What is a Coat of Arms or Family Crest?

I was recently asked if the Pendley family a "Coat of Arms" or "Family Crest".  This prompted me to dig through a box in my closet of various family papers to search out the document you see posted here.  Sure, I have a pretty piece of paper with a picture of a crest on it.  But what does that really mean?


According to   AncestralFindings.com :
"actually having a coat of arms or family crest is much rarer than you might imagine. Having the hereditary right to use it is even rarer. While there are many companies out there that are willing to sell you all kinds of merchandise with your supposed “family crest” on it, the vast majority of these companies are not engaged in legitimate genealogical research. The coat of arms or crest you get may or may not belong to your family (and it might be made up completely by the company selling it to you), or you may not have the hereditary right to use it."

So there's that.  Does this image of the lion under a helmet legitimately have anything to do with ANY Pendley family, let alone MY Pendley family that can actually be documented?  I have no idea.  Do I really care?  Not so much.  After over 40 years of serious family research, I find what is important to me and what is not has shifted quite a bit since my early days of proving out all the who-begat-who of our tribe.

What FAMILY means to me has evolved quite a bit over the decades.  What TRUTH means to be these days is more a blended morph of "proof", "perspective" and how it impacts those it touches.

So I will be passing on my paper copy of the Pendley Coat of Arms, along with a few other things, to a cousin who I hope will take pleasure and pride in owning it.  As for me, I'm just glad to be off loading a lot of my paper records once I can get them all scanned and backed up here, as well as on Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org.  My days of keeping original certificates, letters, pictures and charts are mostly behind me.  I still care about the stories.  I still care about the heritage.  But I'm ready to claim my closets back!