This Colored version provided by Philip Thurman, who sent the following explanation: I painted our family crest a few months ago. I used the B/W crest design posted on the site as a reference. I believe the coloring is correct but the colors were contrived from one of the those "trace your ancestry" shops when I was visiting St. Augustine, so who knows if they are accurate.
William Camden wrote in 1586 in "Remaines of a Greater Worke Concerning Britaine" "About the yeare of our Lord 1000...surnames began to be taken up in France, and in England about the time of the Conquest, or else a very little before, under King Edward the Confessor, who was all Frenchified...but the French and wee termed them Surnames, not because they are the names of the sire, or the father, but because they are super added to Christian names as the Spanish called them Renombres, as Renames." So we end up with Thurman. According to at least one respectable text, it came about because of Thor, the ancient god of thunder, and was known in Old Norse as þorr. þorr + mundr = Thor's protection, and that became, in Old Norse - þorrundr, which evolved into the Middle English version Thurmond. Thurman is an English Patronymic Name derived from Thurmond as a given name."
And from one of our THURMAN's Quest Contributors, the following EMail re: the "Crest"
Incidentally, about "Thurman's Crest":
1) It's not a crest, it's a coat of arms; the crest is only the part on top
above the helmet (as in the crest of a bird, or of a wave)
2) In English (and Scottish) heraldry, a coat of arms belongs to only
one person, not a family; it gets passed down between father and
son. Family members who can prove their connection are only
allowed to use different coats of arms derived from the original,
which again, are unique to each person.
Yours, Thomas Thurman, (Past President of the Cambridge University Heraldic and Genealogical Society)
P.S. You might be interested to know that my grandfather, Robert Thurman, is
being granted a coat of arms by the College of Arms in England. I've put up a web page about it at: http://thurman.org.uk/arms/
