How can I find my Family Crest?

What website can help me find my Japanese family crest? Or, where do I start looking on how to find out what my Japanese family crest is?

If you are a descent of Japanese family, your mom/grandmom should know your family crest.

If you are not, I don't think there is a family crest for you. You can pick up whatever symbol you like and set it as your family crest.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mon_(badge)

Crests and coat of arms in all the very old countries around the world were awarded only to Aristocrats. Many peopLe have a name similar to an aristocratic name simply because many hundred years ago they either lived in a town nameD after an aristocratic family or were employed by that family (in Europe, for example, most people didn't have a family name until the middle Ages). Non- aristocrats aren't entitled to a crest/ coat of arms. Any company that want to sell you a crest is only interested in $$/ Yens/ Lira whatever. If you want a crest you should make your own..

In case of Japanese family crest (ka-mon), almost every family has one.
Kamon is still in use and it is not limited to the decendants of noble people.

You can go to Qrysta.com and ask them to research your kamon.

Here is a list of the most used kamon by name: http://www.asgy.co.jp/kamon/kamon/kamon.html

I don't suppose �� would have a family crest too would it? I don't think it really is an important name.

Miko,

I don't suppose �� would have a family crest too would it?

Did you not look at the link Kappa posted immediately above your post?

The link that Kappa posted (at least for me) doesn't display any text, just gibberish. I'm guessing it's in some font that my computer can't read.

my computer is fully capable of reading Japanese

Miko,

The link that Kappa posted (at least for me) doesn't display any text, just gibberish. I'm guessing it's in some font that my computer can't read.

The page HTML doesn't explicitly specify the encoding used, so you will need to change the encoding to Japanese (Shift JIS) manually if your web browser assumes western encoding by default.

For the record, the second and tenth symbols listed on that page can be used for Hayashi family names, amongst others.

Unfortunately, I can not see the link Kappa posted either (don't have Japanese fonts installed).

However, I can tell Miko that I believe there is a Hayashi crest, even if she is not directly related. My last name is Hayashi, and two of my distant relatives did research into our ancestry and found we are related to a samurai named Hayashi (I can't recall the first name, but he was present at the battle of the Bitchu-Takamatsu Castle, when it was flooded), and one of the two research papers included a scan of some old Japanese document showing a crest. Unfortunately, that document was lost many years ago, and I can't exactly recall what it looked like. It was something like one for Ogasawara or Oi on this page:

http://www.samurai-archives.com/crest5.html

What I mean to say, is that I think it had diamond-shaped symbols on it, but I can't recall how they were arranged; I'm sorry, it was probably over 20 years ago that I saw it.

Miko, if you're still looking, I can try contacting some other relatives to see if anyone can find the document or recall what it looks like, but I don't know how long that would take.

Who knows, perhaps we're relatives. :)

http://www.asgy.co.jp/

I don't know if anyone was still looking for the Hayashi crest, but I just got back from visiting my grandmother yesterday and found out what the crest looks like. As I had recalled it was 3 overlapping diamond shapes, similar to the ones I linked to above. However, the middle one is the largest. It is basically #42 on this page:

http://www.e-budostore.com/images_kimono/kamon.gif

I recently traveled to Japan to visit my grandparents' grave and our kamon was engraved on the stone.

thanks for letting me know. I don't know much about my ancestors since I'm fourth generation and my grandma was originally Imada, not Hayashi. My grandpa has already died.
But... i know her mom came from Kyushu, i'm not so sure about my grandpa's parents.

No one in my family can tell me my family crest... i'm a 4th generation so it's hard to get them to trace back. Is there any way to find it?

Mon are not the same as European family crests. Mon applied to a family, but also to all of the retainers that the family had. So for example all of the samurai, major and minor, wore the crest of that clan, as did non samurai administrators of the clan. In my wife's case, her family were officials that supervised a sekisho (customs barrier) in what was then Shinano Han, and wore the mon of the Daimyo of Shinano. It was placed on their tombstones even after the shogunate ended, and still is today.

Some website says Watanabe�fs family crest is well known. Basically, it consists by three circles. Generally, it is accompanied by underbar.

http://www.harimaya.com/o_kamon1/seisi/best10/watanabe.html
Says the left one is most common.

There can be many different Kamons that are used for a particular Japanese family name. I was able to verify my family's kamon when I visited the grave of my great grandparent's and saw the engraving on the grave marker. I also found other graves that had the same last name but had diffferent mons engraved on them and visa-versa.