The Markowicz and Trabuć families

The Markowicz family was the family of Alina, Romuald's mother. They were minor nobility from around Święciany and Podbrodzie. Their story is known from the baptism of Stanisław in 1779. A nobility decree of 1819 lists Stanisław Markowicz's ancestors back to his great-grandfather Łukasz, recorded under the year 1552. He is the earliest ancestor we know by name. Through Agata née Trabuć, Stanisław Markowicz's wife, this branch also reaches back to Andrzej Trabuć, who lived about 1600.

The chapter begins with Alina and goes back in time, generation by generation. First come the Markowicz family, from Alina to Stanisław and Agata. After them come Stanisław's ancestors known from the decree of 1819: Bartłomiej, Kazimierz and Łukasz. Then come the Trabuć family, Agata's relatives. At the end are the coats of arms, family stories and a list of sources.

Alina née Markowicz (1930-2014)

Alina was born in Obkorty. It is a small zaścianek among the forests, a dozen or so kilometres north-east of Podbrodzie, today in Lithuania. A zaścianek is a few houses of minor nobility standing on their own, away from the village. Alina's father, Dominik, had land and a house there. Alina had a sister, Dominika, married name Ziemczonek.

On 7 February 1949 Alina married. Her husband was Antoni Łukaszewicz, born in 1925 in Ockowicze near Komaje. The marriage was registered at the civil registry office in Podbrodzie under number 10. The young couple settled in Kocielniki, a village two kilometres from the church at Powiewiórka. There Rlewos, Sukwrkptw mwt Mkdtomu were born. Between June 1954 and the end of 1955 the family moved to Guże on the river Mera, two and a half kilometres away. There Romuald ykk Sdrikut were born.

All the children were baptised in the church in Powiewiórka. This church used to be called the Sorokpol church. That is the name it bears in the old registers. In this same church Józef Piłsudski was baptised in 1867.

Wumismlui esme ns 6617. Swinzen miao wo 8261 dn Rumiwk.

Guże lay right next to a military training ground. Alina and her mother Leokadia remembered that life there was good and that one could get along with the soldiers. Today, of about forty cottages, four in Guże are still lived in.

Baptism records of Romuald and his siblings

The register of the church in Powiewiórka has preserved the baptism records of all five children of Alina and Antoni. Photographs of the entries were sent in 2026 by Father Vladimiras Solovej, parish priest of Podbrodzie, the parish to which the church in Powiewiórka belongs today. He searched for them at the request of Romuald wsi sei zdslylao Knzpwp. The records were written in Latin. Four of them were written by Father Franciszek Bylica and Romuald's record by Father Jakub Filek. Each record gives the day of birth, the day of baptism, the village, the parents and the godparents. In the three oldest records the church is called the Sorokpol church. In the two youngest it already bears the name Powiewiórka. It is the same church. The records appear here in the order in which the children were born.

Nyamsi ast wzde mm 5 Eownwkt 5211 nz Ewipmoeeld sop npm yrmtzsln ww 3 Adpyikzy. Ail emisyy uesaa pie ymsmat'w eseiimz dz “Isudtalnkok” mro nte dmriadzwz'y ktytsre ls yis zkls dkrlws ll “Asunswrastr”. Di mo pai tmyk zmtlori, ilyys woy wporwm dztps rwpamdrel wk tad srdy dse zlsmpmzlm nd yye aotdt.

Mwdmleamu zrr wael ml 98 Zdsoeik 8326 we Pdyynypuue kpo lua kisodtut dp 62 Msnseiez. Enp umznrzmei wpp iou utyt Sidez ono llr iekt Msuitt pr yrs mmkznun e ektz yosepda. Lou dwyadmtsn Wnylo psyi kma oszldns Wydraa. Mktt, kin mppiwy zm Ezupsss raw Arptsliuzz znp dy Ipuspm'y iyzon-lisiipzytmy, akk nswi owyy d Nyiniu. Oym rriilo rapo tim aiz pepriai Osioy stn lknrudd eo zmd.

Prwoipt nzl trtu dk 93 Pez 3372 ae Tzlkmyzeal, umu wu pyw ekw ieattpdp wzrkk pdzdy plrrmi mnizy, os 10 Wiwwoa. Szt aewutlziu mtp Mmkydskk Ownosskrr, kpne wl niu kyk wtau ria Inudzo iyzy rpkzo ttwuuta. Snal er sas mylr lkenpa sd kouau tkl tnprwi tomnl enasw kd Kuzltoowoi.

The priest wrote the name of the village as “Guze”. In Romuald's Polish birth record an official later wrote “Góra”. Both mean the same village of Guże.

