The registered arms of the Van der Walt-Familiebond

The arms

One shield, kept exactly as the Bond bears it.

Everything below is what is known about the shield, including what is not.

Quick facts
Registered: 28 April 1978, South African Bureau of Heraldry
Registered to: the Van der Walt-Familiebond (the family association)
Blazon: Per pale, dexter Or a Frisian demi-eagle, sinister Azure a fleur-de-lis Or; a chief per pale counterchanged
Replaced: an earlier design shown in 1975 to belong to an unrelated Frisian family, Walta
Not registered (personal only): helm, wreath, motto

One shield, registered

The shield is the family's own, registered with the South African Bureau of Heraldry on 28 April 1978. The black half-eagle on gold is for the family's Frisian origin. That is the whole of the registered arms: a shield, and by law nothing more, for a family association may register no helm, no wreath and no motto. So the shield stays fixed, and shared.

As registered: “Gedeel, regs, in goud ’n halwe Friese adelaar, links in blou, ’n fleur-de-lis van goud, en ’n skildhoof gedeel van die een in die ander.” In plain English: the shield is split down the middle, with a Frisian half-eagle on gold on the left as you face it and a gold fleur-de-lis on blue on the right, and a band across the top split the same way in the opposite colours.
The 1978 Bureau of Heraldry certificate registering the arms of the Van der Walt-Familiebond
The registration certificate from the Bureau of Heraldry, 28 April 1978. Tap to see it full size.

What changed in 1978

For generations the family bore a half-eagle and three silver lozenges, believed to be old and theirs. In 1975 the genealogical authorities, the Centraal Bureau voor Genealogie at The Hague and Dr C. Pama at the Cape, established that those were in fact the arms of the old Frisian family Walta, carried in good faith but in error, with no proven descent. The Bond set the old arms aside, and in 1978 registered a corrected shield: the eagle and a single fleur-de-lis, with no lozenges. Why a fleur-de-lis, specifically, no surviving record explains: the Bureau's certificate confirms the blazon it registered, not the Bond's reasons for choosing it.

The 1978 certificate was lettered by hand with a flat pen. That lettering became the family's own font. See how the VDW font was made.

The wreath and motto: yours, but personal

Everything around the shield, the leaves of the wreath and a motto of your own, is yours to add. These are personal, not part of the registered arms. Use them freely.

The three lozenges

One line brought the lozenges back, not as Walta's, but as their own. On 19 February 1896 the Braamfontein dynamite explosion took, from that direct line, a mother and her three young daughters: Anna Sophia van der Walt, born Steyn, and her girls Hester, Johanna and Dauwlina, then about fourteen, five and three. The three lozenges are the three girls. A charge that once came to the family by accident was restored on purpose, and given to them.

What this means for you

Your shield is the registered family arms, the same for every van der Walt. Your motto is yours to choose.

Arms are one way to keep a lineage. See how other South Africans keep theirs.

Take your place See the One Tree