that
Speaker 1: deal directly with the public for money, that are that
Speaker 1: will give you the real deal info and they may
Speaker 1: say there is no crest that you have any kind
Speaker 1: of claim to whatsoever. And if you're American, you can
Speaker 1: turn to the American Registry and be like, all right,
Speaker 1: I want to start and then start right yeah, and
Speaker 1: then register your own it. Even says on the on
Speaker 1: the document that they give you, like you have to
Speaker 1: name your heir, because that through that document they legally
Speaker 1: are entitled to the family crest. And then they can
Speaker 1: create a document saying this is who I'm leaving it
Speaker 1: too as much UM. So you can start if you're American,
Speaker 1: if you're British you can start too. I believe all
Speaker 1: of the different countries let you start registering your own
Speaker 1: UM like Kate Middleton um. But they're also the places
Speaker 1: where you want to go to find if there's one
Speaker 1: already in existence that you can claim right or that
Speaker 1: you could add a cadence to right. Yes, and patronatal
Speaker 1: plasma screen t exactly. I think a lot of the
Speaker 1: family pride thing is I don't know, it doesn't seem
Speaker 1: to be as big of a thing these days. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's kind of sad. Um. Yeah, I guess it is.
Speaker 1: It's the it's kids these days, it's the it's emblematic
Speaker 1: of the breakdown of society. Agreed. Okay, so that's it
Speaker 1: for family crests a k A coats of arms a
Speaker 1: k A held. Yes, if you want to know more
Speaker 1: about it, you can well just type in family crests
Speaker 1: on how stuff works dot com and that will give
Speaker 1: you some pretty good background and then do a lot
Speaker 1: more research. Yeah, you should also UM if you want
Speaker 1: to do if you want to look for your family
Speaker 1: crest the real thing, look for like type in France
Speaker 1: or registering family crest in France, or registering coat of
Speaker 1: arms in France or Germany or whatever, and it's you
Speaker 1: should be able to find like the official UM government
Speaker 1: version for that country, and it's a good place to start. Cool.
Speaker 1: So what else you got? You got ducks, you got geese,
Speaker 1: I think, said, I said, well, at least you don't
Speaker 1: have geese. That's how that's worse than nothing. I think
Speaker 1: it's kind of point. When I saw that, I definitely
Speaker 1: thought it was pretty funny. And also, my last name
Speaker 1: Clark is a variation of clerk, which means I come
Speaker 1: from a long line of pencil pushers and look at you.
Speaker 1: I thrived My family thrives in cubicles. He probably had
Speaker 1: an E on the end of that. At some point too,
Speaker 1: write yes or it meant cleric, which I find doubtful,
Speaker 1: you think. Yeah, Well, at some point in the last
Speaker 1: like minute and a half, I said handy search bar,
Speaker 1: which means it's time Chuck for a listener mail. That's right.
Speaker 1: You know, my dad claims he traced our family back
Speaker 1: to the Vikings. He told he told me that like
Speaker 1: a month ago, because I remember he had traced our
Speaker 1: family tree back pretty well. I said, how far did
Speaker 1: you get he went to the Vikings? I went really?
Speaker 1: He meant, like, um oh, I wish I knew some
Speaker 1: Viking football players and Randy Moss. Yeah, sure, he traced Victory.
Speaker 1: All right, listener mail today. This is actually Facebook gaming
Speaker 1: with Chuck and Josh. I don't know if you saw
Speaker 1: last week. I had a little I do these little
Speaker 1: fun games from time to time, like like this one,
Speaker 1: which was I give the fans a synopsis for a
Speaker 1: movie and you title it and people go wild for
Speaker 1: this stuff. And so here was the movie. I came
Speaker 1: up with natural disaster sweeps through a rural small town,
Speaker 1: destroying the only school. When no funding and with no
Speaker 1: funding and little help, a young Buck carpenter rebuilds it
Speaker 1: as an old timey one room schoolhouse. Along the way,
Speaker 1: the project becomes in the national sensation, and he wins
Speaker 1: the heart of the beautiful young teacher. So we got
Speaker 1: lots of good titles. Brian Day Lessons of the Heart,
Speaker 1: Samantha Smith Back to Basics, todd E Step Home Room,
Speaker 1: Dave Bingham back to Basics. Uh, and not Kumar the
Speaker 1: Education Uh cub Kube's Don Kubie Lecture of Love not
Speaker 1: bad rust Vick, You know Russ making love out of
Speaker 1: nothing at all? Uh. Andrew neil Wind swept to Mona
Speaker 1: our buddy, Mona hot for teacher. There was a few
Speaker 1: hot for tea true. By the way, Rich Marmora learning curves.
Speaker 1: That sounds almost like two moon junction or console trigger.
Speaker 1: David Robinson Learning to Live. Chris Crawford gave us erecting hope.
