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Post by hermoine on Sept 5, 2004 11:56:41 GMT -5
Oh, I see.
Well you never know. As I said, there was a record of a Maltese woman who was born and died in Malta in there, so there just might be. Who knows? I mean, China is like waaaay big and Malta on the other hand is waaaay small, so you could have more possibilities than I do.
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Post by Will on Sept 5, 2004 12:01:46 GMT -5
That's true, but then how would I know who was who? I could end up with a whole list of people with my father's family name, but I wouldn't know if they were really my ancestors. I have no way of telling. My last name is a pretty common Chinese name... It's all to complicated at difficult.
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Post by hermoine on Sept 5, 2004 12:05:10 GMT -5
I know how you feel, really. When I checked my own surname up, it gave me this whole list of people living in different countries, which I'm sure are not all related in some way to my ancestors. But maybe it's because there just might be Italian families with my surname who might have migrated, and it makes poor me over here thoroughly confused.
On the other hand, I could just ask my mother if the public library has tree roots or something.
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Post by Will on Sept 6, 2004 12:19:06 GMT -5
lol... I doubt I'll find anything in my public library.
So I was looking up coat of arms, family crests and such and I was wondering if anyone here has one? I thought it would be pretty cool if one of you did... You don't have to show us if you don't want everyone to see your last name... but maybe you could describe it to us?
I found a really nice site with lots of explainations and everything: www.fleurdelis.com
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Post by hermoine on Sept 6, 2004 12:32:03 GMT -5
Yeah, everyone here has one. Unfortunately, I've never been able to find mine. I'll try to look it up. Something tells me though, I won't find much.
But, I'll try, see what I find.
Edit:
Weyhey! I actually found it! Mine has a blue background, 3 stars (yellow) and two diagonal lines forming a triangle without a base. It says that my surname is pretty much common. Then there was a list of famous people; some of them could be my ancestors. One of the guys was one who was a member of the Groupe Francais pour la participation a la standardisation de l'Internet. ;D
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Post by Will on Sept 6, 2004 12:43:36 GMT -5
Wow... Everyone has one? That's pretty cool.
Oh awsome! It sounds wonderful! I'm guessing you didn't go to the library to look for it?
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Post by hermoine on Sept 6, 2004 12:47:33 GMT -5
Yeah. I was kind of getting desperate at first, because let's just say the number of Maltese websites aren't much. I had found a pretty interesting one, but it's about a book which has all the coats of arms, and I don't know this book.
Then I found a link to another website and found it easy enough. Too bad the link for the family tree didn't work though. It would have been really cool.
I found out one thing though. One of the Government Departments is working on creating family trees including the people who migrated to other countries. Maybe they'd do it online and I could see it then. Buuut, I bet the number of people who actually decide to put their names in for the trees won't be much. Motivation percentage here = 0!
The Internet rocks! I always said it! ;D It makes lazy me even lazier. If I had decided to go to the library I'd have had to answer the loads of questions as to why I'm suddenly so interested in my family history.
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Post by Will on Sept 6, 2004 13:00:49 GMT -5
The internet makes my lazy too... -sigh- But I would jump up and run to the library if all the answers to my questions where there! If only... I was interested in the history of my city for a while and I went to the library in hopes of finding something, but with no avail.
That's really cool that a department of your government is planning on making family trees! ...If only people would contribute... I can imagine how excited you would be if they did complete everything and published it online. I sure would be myself!
... stupid typos...
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Post by hermoine on Sept 6, 2004 14:19:19 GMT -5
I can't do that unfortunately. See, I think the tree roots are at the national library, and I don't know if I'd be able to check on the stuff without someone older than 18 with me. I don't think you can. I remember my dad told me you can't borrow any of the stuff, and you can't see it unless you're 18 or accompanied by somone who is.
It's too bad though that you couldn't find anything.
Typos? Your English is very very good though isn't it?
