The addition of 10 new crests means the project is now just 25 coats of arms away from completion (of the first phase, at least)!
I feel like I sound like a broken record at this point, but it's always good to remind you all that the initial goal of this project has always been to recreate the 100 coats of arms of the most common surnames on the Maltese islands, you can find out more as to why here.
At the current trajectory 4 - 5 new crests every month, the hope is to reach that initial goal by the end of June this year! What happens after that, we'll have to see. I'd certainly love to collate everything into a book, and I also know that there have been many requests for surnames that, unfortunately, don't quite make it into that initial 100, so maybe we stretch it to the 120 most common surnames? 150 perhaps?
Here are all the newly added surnames that can be found on kunjom.com along with the previous entries, is yours amongst them?
Highlight of researching and creating the heraldry for the these new additions include the pennant donning gryphon of Bonavia, and the three fish that represent Tonna. Strangely, despite the sea and Malta being so closely intertwined, this was the first time I had to create fish as heraldic device.
In Frendo, I encountered arguably the greatest challenge I've had thus far. My research uncovered very few examples, but perseverance and help from the wider community won the day. The crest shown, with an arm clutching an olive frond upon an argent (silver/white) field seems to be the more traditional example, though others do exist (typically, all seem to incorporate the olive frond device, referring to 'friendship').
With 75 surnames complete, we also start to reach some interesting territory. From my observation of censuses in Malta conducted in the last 30 years, the top 80 or so most common surnames in Malta always manage to make into the top 100, however there seems to be a lot of movement and changes when it comes to the remaining 30. Surnames such as Abdilla, Carabott, Desira, and Curmi regularly flitting in an out of the list.
Was your surname one of the new ones added? How do you like the traditional coat of arms related to your family? Reach out and let me know.