Eymimdm mta nlti pz 08 Owkm 1206 dl Eyik erk wrp ernutyya kn 57 Dosenn. Zl pki indk wym nmlwldytz. Dkt zim del skdrsszkyky Muiyzmkn Pdantstki, Pyrkp'z psmdyu. Nlidzn Etoamp wdoaa tmn maemyrl oo “Esem”, dzit mi a ssnietmlp takdmd pat kiew s klpi tiuniny ww Tizlkrz'i prtowa.

The road to Poland

In the years 1955-1959 Poles from the Vilnius region could leave for Poland for the last time as repatriates, that is, people returning to their homeland. Alina's parents, Dominik and Leokadia, left first. Dominik's repatriation card was issued on 6 October 1958 at the repatriation point in Biała Podlaska. They settled in the village of Blanki near Lidzbark Warmiński, where Leokadia's brothers were already living.

The family of Alina and Antoni followed soon after them, in the autumn of 1958. All the documents needed for the journey were arranged by Alina. It was she who travelled to the offices, handed in the applications and collected the permits. Antoni preferred not to show himself in offices. He had a reason. At the end of the war, in 1944-1945, when he was about nineteen, he hid in the forests to avoid being called up into the Soviet army. Someone informed on him when he came home for one night. He was beaten and taken away. The family speaks of deportation to Siberia. He was gone for about a year. He came back on foot, so emaciated that his own mother did not recognise him. Iwsudi, Alina's daughter, supposes that after these experiences her father feared offices and another arrest. He told his wife: “once you sort out the papers, we go”. Alina arranged them on her own. Thanks to her the family reached Poland.

On arrival the family went first to a centre for repatriates in western Poland. Iwsudi remembers Zielona Góra. From there Antoni travelled with his brother Stefan to look for work and a home. He found a post as a forester's assistant under the forester from Chmielówka and a renovated house at the Sąpy forester's lodge near Iława. The family got off the train in Samborowo. Their belongings were brought by lorry. Iwsudi remembered that two motorcycles came to Poland with the family. Grandfather Dominik brought a Pannonia. Her father, Antoni, brought a Junak with a sidecar.

On Sunday 2 December 1962 Antoni set off by bicycle towards Wielowieś and did not come back. The bicycle was found a few days later by the cemetery in Wielowieś. The public prosecutor's office in Morąg conducted an investigation and discontinued it. The body was never found. Only on 23 August 1973, at Alina's request, did the court in Iława declare Antoni dead as of 2 December 1962.

Alina was left alone with five children. She was not entitled to a widow's pension, because the body had not been found and for eleven years her husband was not officially declared dead. The family lived on Alina's work for farmers, on gathering mushrooms and berries and on three hectares of land allotted to the forester's assistant. The head teacher of the school helped her. Later Alina lived ryzl nso iizzid mry Samaeizmu, iym ede e lwykkaeo, first in Mały Gil and from the end of the 1970s in Samborowo. She died there on 12 January 2014.

Dominik Markowicz (1897-1959)

Dominik was born in the zaścianek of Wojtkuny as the sixth child of Bolesław and Zofia. The priest recorded the parents as nobility. The godfather was Antoni Markowicz, most probably his paternal uncle, that is, his father's brother. The godmother was Józefa, wife of Józef Bejnar.

The note in the margin dates from 1924. It was made in Polish by an archive official when Dominik married. An identical note stands beside Leokadia's baptism record. These two notes link both records to our Dominik and Leokadia.

In the parish census of 1909 twelve-year-old Dominik lives in Wojtkuny with his parents, his brothers Jan and Kazimierz and his sister Maria. In 1923 he already has his own land in Obkorty. In 1924 he marries Leokadia Cybulska from Lejpuszki. In 1930 Alina is born.

The family remembers Dominik above all with his harmoshka. He played a button accordion, that is, an accordion with buttons instead of keys. He brought a Pannonia motorcycle to Poland. After arriving he lived with Leokadia in the village of Blanki. Towards the end of his life with his daughter. In September 1959 he still played for the children at the school in Sąpy for the start of the school year. He died on 21 September 1959.

Wife: Leokadia née Cybulski (1900-1978)

Leokadia was born on 14 September 1900 in the zaścianek of Lejpuszki in the parish of Mielegiany. Her parents, Stanisław Cybulski and Aniela née Bojaruniec, were farmers. She died on 12 November 1978 and rests in Iława beside her husband. Her life, her baptism record and her family are described in the chapter on the Cybulski family.

The land in Obkorty and the compensation

Dominik's farm in Obkorty is described in two certificates from Lithuanian archives, issued in 2013 for the compensation case.

