Chat
|
Daily Search
|
My GenForum
|
Community Standards
|
Terms of Service
|
|
|
discovering your coat of arms is not as easy as someone just sending you a link to a web site showing a coat of arms for your name... (no disrespect to the person who did)
My studies have indicated six different designs for the meads family, they cover all versions of the name meads/ mede/ meade/ meades/ meath / myagh/ and who knows how many other variations. The problem is not the name...it's where the family originate from. Meath is Irish and will have a different coat of arms to Meads from Sommerset.
The coat of arms you have been asked to look at appears to have three swans..my coat of arms has a black chevron with three pelicans and three black birds, the crest is a pelican, the family motto is toujours pret....always ready.
so your problem is discovering where your family originate as a coat of arms not only tells the name of the family, but which area they are from... I know this might make you sit there and say 'damn and blast'...but i did too... also that site suggests only one meaning to the name of meads (etc.)....there is in fact two meanings...yes the first is to do with land but originates from the viking settlers...a mead was a piece of land next to water...the land was flooded in the winter and drained in the summer, then cattle wwould be grazed on it...the second meaning is a person or place that makes or sells mead (alcoholic drink made from just honey, sugar and water). This version originates from Celtic history and goes further back than first suggested... even to befroe the Romans pushed the Celts from Brittany, France to England. the drink Mead is known as Chouchen (pronounced shooshen) in France and is a traditional drink, just as much as mead is in England though it's popularity has declined in England. In Celtic tradition a cask of Mead was given to newley weds on their wedding night. Even the vikings had mead....but it has been shown that the Celts once populated most of Europe and eventually formed all the different countries we now know today. Scotland, Wales, ireland, England, Norway, Sweden, Germany, France, and various other places are all basically named after Celtic tribes. years of seperation made them what they are now.
Please forgive my little history lesson, but I hope others get to read this too. There seems to be a lot of misdirections on the web, Especially by some American based web sites (no offense) It's not particularly their fault, it's a lack of communication i guess.
Anyway, best wishes,
Steve Meads (related to ancient Celts of Sommerset and currently joined to Taylor clan of Scotland by my mothers side)
Notify Administrator about this message?
Followups:
|
| http://genforum.genealogy.com/meads/messages/56.html | ||
 |
Link to GenForum Add Forum |
|