Please note that most of the features discussed here can only be used by subscribers. Visitors are limited to exact name searches only, so why not become a subscriber?

Although most people search armories for blazons matching certain names, the real power of Blazon Search lies in its ability to search an armory as if it were an ordinary. An ordinary is the opposite of an armory. From an armory you can get the blazon matching a name. From an ordinary you can get the name matching a blazon.

Blazon Search allows you to do both. You can search for a name and see what blazons come up, or you can search for blazons, or elements thereof, and see what names come up.

There are several ways in which you can search the armories. The most straight-forward and easiest way is to just enter your keywords, separated by spaces, check if you want to search in blazons as well (the default searches in names only), and hit the search button. For many people this will do. However, there are many who would like to have more power over their search or whose searches are not that simple. For them Blazon Search offers the following added features:

• The Minus Sign (-)
  The minus sign can be used to indicate words or phrases that you do not want to see in your search results. Each word or phrase preceded by the minus sign will be excluded from the search. This feature is especially handy for searching in blazons for terms that apply to many arms. For instance, with the minus sign you can instantly eliminate search results with tinctures that you know for sure do not appear in the arms you are searching for.

• Quotation Marks ("")
  Quotation marks are used exclusively to indicate a phrase. A series of words enclosed by quotation marks will be considered as one keyword. For instance, if you a looking for a golden lion, such as lion d'or in the Armorial, searching for lion d'or will give you 13,600 results because it will show every entry where either of these words show up. Searching for "lion d'or" immediately cuts the number of results down to 4,572. In combination with other charges you will quickly narrow down your search to a handful.

• The Equal Sign (=)
  Likely the most interesting of all. Thanks to Gerard P. Michon for suggesting this functionality. The equal sign is very similar to the asterisk (*) found in Regular Expressions. It will match 0 or more characters where it appears. However, unlike the asterisk, the equal sign limits its matching to alphanumeric characters within word boundaries.

  You can therefore use it to specify a prefix or a suffix, or the middle of a word, as in "ord=", "=ord", "=ord=", or the beginning and end of a word, as in "Gal=cio", which would match Gallucio, Galluccio, Galucio, Galuccio, etc.

  You are also not restricted to just one = in a word. You could make queries such as co=e=ion, which will match concession, constellation, conversation, etc. Remember, though, that you only need one equal sign for each questionable part. So, c==da== is the same as c=da=.

  Probably the most simple usage of this is for people who are looking for a name, but don't know exactly how it is spelled, or where a name can be spelled in different ways.

The most common use of Rietstap's Armorial Général is to search for the arms that belong to a certain name. This is generally the purpose of an armory. With this online version we suggest you go about your search in this sequence for best results:

1. If you have a full name, enter it and make sure that only the Search in Names box is checked. Leave out any prefixes, suffixes and insertions! (such as d', de la, van de/der/den, von, etc.) If you get no results, proceed to step 2.

2. Consider if part of the name may have an alternate spelling. Especially prior to the early 1800s, spelling of both first names and surnames was inconsistent. They were written down according to the writer's understanding and interpretation. Replace the part in question with an equal sign (=), as explained earlier. This tells the search engine to fetch any variation on whatever part of the name you entered.

   For instance, if you think there may be a possibility that your family name Corday may have also been written as Cordey, Cordai, Cordei or Cordaye, enter cord= and all these variations will show up. Likewise, are the possibilities Curday, Carday, Corrday, enter c=day and all these variations will show up. If this does not produce a result, proceed to step 3.

3. In this worst case scenario, enter the minimum part of the name -- the part you are absolutely sure about -- and replace all questionable parts with an equal sign. This will most likely give you results, although they may not match what you are looking for. In that case you can be fairly sure that either no one with the name you are searching for ever bore arms, or they were simply not included in the Armorial Général. Rietstap's Armorial is by no means complete. It only contains a little over 130,000 arms out of many hundreds of thousands that have been existant at some point during the last nine centuries.

In a way, using the Armorial as an ordinary is very similar to using it as an Armorial, just the other way around. Rather than searching for arms that belong to a certain name, we are searching for the name(s) matching a particular coat-of-arms. Because blazons are much more elaborate than names and have a greater variety of elements, searching in blazons requires a bit more organized approach. Although I can imagine many different ways, I do suggest the following for those who are not that familiar with the Armorial:

1. The first thing to understand is that when he compiled the Armorial, Rietstap decided to use French as the standard language for blazons. Thus you won't find English, German, Italian, Dutch, or Spanish terms in the Armorial. Blazon Search offers limited support for these foreign languages. About 435 common heraldic terms are translated on-the-fly before the search is made. This, of course, may not cover the particular terms you are looking for. So, if your blazon is not in French and entering keywords in your native language does not provide any results, you would want to take the most important words, such as tinctures (colors) and charges, and translate those into heraldic French first. I suggest that you use François Velde's Heraldic Translator for this purpose. If you have your words, enter them all. Proceed to step 2.

2. If your blazon contains abbreviations, either leave them out or expand them and then add them to the search. You can find their expanded form and meaning here. Proceed to step 3.

3. Next, determine which tinctures are definitely not part of the blazon. Add those to the search preceded by a minus sign. This will tell the search engine to only fetch results where these tinctures do not appear. This will greatly reduce the number of results returned. Proceed to step 4.

4. If you are sure that certain combinations of terms are standard, such as lion gueules (red lion) or fusil de la Toison d'Or (flint and steel), add those between quotation marks, as explained earlier. This tells the search engine to search for these combinations as a phrase, rather than for each term separately. This, too, will reduce the number of results returned. Proceed to step 5.

5. Next, make sure that the Search in Blazons box is checked and that the Search in Names box is unchecked, and make your search. If no results come up, proceed to step 6.

6. Leave one or more less obvious terms out and repeat your search. Do this until results show up. If still no results show up, or the results that do show up do not match the blazon you have, then you can be fairly sure that this blazon is not included in the Armorial Général. Rietstap's Armorial is by no means complete. It only contains a little over 130,000 arms out of many hundreds of thousands that have been existant at some point during the last nine centuries.

Say you have a coat of arms that shows a normal red lion on a silver field, with a green clover, all on a green base. It has no black or blue.

Use the Heraldic Translator to get your main words. In our example:

Red = gueules
Lion = lion
Clover = trèfle
Green = sinople
Base = terrass(é)e
Black = sable
Blue = azur

Remember that the search engine doesn't care about accents. So you would search for:

        "lion de gueules"   trefle   sinople   terrass=   -sable   -azur

We enter terrass(é)e as terrass= because in French heraldic language it may be written as terrasse, terrassé or terrassée. Also, in this case we use phrasing because the red lion is the most common one and we wouldn't want all search results for less common lions, such as on the lion contourné de gueules, the red lion facing to the left, or the lion regardé de gueules, the red lion looking backward. We also make sure that only the Search in Blazons box is checked.

From the result it is clear that these arms are linked to a family named Hofman.