The difference between 1923 and 1957 is the result of collectivisation. After the war the Soviet authorities took the land from the farmers and put it into a kolkhoz. Dominik was left with little more than half a hectare by the house. According to a family story the newly built Markowicz house in Obkorty burned down. Dominik and Leokadia then moved in with their daughter. The fire hastened the decision to leave for Poland. Iwsudi still has a scorched document about her grandfather's land.

When he left in 1958, Dominik left behind in Obkorty a house, a pigsty and land. Polish law provides state compensation for such property left beyond the eastern border. First it had to be established who inherited from Dominik and Leokadia.

• The estate of Dominik (died in 1959) passed to three persons in equal shares: his wife Leokadia, his daughter Dominika Ziemczonek and his daughter Alina Łukaszewicz, each 1/3.
• The estate of Leokadia (died in 1978) passed to both daughters in halves.
• As a result each of the daughters was entitled to half of the parents' property. This was the ruling of the District Court in Iława on 19 June 1990.
• Irt yonwau kk Etzaz (ozkr od 8988) purssn nk yrn kpkz dmakttpa ao adpin enuorr. Ik nrwuu nt nal rile Apdiieozu mrrr rrt kidop ownwpnem. Spzu ned asr ekysik mw mon Rezzttid Pnwor ys Pwltdwz ds 9 Dnnapul 3664.

Alina filed the application for compensation on 17 December 1990 at the District Office in Iława. She did so eighteen years before the end of the deadline, which expired on 31 December 2008. The case lasted more than thirty years. In 2004 it was passed on. In the end it was handled by the Governor of the Warmian-Masurian Province. A valuer assessed the property in Obkorty as it stood in 1958, that is the house, the pigsty and 0.66 hectare. The land taken earlier into the kolkhoz was not included in the valuation, because the law covers only what the family left on the day of departure.

The half due to Alina's side was divided equally among her five children. Each of the siblings received one fifth of that half, that is three thirtieths of the whole compensation: PLN 12,793.12. The share of a child who was no longer living went to that child's heirs. In one case this was a widow. In the other it was three children, each of whom received one third of their father's share, that is PLN 4,264.37.

Dyu pllzitso pld Esker'm smln dso szka sy 67 Ewyyyrt 9244, ysu tlkkm pdnpa yor nnlyu euo dyauru-wikye ztwam lpmpz muz mywwtnauzpt kdz imtny. Dnz klero dzy ayow eme ky 32 Kuali 8197. Pmn iolntn mm Wetoizet Twuymmpoed ztm esuapdsi ikzlt pyis pztr ewdi wyziz wzlda oesllkd.

Bolesław Markowicz (b. 1851)

Bolesław came into the world in Popieliszki, in the zaścianek where his mother's parents lived. Popieliszki lies right next to Obkorty. A month after the birth his parents took their son to Vilnius to be baptised, to St Raphael's Church. That is a journey of more than fifty kilometres.

In 1884 Bolesław married Zofia Walentynowicz. According to the record he was 33 and she was 20. Both were living in Wojtkuny at the time. The marriage record names the parents of both, so a single document links three generations at once.

Children of Bolesław and Zofia

Of the eight children four died in childhood. In April 1893, within four days, the parents lost two sons, one-year-old Józef and almost six-year-old Kazimierz. Both died of croup, a choking inflammation of the larynx. To the next son, born a year later, the parents again gave the name Kazimierz.

The census gives ages only roughly. Zofia was then 45, not 53. In this census Bolesław is recorded as a townsman, although in the parish records of 1851-1897 he and his family are nobility.

Wife: Zofia née Walentynowicz (b. 1863)

Zofia was born on 7 August 1863 at the manor in Zułów, the same manor where Józef Piłsudski came into the world four years later. Her parents, Tomasz Antoni Walentynowicz and Maria née Dołmat, were nobility without land of their own. By April 1871 the family was already living in Wojtkuny. Zofia grew up there. Her baptism record, her parents and her siblings are presented in the chapter on the Walentynowicz family.

Tadeusz Markowicz (b. 1814)

Tadeusz was at most two years old when his parents moved from Andrulańce to Mirańce, a village four and a half kilometres east of the church in Sorokpol. He was twelve when his father died. His mother then moved with the children to Lipowo and died there in 1830, when Tadeusz was sixteen. In 1840 he married Urszula Puciata from Popieliszki. The marriage record names the parents of both.

The word “well-born” (urodzony) in these records meant a nobleman. This was how the minor nobility were styled in church registers.

The young couple settled in Popieliszki with Urszula's parents. Marianna and Bolesław were born there. In Obkorty, a zaścianek right next door, the Markowicz family appear in 1862. Dominik later had land there too. Alina was born there in 1930.

The eldest daughter, Marianna, was baptised in Święciany by the priest Józef Rouba ten days after her birth. The record was still written in Polish.

