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It's kind of sad that I'm answering this question 18 years too late, but better late than never, and I've been studying the heraldry. Here is the best approximation I can come up with:
-A field of white (Argent) with a Templar cross shows that someone down the line fought in one of the crusades, ironic I know.
-Buckles represent loyalty, the fifth being held above a helmet signifies loyalty and bravery in combat.
To put it succinctly, and because nowadays the information is available (and at least not seemingly altered/falsified) on Wikipedia, if you look up the "Battle of the Catalaunian Fields" you will find that both Merovech and his son Childeric I fought alongside Flavius Aetius against the Mongols. Obviously they won, but not without the cost of the Holy Roman Empire doing their whole converting the masses thing.
Anyway, I'm strongly of the opinion that there were at least 5 instances of this kind of thing for the Childers name in history up to when the Coat of Arms was given. How appropriate it would be, for the first time the Merovingians lent their swords to be represented by that buckle held in that hand. :)

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I hope whoever reads this enjoys going down the rabbit hole as much as I do. Who knows? Maybe things will work out in such a way that France may someday have another King or Queen from the Merovingian line on the throne?

Griffin was born in w.va,I believe. He had approximately 12 brothers and sisters. His mothers's maiden name was Lenore Ash. I would like to locate long lost cousins. I was named Janet Mary Childers, my sister Carole Lenore, my brother James Griffin. yours truly, Janet

There's a lot of information on line about the Childers family.

Here's a link to a web page that explains the Crest: http://www.childers-childress.com/familyhistory.html (the explanation is in the left margin).

The origin of the name is kind of obscure: I always thought that it came from the Crusades and meant "belonging to the children." There may still be some credence to this, since in Middle English "childer" was the spelling of Modern English "children" and you could make a word possessive by adding an "s"--so "childers" would be the same as our modern "children's."

Here's a theory that the name is descended from the Kings "Childeric" and another theory.

Fom http://www.childers-childress.com/clarencechildress.html
Garland K. Childress wrote an article he entitled "A Brief History of The Surname Childress," for the April, 1987 issue of the Childress Chatter Newsletter, which reads:
"The name Childers, also spelled Childers, Childress, Childres, and Childrey, is an ancient English-Anglo-Saxon name that probably has its origin in the old German language, one of the forerunners of our standard American English of today. The first hint of a name similar to our present spelling is to be found in the Frankish name of Childeric 1,leader of the Germanic tribe of Franks of A. D. 458 - 481."

The Lives of The Kings and Queens of France by Rene de La Croix duc de Castries, written in 1908, provides an excellent account of the Childerics, and their Frankish descendants from A. D. 450 - 751.

As I read this fascinating history, I contemplated the possibility that these ancient Gauls may have made up an ancestor pool, from which our modern version of the Childress name evolved.

The question, then, comes to mind: What's in a name?, When a search through the dusty pages of history turns one up with such a familiar ring, the importance of a name becomes clear.

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