What Can I Do With My Coat of Arms? Part 7 - Armorial Family Trees

As I noted at the end of my last post, today we're going to look at something that is often used to display a family's heraldry, but one that can take a number of different forms, from fairly simple to extremely complex: the armorial family tree.

I do not doubt that you may have seen one or more armorial family trees in your researches, but have you seen enough to compare some of them, or to notice some of the many different forms they can take? I'm going to give you several examples here of varying complexity and date, without editorializing very much about any of them, just so that you can see some of the ways they can be done, and I hope that one or more of these will inspire you to look at creating one of your own.

So here we go, from the comparatively simple up to the more complex. You will note that many of these family trees are painted with foliage and even trunks sprouting out of the ground, making them literal painted "family" trees:

This next one is a modern example done by heraldic artist Marco Foppoli:

In addition to literal trees, these armorial family ancestors can also be confined within a circle (which has the advantage of perhaps taking up a little less wall space):

Or, if you want to go especially fancy, a mostly-circle done as a peacock's tail, complete with peacock.

Do you find yourself inspired by any of these examples to look at maybe doing one of your own? A nice heraldic family tree can be a great way of displaying your family's heraldry somewhere in your home.