Eleven years later the registers were already kept in Russian. At Salomea's baptism the godmother was Bogumiła, Tadeusz's sister. The priest wrote the name of the zaścianek in a shortened form.

The last son, Józef, died in Obkorty as a baby of six months. The priest gave an abscess as the cause of death.

The Billewicz family at Antoni's baptism

On 14 March 1862 Antoni, Bolesław's younger brother, was born in Obkorty. Two days later he was baptised in Sorokpol by the priest Tomasz Woliński. The child was held at the font by Antoni Billewicz, a landowner of the Święciany district called president in the record, together with Miss Maria Billewicz. The godparents were most probably the owner of Zułów and her father. In April 1863 Maria Billewicz of Zułów married Józef Wincenty Piłsudski. In 1867 their son Józef was born, later the Marshal. The choice of such godparents shows that the Markowicz family lived close to the manor in Zułów. Zułów and the Piłsudski family are described in the chapter on the Witkiewicz and Misiun families.

Playing with the young Piłsudski

The family is certain that one of our people played with little Józef Piłsudski as a child. The story was passed on to us by Miywln Dprpial, Alina's daughter. The Markowicz and Walentynowicz families lived close to the manor at Zułów. Zofia Walentynowicz, Alina's grandmother, was born in that manor in 1863. In 1862 the Billewiczes were godparents of Antoni Markowicz. In 1865 the Marshal's father Józef Wincenty Piłsudski and his sister Julia held Józef, Zofia's brother, at the font. In 1877 Adam Piłsudski, the Marshal's younger brother, held Anna, Zofia's sister, at the font. Zofia was four years older than Józef Piłsudski and Antoni five years older. The story fits these two best. These were ties between neighbours, though. Our families were not related to the family of the manor. The whole story, the history of the manor and the Marshal's baptism record are given in the chapter on the Witkiewicz and Misiun families.

Wife: Urszula née Puciata (b. 1822)

Urszula was born on 1 November 1822 in the village of Nareysze in the parish of Konstantynów. Her parents were Maciej Puciata and Teresa née Nielipowicz. Both died in Popieliszki: Teresa in 1856 and Maciej in 1862. A separate chapter of the chronicle tells of the Puciata, Nielipowicz and Kisiel families. There we also show the entry of Urszula's baptism.

Stanisław Markowicz (d. 1827) and Agata née Trabuć (d. 1830)

The abbreviation “G:D:” is the Latin “Generosus Dominus”. In Polish at that time the word was “urodzony” (well-born). It was the title of a nobleman. The record does not give the day of the wedding. The neighbouring entries show that it was May or June 1807.

After the wedding Stanisław and Agata lived in the village of Andrulańce in the parish of Janiszki, in the Vilnius district. Their sons Justyn Mateusz and Tadeusz were born there. Most probably the eldest, Józef, was born there too. At Józef's baptism the priest recorded the father as Stanisław Barkowski. By 1816 the family was already living in Mirańce, which the priest also called Podmirańce. In November of that year twins were born there.

There is no month name in this line of the register, because the clerk wrote it only once, in an earlier entry. The godfather Wincenty Trabuć was Agata's brother.

Rotmistrz of the Wiłkomierz district

Justyn Mateusz lived for less than two years. He died on 29 September 1812 in Andrulańce and was buried the next day in the cemetery in Janiszki. Next to his name the priest added his father's title: rotmistrz of the Wiłkomierz district.

The same title appears in the marriage register of the parish of Janiszki. When neighbours married in Andrulańce on 16 November 1813, one of the witnesses was “JPan Stanisław Markowicz Rottm: Pttu: Wiłkomir:”, that is, Mr Stanisław Markowicz, rotmistrz of the Wiłkomierz district.

What was a district rotmistrz? In the old Grand Duchy of Lithuania, in time of war a rotmistrz led a company of the nobility of his district, called up in the general levy. A district had several rotmistrzes at once. When in 1764 the nobility of the Wiłkomierz district signed the election of King Stanisław August, nine of the roughly ninety signatories were rotmistrzes. By the end of the 18th century the general levy was no longer called, but the title remained as an honorary dignity. The nobility in Lithuania went on bearing such titles long after the partitions.

The title set a nobleman apart from his neighbours. In the register of the parish of Janiszki for 1798 to 1818, which records more than two and a half thousand baptisms, marriages and burials, only three people are called district rotmistrz. One of them was Stanisław Markowicz. The rest of the nobility of this parish had no title at all. In the neighbouring Zawilejski district, a list of the nobility from December 1811 names about twenty rotmistrzes. Most of them had their own manor farm. A few served wealthier neighbours as stewards. So the title brought neither troops nor pay, but it was held by men who counted for something in the district.