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Post by En on Oct 29, 2004 15:44:05 GMT -5
I'd always meant to look and see if my families' coats of arms were online, but I never got round to it (me? too many irons in the fire? oooh, never). So here we go:
Mum's family way, way back (like 800 A.D.)
Mum's family
Da's family way back
My father's actual surname happens to mean "trees," which makes me chuckle, but I haven't got any special reason to be attached to it other than that my grandfather and great-grandfather, both people I admired greatly, carried that name. When my grandfather passes (he turns 80 this weekend), I will very likely change my name (bad blood with my father), but only as far as Latinising it - in other words, I'll legally be Nialle Sylvan (Sylvan being of Latin derivation for 'area with trees in'). So then I guess if I did a coat of arms, as I'm essentially declaring myself to be a new family, it would be like... a tree or something
Willow, do you know, do Chinese families have something like a coat of arms? (I feel so uneducated; I don't even know whether Chinese surnames can be passed other than patrilineally )
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Post by hermoine on Oct 29, 2004 15:53:28 GMT -5
Love the coats of arms En. 800 A.D.? That is like waaaaaaay back. Did you manage to trace your family line up till then? Wow!
Wait, one can design their own tree? I never heard of that.
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Post by En on Oct 29, 2004 16:58:22 GMT -5
Well I didn't do the grunt work, but yeah, that's how far back the family tree goes on Mum's side. It's because the Blayneys were nobility; they had better records of what happened with them than most people would have had at that time.
Actually I'm pretty sure you have to get your coat of arms from a royal person or a government, but I could always make a pretend one. It might make people with real ones kind of angry though Funny how protective people get about stuff like that.
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Post by hermoine on Oct 30, 2004 7:11:44 GMT -5
Really? I only realised what my family's coat of arms is when I saw this thread then I posted that I had found it online. But people rarely talk about them here. You get the occasional people who do their coat of arms like where one puts the mail in. (Not if you have those metal things. I'm referring to those which have a sort of porcelain shape stuck to the wall, and you slip the letters through the hole there. It's still a 'letter box' except there's no box.)
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Post by En on Oct 30, 2004 14:58:35 GMT -5
Hehe. Here, there are three kinds of people with coats of arms:
1. The people who have them on t-shirts, who are considered - well - disrespectful, I guess, would be the nice way to put it.
2. The people who have them on coffee mugs, pens or stationery, or bookplates. They're considered to be traditionalistic, which some people appreciate, and some don't.
3. The people who hang coats of arms over their fireplaces, have wax seals (and use them!), know what the motto under the coat of arms translates to (mottoes are usually in Latin), but would never remotely consider owning a t-shirt and wouldn't buy a mug, though they might not throw one away if you got them one. They're considered aristocratic, which is not a good thing in the States.
Well, and I guess there is a fourth kind of people who have coats-of-arms - the kind who wear clothes with the Hogwarts one on, who are considered weird by the cool people, and cool by the weird people
Oh, I've seen those porcelain ones, right. Come to think of it, I saw a couple like that in Florence. Isn't there a word for those? I'm sure the people who make them have a name for them, but I'm not sure I've ever heard them called anything other than 'those porcelain mail-slot [or letterbox] things.'
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Post by Nie on Nov 2, 2004 4:20:02 GMT -5
I've managed to trace my ancestry back further... all the way to Germany... and then back further to Austria.
So.... England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Spain, France, Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Indonesia... I'm a real mongrel.
I also found that the castle my family has in Elgg, Switzerland has stood for just over 1,000 years, and been owned and occupied by the same family for that whole millenia. I think I should go live in Switzerland. All education over there is free, even University.
I've decided to make an effort to get hold of a copy of our family tree. Because on my dad's side we were rather high nobility we were anal enough to keep a full record of our family tree since about the 1300s from what I hear. Go us. ;D I'll have to talk to my Oma next time I see her. She'll have a better idea of how I can get hold of a copy, hopefully translated into English...
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