De Calonne Coat of Arms

Why?
The coat of arms hanging at the home of many Calonnes, belongs to the noble Calonnes, originated from Tournai/Doornik.
Most of the times it’s a variation on this coat of arms. A connection between the “Indische” De Calonnes and the noble, French-Belgium, Calonnes has not been found (and probably won’t be found ever). Read an explaination on this here.
The coat of arms of those noble Calonnes offically can not be used by the Indo-Calonnes. But even more important: that coat of arms does not say anything about the Indo branch and its history. Particularly the long history in the Dutch Indies, so characteristic for the Indo-Calonnes, is not represented in the noble coat of arms.
That’s why a specific “Indo-De Calonne” coat of arms was designed and will be officially registered.
All the descendants of one of the two Belgian brothers that moved to the Dutch Indies (Jean Baptiste de Calonne) are authorized to use the coat of arms. All the Indo-European De Calonnes are descendants of Jean Baptiste. If you aren’t sure whether you are authorized to use the coat of arms or not: contact the website administrator.
Dennis de Calonne designed the coat of arms, with advice from heraldry expert H.K. Nagtegaal.

The coat or arms
Below a computer drawing of the coat of arms, including the official description of it (the official version for registration is in Dutch).
Within the boundaries of that description other variations of the coat of arms could be created (e.g. drawings, paintings).

Official description
– Shield: in blue a turned silver sword with an upward winding golden snake, accompanied by two facing silver chillies.
– Helmet: in profile
– Torse: blue and silver
– Crest: a silver lion rampant
– Mantling: blue, lined with silver

Motivation
All elements of the coat of arms mean something:
– the blue background of the shield represents the seas and oceans Jean Baptiste crossed to the Dutch Indies, many Calonnes crossed back and forth to Europe in about 1.5 centuries and finally Calonnes crossed to move back to Europe (and America) permanently.
– the cabe’s/chillies symbolize the Indo-European culture, where food, and especially the meeting and gathering around food plays an important role.
– the snake winding around a sword represents the profession of ancestor Jean Baptiste (military suregon).
– the lion is the national symbols of both Belgium (country of origin) and the Netherlands (current residence of most Calonnes).

Use of the shield
The shield, without all the decoration, can also be used independently.

Registration
The coat of arms has been approved and registrated by the Dutch Association for Genealogy (“Hollandse Vereniging voor Genealogie “Ons Voorgeslacht”) on December 18th 2013, under registration number 2013-0255. Click here to see the registration in their online database.

Larger version
If you want a larger version of the coat of arms, for example for business cards, t-shirts, banners, stickers, badges etc., please ask the website administrator for them.[:]