While tracing genealogical roots, many families find their family crest. The crest often shows specific colors or images that represent characteristics of the family. This can give insight to the past as well as a unifying image for the family today.
These days, such research should be easy, right? A simple Google search can tell you almost anything, and even bring up images of family crests. Well, not quite so easy for the Blanchette Family.
Internet searches and various records show two very different crests. Houseofnames.com, which provides information on all different family names, shows the blue and white crest featuring... well, they look like dancing lions to me, but I have a feeling they are not. According to houseofnames.com, the Blanchette name comes from the nickname Blanc (white), which could have come from blonde hair or a "reputation for purity and piety." That's right, folks, this website thinks the original Blanchettes were pure and pious! Or maybe we should be favoring the blonde idea (that is the legend I have always heard. Note: I have never been blonde, and I come from a branch of the family that tends toward dark hair.) The website does provide some background information on the family name that seems to connect with what we know- originated in Normandy, and a notable "first settler" of this family in the Great Migration to New France was Pierre from Picardy, who married Marie Fournier in Quebec City in the mid 1600s. That's our guy, Pierre. But is it our crest? http://www.houseofnames.com/blanchette-family-crest
The crest that I am more familiar with is the crest that appears on the Acadian Genealogy website. This crest- in red and black- features a large stag. The website does not provide any more information about the crest or the origins of the family name. http://www.acadian.org/crests2.html
So I open this discussion to all of you. Does anyone have any information or resources about this? Does anyone have strong feelings one way or the other? Does anyone know of yet another Blanchette family crest out there? Please feel free to weigh in either here or on Facebook!
