{"id":2800,"date":"2015-11-19T08:04:22","date_gmt":"2015-11-19T13:04:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gettysburgflag.com\/blog\/?p=2800"},"modified":"2025-04-07T13:27:51","modified_gmt":"2025-04-07T17:27:51","slug":"family-crests-heirloom-flags-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gettysburgflag.com\/blog\/family-crests-heirloom-flags-president\/","title":{"rendered":"Family crests, heirloom flags and a president"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Isaac<\/a>
Isaac Heard<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Think you can\u2019t be as important as a president of the United States? Think again, and raise a family flag with your ancestors\u2019 crest on it to declare to the world that your line is as significant as anyone else\u2019s. And if you don\u2019t have a family crest, you can create your own, just as royalty did centuries ago.<\/p>\n

While U.S. homes are often decorated with American flags<\/a> and state banners,<\/a> there should also be room for an heirloom flag<\/a> or custom banner<\/a> that declares you belong to a line of ancestors who deserve to be remembered in cloth and colors.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
A 1792 painting of Washington<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The example of George Washington provides a lesson. In December 1791, Isaac Heard of the College of Arms in England, wrote to the first president and said he had been examining the family line of the Washingtons in Great Britain. Heard wanted his American correspondent to confirm his research and share any additional ancestral information he had. He enclosed with his letter a drawing of the Washington family coat of arms, which had been approved centuries earlier.<\/p>\n

Replying in May 1792, Washington said that he appreciated \u201cthe trouble you have taken in making genealogical collections relative to [my] family.\u201d But he also admitted that \u201cthis is a subject to which I confess I have paid very little attention.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Washington's<\/a>
Washington’s bookplate shows his coat of arms. (Mount Vernon)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The first president of the American republic also seemed to jab at England\u2019s interest in ancestry by noting, \u201cWe have no Office of Record in this Country<\/a> in which exact genealogical documents are preserved; and very few cases\u2026occur where a recurrence to pedigree for any considerable distance back has been found necessary to establish such points as may frequently arise in older Countries.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Washington did confirm that the coat of arms is \u201cthe same that are held by the family here.\u201d<\/p>\n

He could hardly pretend otherwise. In fact, as an historian at Mount Vernon recently wrote, \u201cThroughout his life Washington had the family\u2019s heraldic crest applied to such diverse personal belongings as silverware, wax seals, horse-drawn carriages, walking sticks, and interiors of buildings, including\u00a0Mount Vernon, \"Purple<\/a>where the coat of arms was featured in the middle of the wooden fireplace mantel in the front parlor. The coat of arms was even featured on the livery uniforms of Washington\u2019s servants, a common practice amongst wealthy planters prior to the Revolution.\u201d<\/p>\n

If a family crest could go on Washington\u2019s buggies and silverware, it might have been also put on a piece of cloth to become a flag. Modern Americans can do the same so that an heirloom flag waves on the porches of the citizens of the nation he helped to create.<\/p>\n

\"Mount<\/a>
Mount Vernon in 1800. (Library of Congress)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As for the Father of Our Country\u2019s coat of arms, it was simple in design and color. His crest consisted of three red stars above two horizontal red bars. When Washington, D.C., created its city flag<\/a> in 1938, it used the coat of arms of the man after whom the capital was named. Two decades later, the same design was appropriated for the Purple Heart medal, which also includes a profile of Washington.<\/p>\n

So get working on your family crest and coat of arms, put them on a flag, and raise it to honor those who came before you \u2013 and to remind everyone that your line is as important as Washington\u2019s.<\/p>\n

(Holiday tip: Family flags and heirloom banners make great gifts.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Think you can\u2019t be as important as a president of the United States? Think again, and raise a family flag with your ancestors\u2019 crest on it to declare to the world that your line is as significant as anyone else\u2019s. And if you don\u2019t have a family crest, you can create your own, just as… continue<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":2807,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[316,47,317,221],"class_list":["post-2800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history-lessons","tag-family-crest","tag-george-washington","tag-heritage","tag-washington-dc-flag"],"yoast_head":"\nFamily crests, heirloom flags and a president<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Raise a family flag with your family crest on it to declare to the world that your line is as significant as a president of the United States.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.gettysburgflag.com\/blog\/family-crests-heirloom-flags-president\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Family crests, heirloom flags and a president\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Raise a family flag with your family crest on it to declare to the world that your line is as significant as a president of the United States.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.gettysburgflag.com\/blog\/family-crests-heirloom-flags-president\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Gettysburg Flag Works Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-11-19T13:04:22+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-04-07T17:27:51+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.gettysburgflag.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Washingtons-bookplate-shows-his-coat-of-arms.-Mount-Vernon.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"333\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"500\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"James Breig\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"James Breig\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.gettysburgflag.com\/blog\/family-crests-heirloom-flags-president\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.gettysburgflag.com\/blog\/family-crests-heirloom-flags-president\/\",\"name\":\"Family crests, heirloom flags and a president\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.gettysburgflag.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.gettysburgflag.com\/blog\/family-crests-heirloom-flags-president\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.gettysburgflag.com\/blog\/family-crests-heirloom-flags-president\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.gettysburgflag.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Washingtons-bookplate-shows-his-coat-of-arms.-Mount-Vernon.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-11-19T13:04:22+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-04-07T17:27:51+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.gettysburgflag.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/048662cff3dee1c17360c4683b5fe03a\"},\"description\":\"Raise a family flag with your family crest on it to declare to the world that your line is as significant as a president of the United States.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.gettysburgflag.com\/blog\/family-crests-heirloom-flags-president\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.gettysburgflag.com\/blog\/family-crests-heirloom-flags-president\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.gettysburgflag.com\/blog\/family-crests-heirloom-flags-president\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.gettysburgflag.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Washingtons-bookplate-shows-his-coat-of-arms.-Mount-Vernon.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.gettysburgflag.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Washingtons-bookplate-shows-his-coat-of-arms.-Mount-Vernon.jpg\",\"width\":333,\"height\":500,\"caption\":\"Washington's bookplate shows his coat of arms. 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