Speaker 1: That's probably what they would call it in Hollywood. Maybe
Speaker 1: key A Latimer Foundations, Tammy You Saved by the Bell,
Speaker 1: b E L L E Wow. Uh. Michael Needel measure
Speaker 1: twice kind of clever measure twice. Cut once is the
Speaker 1: carpenters saying, although I usually cut once and then cut
Speaker 1: two or three more months, and then measure and then measure. J. J.
Speaker 1: Bryce four walls, one roof, endless hope. And then there
Speaker 1: were some funny ones. Drew Chandler. His title is this
Speaker 1: one room Schoolhouse, is a metaphor. Jimmy Raby Colford hers
Speaker 1: was Smickey what sm like? That's the carpenter's name. I
Speaker 1: don't know. Kyle Bett's captain squaw Bear in the House
Speaker 1: that God Built Jason Carpenter, The Hookiest Movie Ever starring
Speaker 1: Tom Hanks, Terry eck Meyer, The One Roomed House, the
Speaker 1: story of a one roomed house. And then our own
Speaker 1: Rob Chet, son of Twister. Nice, It's fun. That's Rob
Speaker 1: Chet from Stuff to Make You Smarter. Yeah, which you
Speaker 1: can find on the Zoom Network, Zoom Marketplace, Zoom Marketplace.
Speaker 1: You know what else you can find out there? I
Speaker 1: don't know if it's on Zoom, but out there on
Speaker 1: the internet, say, I don't know iTunes audio book a
Speaker 1: specific audio book, number two in an ongoing kind of
Speaker 1: sputtery series, long running and sporadic series, The super Stuff Guy.
Speaker 1: This one is the stuff you should know. Super Stuff
Speaker 1: Guide to Happiness. Yeah, that's right, starring my niece Isabella.
Speaker 1: That's right. Who kicks the whole thing with a quote
Speaker 1: from the DOLLI Llama. And then we have about an
Speaker 1: hour and fifteen minutes of really cool investigation into happiness.
Speaker 1: And here's here's the here's the clincher. It's not that
Speaker 1: happy of an audiobook. We uncover a lot of really
Speaker 1: sad stuff about happiness. Right. We talked to all sorts
Speaker 1: of experts. We talked to one of the founders of
Speaker 1: the trans human movement, David Pierce. We interviewed folks. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we we had a lot of interviews. Um gussied up
Speaker 1: sound design. It was Jerry just pulled out all the stops,
Speaker 1: all the It's three nine nine on iTunes. Apparently it's
Speaker 1: a little more in other places like the Asse's are
Speaker 1: having to pay six nine, which is crazy because the
Speaker 1: dollar is weak right now, That's what they said. Um,
Speaker 1: but I'm not happy. So I remember in two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight Canada went crazy because they're like, we're not
Speaker 1: paying more for this book. Are dollars they're worth the
Speaker 1: same as a dollar, and booksellers up there were like, okay,
Speaker 1: take it up with iTunes man. No, they said, okay,
Speaker 1: oh they did. In England. I think they said it
Speaker 1: was to forty nine to quit forty nine pins. No,
Speaker 1: not even know how they say this. I think you
Speaker 1: just nailed it, is that right? Yeah? To forty nine
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Speaker 1: you can get on iTunes right now, just search go
Speaker 1: to the iTunes store and searched um super Stuff Guide
Speaker 1: to Hackiness, and I will bring it up. And if
Speaker 1: you don't have our Economics super Stuff Guide, it's right
Speaker 1: there is Evergreen. Yes is it? Somebody asked, and and yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's about economics work. I mean it was
Speaker 1: framed through the collapse the recession. But buddy, anybody tells
Speaker 1: you there's over, punch them in the stomach, cans true.
Speaker 1: All right, um. And then also if you want more
Speaker 1: s Y s K, you can listen to us on
Speaker 1: wfmu h what is it not one point one in
Speaker 1: the New York, New Jersey, Connecticut metropolitan area and what
Speaker 1: is it for the Hudson Valley nine one Hudson Valley? Okay?
Speaker 1: And then coming soon everything goes right, you'll be able
Speaker 1: to hear us in Alaska, right, yeah, college radio station
Speaker 1: and uh was it Anchorage? It's it's you have like
Speaker 1: a thirty three chance of what that's coming down the pike. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're excited about that. And then if you want to
Speaker 1: play fund Facebook games, visit Facebook dot com slash stuff
Speaker 1: you should know Um. You can tweet to us we
Speaker 1: are at s y s K podcast, and you can
Speaker 1: send us good old fashioned electronic mail to Stuff Podcast
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com. Be sure to check
Speaker 1: out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join
Speaker 1: how Stuff Work staff as we explore the most promising
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Speaker 1: reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you