Hello. No, one couldn't say that everyone knew what their "coat of arms" was in the 1700's/1800's because few people had them. Grants of arms were given to individuals, but these were often not heritable, and if they were they were usually passed on to a specific heir, e.g. eldest sons. Generally, if a person inherited a true grant of arms, the person knows it, if for no other reason than because people are constantly addressing that person as "My Lord" or "My Lady. (g) What many people mistake for "their" coat of arms, or "family crest", is usually a rendering of a grant of arms that was given to some person who shared the same surname long ago. Many mail-order and now Internet companies will provide these renderings for a fee, but they can easily be looked up in many geneological libraries for free. For the Pfalz area (or any German speaking area) the Siebmacher series of volumes is considered to be fairly complete. These surname crests are interesting in their own right and generally harmless, unless one imbues them with a genealogical meaning they usually don't have. Thus, for example, while I am curious whether the 15th century Lesmeister that was granted arms is related to me, even if I can prove he was I don't plan on claiming a "family crest". Of course, cities, principalities, organizations, etc. were often granted arms as well. Perhaps this is what your grandson's teacher was referring to. I see someone has been kind enough to provide a link to the Pfalz crest already. You can probably also find one for the town or city your ancestors came from as well. Hope this helps. -----Original Message----- From: smada@webtv.net [mailto:smada@webtv.net] Sent: Wednesday, September 06, 2000 10:16 PM To: PFALZ-L@rootsweb.com Subject: [PFALZ] Coat of arms Did everyone know what their coat of arms was /were in 1700's 1800's or earlier? Was there separate and many of these insignias for each principality.? Who designated them? Were they important to the everyday manual laborer? This is prompted by grandsons questions for his first German class..His mother tells him--grandma's know these things Eventually , he will find me out- It made me curious, too' <g> Florence