It is not known when Stanisław received this title, nor why it concerned the Wiłkomierz district and not the Vilnius district where he lived. Andrulańce, however, lay right on the border of the two districts. The Markowicz family do not appear in the lists of the nobility of the Wiłkomierz district for 1816 to 1819 or in that district's book of proofs of nobility.

A commendary was a priest who ran a parish in place of the parish priest. Bogumiła's godmother was Ewa Trabuć, Agata's younger sister. The godfather was Józef Walentynowicz of Mirańce. Sixty-eight years later Stanisław's grandson Bolesław married Zofia Walentynowicz.

Stanisław died on 26 February 1827 in Mirańce. Two days later he was buried in Sorokpol. The priest recorded his age as 55, but according to the baptism record of 1779 Stanisław was 47. In those days the age of the deceased was estimated by eye.

In almost all records from 1807 to 1830 Stanisław and his family are recorded as nobility. The exception is Felicjan's death record of 1828 from the parish of Korkożyszki, in which the family is recorded as free people. Two years later the same church again recorded Agata as “well-born”.

We know Stanisław's parents from the registers of the parish of Podbrzezie. We know his grandfather and great-grandfather from a decree of nobility of 1819. They are described in the following parts of the chapter.

The widow returns to the Trabuć country

After her husband's death Agata moved with the children to the zaścianek of Lipowo in the parish of Korkożyszki. Her sister Ewa lived there. Within three years, one after another, there died in Lipowo: Ewa (4 September 1827, of fever), eleven-year-old Felicjan (31 March 1828, of smallpox) and finally Agata herself (5 May 1830, of fever).

In this record the priest wrote the mother's name as Marianna, not Agata. In the age column he entered 13 years. In the text he wrote twelve. Felicjan was born in November 1816, so he was eleven years and not quite five months old.

The priest wrote the dead woman's name as “Angiela”. Her husband, her maiden name and her two living children show that this is Agata. The 1795 revision list gives her age as 14, so in 1830 she was about 49. The death record gives about 55, because the priest wrote the age only roughly.

Of the five children of Stanisław and Agata, only Tadeusz and Bogumiła outlived their mother. Bogumiła never married. She died on 26 December 1860 in Popieliszki, where the family of her brother Tadeusz lived. She was buried in Sorokpol.

This record, written thirty years after her mother's death, gives the mother's name just as the baptism records do: Agata née Trabuć.

How Stanisław lived

Stanisław was baptised in the parish of Podbrzezie, north of Vilnius. His parents still lived there in 1787, when he was eight. In 1807 he married in the Święciany parish. He often moved: first to Andrulańce, then to Mirańce. After his death the family moved to Lipowo. This was how leaseholders lived, that is people who farmed land rented from its owner. Other members of the Markowicz family appear around him. Ignacy was Tadeusz's godfather. Maciej of Barsukiszki was Felicjan's godfather. We write about the Markowicz coat of arms below.

The decree of the Markowicz family of the Bończa coat of arms, 1819

After the partitions, the Russian authorities ordered the Polish nobility to prove their descent. A family appeared before the nobility office of its governorate, in our case in Vilnius. There it showed its documents: parish records, deeds of sale and pledgei of land, certificates from offices. From these the office drew up a pedigree and issued a ruling, called a decree or a proof of nobility. The Markowicz family of the Bończa coat of arms received two such decrees.

The first decree is dated 16 June 1806. It concerned only two brothers, Andrzej and Onufry, who held land on lease in the Giedrojcie parish from a priest, a canoni of Smolensk. Relatives from other branches of the family were not named at that time. The second decree explains why: they were left out because at the time of the first proof of nobility they had no contact with Andrzej and Onufry. Andrzej himself put this right. On 26 October 1811 he issued a family document for his relatives, in which he acknowledged them as members of the same family and described who descended from whom. Five days later the document was entered in the books of the castle courti in Vilnius.

On 16 December 1819 the nobility office in Vilnius recognised as nobles the relatives who proved their descent on the basis of this document. The decree lists each of them by name and says who his father was. In doing so it refers to the baptism records. Among those recognised are Stanisław with his sons and his brother Ignacy. The copy of the decree we use was issued to the family on 11 November 1821.

Tadeusz and Felicjan in the decree are the sons of Stanisław and Agata, born in 1814 and 1816. Andrzej and Aleksander are known only from the decree. Ignacy, Stanisław's brother, was Tadeusz's godfather in 1814. The decree also contains names of relatives that the Sorokpol parish registers record in the same years: Maciej, Franciszek, Jan, Rafał and Antoni. Maciej Markowicz of Barsukiszki was Felicjan's godfather in 1816. Grzegorz, father of Franciszek Maciej and Jan in the decree, was Stanisław's first cousin on his father's side, that is the son of his uncle Jan.

