Kingma State
Language

II The family

The family coat of arms

Coat of Arms

We know what the Kingma coat of arms looks like thanks to the Regina church in Zweins and archival records. The left half of the coat of arms depicts a Frisian half eagle sable on or. The right half depicts two whelks sable on argent. At the base, there is an arrow argent on azure, topped with a swan crest.

Coat of Arms Kingma (two versions)
The Kingma arms: on the left the older version without the eagle, on the right the later version. Drawing from the circle of the Fryske Rie foar Heraldyk (Frisian Heraldry Council), brought along by J.C. Terluin for his lecture on heraldry in Zweins on 20 November 2004.
The Kingma coat of arms, cleaned-up drawing
The Kingma coat of arms, cleaned-up drawing (2026).

It is suspected that the whelks in the coat of arms refer to the ‘kink’ in the road that gave the Kingma family its name, as the Dutch word for whelk is ‘kinkhoorn’. In another, probably older version of the coat of arms the Frisian half eagle is missing. Presumably, this version dates back to the period before 1498 (Albert of Saxony).

The Kingma coat of arms in the church at Zweins
The Kingma coat of arms on a loose stone in the floor of the Zweins church, recovered and set into the floor during the church's restoration. The arms on the Kingma gravestones themselves were chiselled off in 1796.
The crest with the swan, in the church at Zweins
The crest with the swan, in the church at Zweins