CIETRZEW ARMS

Arms: Gules, a common field grouse, sable, whereupon is set for a crest, out of a ducal coronet two stars of six points in pale within a crescent.

There is a black grouse in a red field, the head and body face the right side of the shield. On the helmet with a crown is a crescent moon as if new, with its points upward, and in its center are two stars, one above the other. Thus these arms were described in MS. de Familiis Prussiae, but there is no mention of their origin, only that the Birkhans – or, as I have written of in their place, the Berkhans – boast of these arms. See Sikorski and Ketrzynski.

Translated by Leonard J. Suligowski; first appeared in the November 1994 issue of  “Rodziny, The Journal of the Polish Genealogical Society of America”.