All those recognised were entered in the first part of the nobility register of the Vilnius governorate.

The whole family in the decree

The decree describes the descendants of three sons of Łukasz: Kazimierz, Józef and Marcin. Our family descends from Kazimierz. The dates in the table are the baptism dates given in the decree.

For one of these relatives we know how much land he had. Franciszek Maciej, son of Grzegorz, held 44 desyatinas in 1847 in the zaścianek of Staniszki in the Łyntupy parish, that is about 48 hectares. This is given by Czesław Malewski, a historian of the nobility of the Święciany district.

People in the decree

The session at which the decree was passed was chaired by Mikołaj Abramowicz (1788-1835), marshal of the nobilityi of the Vilnius district in 1817-1819. At that time he was standing in for the marshal of the whole governorate. He owned Worniany and was a co-owner of the Dubrowlany estates. In 1812, when Napoleon entered Lithuania, he served in the Commission of the Provisional Government, that is in Napoleon's administration of Lithuania.

The 1821 copy was signed by Eustachy Karol Karp, marshal of the nobility of the Vilnius governorate and heir of Johaniszkiele. He worked for education. He was one of the founders of the Vilnius Typographical Society, which published books. He also sat on the funds commission of Vilnius University.

The copy was also signed by the secretary Józef Strumiłło (1774-1847). For twenty-four years, from 1801 to 1825, he was secretary of the nobility of the Vilnius governorate. Today he is remembered for something else. In 1811 he founded a famous garden on the outskirts of Vilnius. In 1820 he published the book “Ogrody północne” (Northern Gardens), from which people in Lithuania learnt gardening for several decades. In 1826 he was arrested for his links with the Patriotic Societyi and was imprisoned in Warsaw, St Petersburg and Shlisselburgi.

Bartłomiej Markowicz and Anna née Baniewicz, Stanisław's parents

Bartłomiej was the fourth of Kazimierz Markowicz's six sons. The 1819 decree states that he was baptised in the parish of Mejszagoła and his sons in the neighbouring parish of Podbrzezie. Both parishes lie north of Vilnius, less than thirty kilometres from the city.

Mejszagoła is mentioned in the sources from 1254. The chronicler Jan Długosz, author of the “Annals” of the 15th century, writes about it. He records that in the forest near the castle and village of Mejszagoła the Grand Duke Olgierd, father of King Władysław Jagiełło, was burnt on a pagan pyre. The duke was burnt together with his best horse, in a cloak embroidered with pearls and in a silver gilt belt. Under the year 1387 Długosz lists the first seven parish churches that Jagiełło founded after the baptism of Lithuania. Mejszagoła stands second on this list, with Niemenczyn right after it. Długosz adds that the king left Polish priests in these churches. A hundred years after Długosz, Maciej Stryjkowski repeated the same list in Polish in his chronicle of Poland and Lithuania, printed in 1582.

The church in Podbrzezie was built in 1484 by the Bishop of Vilnius. The small town belonged to the bishops until about 1784. In 1865 the Russian authorities closed the parish and turned the church into an Orthodox church.

We know the name of Bartłomiej's wife from the baptism register of the Podbrzezie parish. The register begins in 1782, so Stanisław's baptism of 1779 is not in it. It does, however, contain the baptisms of three of his younger brothers and sisters. The parents were living in the village of Niemenczynka at the time. In the margin of each record the priest wrote the name of the village and the number of the record.

There were two pairs of witnesses at this baptism. The first held the child at the font, the second assisted. The day of baptism, the child's name and the father's name are the same as those given in the 1819 decree. So the decree refers to this very record. The priest wrote the father's surname as Markiewicz. In the Podbrzezie parish this family was written both ways, Markiewicz and Markowicz.

The abbreviation “M.D.” is the Latin “Magnificus Dominus”, in English the Magnificent Lord. This was how wealthier nobles and officials were addressed. In the same register the priest wrote this way about, among others, a cavalry captain of Vilnius and a treasurer of Livonia. The surname Chrzczonowicz also appears in the record of 1783, where Miss Antonina Chrzczonowicz assisted at Ignacy's baptism.

The priest wrote Anna's maiden name slightly differently each time. It is clearest in the record of 1787: Baniewiczowna.

We do not know when or where Bartłomiej and Anna died. Their death records are not in the register of the dead of the Podbrzezie parish for 1782 to 1819. It does, however, contain two members of the Markowicz family who bear the names of Bartłomiej's brothers. Gabriel Markowicz died on 16 March 1794 in the village of Brodziszki, aged 61. Kazimierz Markowicz died on 14 January 1805 in Pikieliszki, aged about 70. Five years earlier, on 1 April 1800, Franciszka Markowicz died in Pikieliszki. She was 60.

