These arms are assumed on the basis of an armorial seal on a letter dated 1776 from the paternal ancestor in direct male line, Ole Michelsen Sidselrud, teacher and farmer, to The Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters; the letter is registered in the collections of the University Library of Trondheim. Since the arms are only known from seals, tinctures were chosen during the process of turning the armorial seal into a coat-of-arms proper. The direct descendants of Ole Michael Sidselrud (great-grandson of Ole Michaelsen Sidselrud) have the right to bear these arms. Kaare Olaf Seeberg Sidselrud is at present the oldest descendant in the direct male line from Ole Michael. Other descendents who bear the family name and/or with permission from the head of the oldest agnatic branch of the family are included.

The charges on the shield are taken from the seal on which the arms are based: a (generic) tree and flowers that most likely are lilies. There is at present no known source which would give a clue to the symbolism involved. The linden tree and the lilies were chosen based on the information available regarding the frequency in Norway of trees and flowers.

The crest is almost exactly the same as on the seal used in 1776. On the original seal it was the coronet of a duke, five strawberry leaves visible. Since it was impossible to find a genealogical or heraldic link explaining this, a crest-coronet proper was used instead. The father of the ancestor who used this seal was an artillery officer at the Norwegian border fortress of Kongsvinger: hence the mailed arm.

The armorial Sidselrud family is one of the Sidselrud families coming from the Sidselrud farms in the Vinger district in the municipality of Kongsvinger, county Hedmark, close to the border fortress of Kongsvinger. The earliest generations of this family were farmers and/or teachers, later generations includes businessmen, merchant navy officers, artists, civil servants et al. The family is to be found today in the region of Oslo, Norway and in Switzerland with cognatic descendants living in United Kingdom, Canada, USA, France and several places in Norway.

The Armiger was elected an Academicien (full member) of Académie internationale d'Héraldique in late August 2015.