IDTG

Today’s entry will be about my coat of arms, how I came about deciding on this design and the symbolism behind it. The blazon of my arms is

Per fess Azure and Argent a Saltire counterchanged between in chief an Athenian Owl (Athene noctua) tourné Argent in base an Oak Tree eradicated Azure.

Kimon Andreou

The emblazonment you see above was created for me by an amazingly talented artist named Srechko Nikitovich of Serbia who is a member of the Center for Research of Orthodox Monarchy, led by the Rev. Deacon Fr. Nenad Jovanovich.

The path to these arms did not come about immediately or without effort.

Originally, I had the hope that perhaps I may lay claim to ancestral arms from one of my family lines. Alas, my Greek ancestry through the “Andreou” line does not have an armigerous member that I or anyone else in my family know of (more on my adventures in genealogy in a future blog entry). However, on my mother’s side I found a number of my ancestral lines bearing arms. My mother’s patrilineal line is the Martínez de Vergara, who descend originally from the Basque Country of Spain through Gibraleón, Huelva in the south of Spain.

The arms above are those identified as belonging to my mother’s patrilineal line. The blazon is

En campo de oro, un árbol de sinople, frutado de oro, con un lobo pasante de sable atado al tronco, bordura de gules con ocho aspas de oro”

or

Or an oak tree Vert fructed Or a wolf passant chained to its bark Sable, a bordure Gules charged with eight saltorels Or

and there are multiple sources confirming this blazon, though my main source is the book by Juan Mujíca titled “Nobleza Colonial de Chile”. In this book, my ancestry is traced from the original Juan Martínez de Vergara from Gibraleón, Huelva, Spain all the way to my grandparents in Santiago, Chile.

Though an argument can be made that I can use those arms, perhaps with a difference, I opted not to since I am fond of the arms following the name. However, I did want to take my maternal arms into consideration when designing my new personal arms.

In my quest to develop my arms, I did a lot of research on line and joined the excellent American Heraldry Society (AHS), of which I eventually became the Ass. Director of IT.

It was at the AHS where, after a couple of rookie mistakes, I received the assistance of certain excellent individuals: David Pritchard, Kenneth Mansfield, Terry Sarros and Maj. José Juan Carrión Rangel of the Spanish Air Force.

It was David who suggested of using a saltire as a cant of my surname. It was Maj. Carrión who explained the symbolism of the Vergara arms. It was Kenneth and Terry who assisted with the layout and the mockups. All of them helped with their strong, constructive criticism.

Now, on to the symbolism.

My surname is “Andreou” or, in Greek, “Ανδρέου” which is the name “Andrew” in the original Greek (Andrew is a Greek name). The saltire is also known as “St. Andrew’s Cross” and that’s why it is commonly found amongst the symbols of countries whose patron saint is St. Andrew (most famous being Scotland). So, the use of the saltire as a cant of my surname is natural. The fact that I am Greek Orthodox and St. Andrew is the patron of the Greek Orthodox Church is an added bonus

The owl is the Athenian Owl, commonly found on the reverse of tetradrachms (4 drachmas) of ancient Athens. The obverse of the tetradrachms portrayed the goddess Athena, patron goddess and namesake of Athens. The owl being the western symbol of wisdom comes from the mythology of the owl being Athena’s favored animal, as goddess of wisdom. My choice of using the owl is due to my constant quest for more knowledge, however mundane it may be to the average person. My choice of the Athenian owl specifically, is as a link to my Greek heritage and my growing up in Athens, Greece.

The oak tree, as one might surmise, is a nod to my maternal arms of Vergara. I much prefer the tree versus the wolf or any of the other choices of the Vergara arms and also chose to blazon it eradicated as I felt it added more character

The choice of color came about in a rather interesting way…. I was trying various tinctures of the field and the charges and every time came back with the owl being Argent. On the other hand, the tree was not as pleasing in Argent and went through even more tincture combinations, eventually ending up with blazoning it Proper. This created the constraint of making the field on which the owl would be to have one of the colors or stains while the tree’s field would have to be one of the metals.

This “problem” resulted in the decision of parting the shield per fess and having Argent in base for the tree and some undecided color in chief for the owl. After multiple tries of colors with meaning to me, whether the meaning was national pride (e.g. American red, white & blue) or just because I like the color, I ended up with Azure as the field for the owl. Azure as my favorite color and the combination of Azure & Argent being the common colors of my background (Greece & Chile) and who I am (USA).

At this point, the saltire had to stand out and was blazoned counterchanged. The blazon for my arms at this point was Per fess Azure and Argent a Saltire counterchanged between in chief an Athenian Owl (Athene noctua) tourné Argent in base an Oak Tree eradicated Proper. However, something didn’t feel right…

After some time thinking about it I finally realized it! It was the tree. It had to change. It had to change to Azure.

This final change made the shield achieve the desired goal of simplicity. I only had 3 charges and 2 tinctures.

After Kenneth emblazoned this latest blazon, I knew it was the right one immediately.

In any case, I put this latest emblazonment through the time honored “fridge test” to be certain. Sure enough, it passed the test and I promptly adopted my arms.

After coming up with a crest, I submitted my registration with the United States Heraldic Registry (USHR), which I highly recommend that every armiger does – it’s free!

Below are the arms of those who helped me with my arms:

Arms of Mr. David A. Pritchard

Arms of Major José Juan Carrión Rangel

Arms of Mr. Kenneth Mansfield

Arms of Mr. Terry Sarros

“IDTG” are the initialis of “ISCHYS DIA TIS GNOSEOS”, the transliteration of the motto of my Coat of Arms in Greek “ΙΣΧΥΣ ΔΙΑ ΤΗΣ ΓΝΩΣΕΩΣ”. It means “power through knowledge” and it has been my guide from a very young age – always trying to learn more, widen my field of knowledge and, in the process, enlarge my personal library of books.

Kimon Andreou

Through this blog I plan to share my thoughts on issues of heraldic, genealogical and historical interest. Though I would like to think I can become as prolific a blogger as to be able to produce a substantive blog entry every day, the pragmatist in me knows that I’ll be more likely to post about once or twice a week after the first couple of weeks go by….

Since this is the very first post of the blog, I’d like to set the tone by introducing myself.

My name is Kimon Andreou and have always been interested in history. Over the past few years, I developed an interest in genealogy and about a year ago, heraldry.

Through the years, my interest in history has changed from antiquity, to the classical period to early modern to current events to medieval history (in that order). In addition to the time period, my geographical interests have shifted from Greece, to Europe to the Americas to Egypt to Africa to Asia, etc. I expect my area of interest to change again, to what, nobody knows yet

My interest in genealogy comes from my curiosity to find out more about my ancestry. Like most, I’ve heard stories about my great-great-…-grandfather who was some important person, or our family’s relationship to someone famous. I always treated them as stories but, one day I decided to see if any of it was true. This led me down a very exciting path of discovery that has not yet reached its end.

From genealogy sprang my interest in heraldry. I discovered ancestral arms from my mother’s side but, nothing from my father’s side. Since I did not want to use arms that didn’t belong to me, I decided to assume arms of my own. The thought and research I put into devising my own arms developed a great passion for the art/science of heraldry that has opened new avenues of exploration to me.

I intend to share my thoughts, discoveries and frustrations as time goes by.

Thank you for reading

Kimon