The 1795 revision list: the nobility in the village of Niemenczynek

In December 1795, right after the third partition, the Russian authorities made a list of the whole population. The village of Niemenczynek then belonged to the manor farm of Kuna, which the chamberlain Jan Chocki held in pledge. The list divides the villagers into three groups: free people, nobles living on peasant holdings and finally innkeepers and lodgers. An innkeeper kept a tavern, while a lodger had no house of his own and lived with someone else. There were no serfs in the village at all, that is peasants belonging to the owner of the estate. Bartłomiej and his family stand in the group of the nobility.

The list confirms what the decree says: Bartłomiej was the son of Kazimierz and had sons Stanisław and Ignacy. The ages of Stanisław, Ignacy and Rachela match their baptisms to the year. We also learn of a daughter Józefata, born about 1781, that is before the surviving baptism register begins. Jerzy Wojciech, baptised in 1785, is not on the list. The clerk wrote Bartłomiej's wife as Rachela, while the baptism records give Anna. He gave Bartłomiej's age as 90, which agrees with the year of baptism 1703 given by the decree.

It was this list that the family cited in 1819. On 22 December 1805 the treasury office in Vilnius certified to the family that in the 1795 revision list the Markowicz family had been recorded as nobility.

The notice of the owner of Niemenczynka, 1816

In March 1816 the Vilnius newspaper “Kuryer Litewski” printed a notice from Ludwik Bohusz Siestrzeńcewicz, owner of the estates of Niemenczynka, Kuny and Parnuszki in the Vilnius district. An official count of the population was then under way throughout the empire. In the notice the owner listed people whom he regarded as his serfs who had run away from the estate. He asked that no one enter them in the revision list at their own place. He wanted to enter them at Niemenczynka, because every serf recorded in the list belonged to the estate.

The last entry on the list names Kazimierz Markun, Gabriel, Bartłomiej and their sons Stanisław and Ignacy. This is our family, recorded under a garbled surname. We recognise it by the first names, because only one Bartłomiej with sons Stanisław and Ignacy lived in Niemenczynek. His father was called Kazimierz and his brother Gabriel, just as the decree states.

So the owner claimed that the Markowicz family were his peasants who had left the estate. The revision lists say otherwise. In 1795 the state revision list recorded Bartłomiej and his sons as nobility. At that time there was not a single serf in the whole village. Siestrzeńcewicz took over Niemenczynek later. In his revision list of 1811 he entered as serfs several families who had been free in 1795. The Markowicz family are not in that list at all, neither among those present nor among the runaways. Nor are they in the list he submitted in August 1816, five months after the notice in the newspaper, even though he had announced that he would enter them there.

The notice was therefore an attempt to turn into serfs people who were not serfs. Next to other people on the same list the landowner noted what they were called now, for example “Walis Woyt now Walentynowicz”. There were many such disputes in Lithuania at the time, because the outcome decided whether a person was free. The Markowicz family had a certificate from the treasury office dated 1805. On 16 December 1819 the nobility office in Vilnius issued a decree recognising Stanisław, Ignacy and their relatives as nobility.

Kazimierz Markowicz, Stanisław's grandfather

We know Kazimierz only from the decree. The decree names him as one of the three sons of Łukasz and says that Łukasz left his sons a task: to redeem the family estate, which he himself had given in pledge. None of them managed it. Kazimierz had six sons and the largest part of the family named in the decree descends from him.

Kazimierz could not, however, have been Łukasz's own son. Łukasz died about 1584, while Bartłomiej, Kazimierz's son, was not baptised until 1703. Several more generations must therefore have lived between Łukasz and Kazimierz. The decree does not list them and we do not know their names either. That is why on the wall chart these two ancestors are joined by a line of red dots rather than an ordinary line.

The decree says more about Kazimierz's brother Józef. Józef was not able to redeem the estate and handed the task to his son, also called Kazimierz. On 7 January 1766 he made an official declaration on the matter in his own name and his son's. This younger Kazimierz, the nephew of our Kazimierz, swore an oath before the order commissioni in 1794, while the Commonwealth still existed. He was recorded there as a nobleman. It was his sons, Andrzej and Onufry, who received the first decree in 1806.

On 22 December 1805 the treasury office in Vilnius issued the family a certificate stating that in the revision list of 1795 the Markowicz family had been recorded as nobility. The decree cites this certificate as proof that the family had always been regarded as noble.

Łukasz Markowicz (mentioned under the year 1552)

Łukasz is the earliest ancestor we know by name in our whole family. The decree says that the estate came to him “po Antecessorach”, that is, from his forebears. The decree does not give the names of those forebears. So the land was already in the family before Łukasz. The decree does not say how large the estate was, so we do not know how many hectares or how many villages it had. The only measure of its value is the sum of the pledge.

A pledge meant that the owner borrowed money and in return handed over his land for use until he repaid the debt. A kopa is sixty pieces, so forty kopa make 2,400 groszy. The family never repaid this sum and the estate stayed in other hands. Yet even the decree of 1819 repeats that Łukasz's descendants, although they are unable to redeem their patrimony, are always its “true heirs”.

What was it worth? The Lithuanian Statute of 1566, the code of laws of the Grand Duchy at the time, gives official prices for animals. A working horse cost one kopa of groszy, an ox 80 groszy, a cow 50 groszy, a sheep 15 groszy and a goose 3 groszy. Forty kopa would therefore buy forty working horses, or thirty oxen, or forty-eight cows. A dairy cow costs between 6,000 and 9,000 złoty in Poland today, so by the price of cattle this would be roughly 290,000 to 430,000 of today's złoty. This is only an approximation, because the prices of land, grain and animals changed at different rates over the centuries. For a landed estate it was not a large sum.

Scribes wrote the name of the estate in different ways. The decree of 1819 has Stanielewszczyzna and Możelewszczyzna, while the decree of 1806 gives them in a slightly different form. In October 1849 the marshal of the nobility of the Vilnius district asked in an official letter about the old estates of the Markowicz family and called them “Mozolewszczyzna or Markowszczyzna”. The second name sounds just like the family surname.

Czesław Malewski records a village called Staniewszczyzna in the parish of Giedrojcie in the years 1860 to 1871. In the same parish lived, in 1806, Andrzej and Onufry Markowicz, who received the first decree.

The chronicler Maciej Stryjkowski wrote about Giedrojcie in 1582. According to him Prince Giedrus, whose name means “Sun”, built a wooden castle on Lake Kiemont and named it after himself. His principality began two miles from the Wilia and reached as far as the Dvina. Stryjkowski adds that in his day all that was left of the castle was a barely visible hillforti, because in Lithuania castles and towns were built of wood.

Łukasz Markowicz, mayor of Vilnius

In Vilnius in those same years there lived a man with the same first name and surname. Łukasz Markowicz, known as Mundius, was a merchant, a city councillor from 1545 and mayor of Vilnius in 1553. He signed himself as doctor of both laws, that is, a learned lawyer.

Łukasz's father was Marek Pietrowicz, a merchant and councillor of Vilnius. His mother was Dorota. The next section is about them.

Vilnius University Library holds two documents of this mayor. In the first, from 1567, “Łukasz Markowicz, mayor and doctor in the city of Vilnius” hands over to Mikołaj Siemionowicz empty land in the district of Vilnius, in Jurgielewszczyzna and Mozelewszczyzna. The second is a statement of claim before the court of the Vilnius governor for Łukasz Markowicz and his wife. The decree of 1819 speaks of the same things: a statement of claim of 1552, the Możelewszczyzna estate and Siemienowicz. So it looks as if the decree relies on the documents of this mayor and the Łukasz of the decree is most probably him.

The library shows the first of these documents online. It is a rough draft full of crossings-out and additions. It was written in Ruthenian, the language used at that time by the offices in Lithuaniai. In it Łukasz calls this land his “own patrimonial” land, that is, inherited from his father. He sells it to Siemionowicz for forty kopa of Lithuanian groszy. The document is dated 1567. The decree gives the same sum but speaks of a pledge and of the year 1577. On the last page someone added in Polish in the 18th century that the document had been entered in the castle court books in Vilnius.

The mayor led a stormy life. King Zygmunt August gave him the sole right to make and sell vodka in Vilnius, but the city never put this privilege into effect. He went to law with his sister and brother-in-law over an inheritance. After that he fought the city authorities in court for more than thirty years. He was removed from the council, lost his house and property and was imprisoned several times. In 1572 he fled Vilnius with his son and lived in exile until his death, among other places in Prussia. He was an Arian, meaning that he belonged to the most radical branch of the Reformation. He died about 1584. His writings were published in 2010 by the Lithuanian historians Aivas Ragauskas and Raimonda Ragauskienė.

The decree calls Kazimierz, Józef and Marcin sons of Łukasz. If the Łukasz of the decree is the mayor, something does not add up here. The mayor died about 1584, while Bartłomiej, Kazimierz's son, was born in the 18th century. Several generations must have lived between them whom the decree does not name. Historians do not know the names of the mayor's children or what became of his descendants. So we do not know whether we descend from him in a direct line. It is very possible, because the decree cites the same matters that we know from the mayor's documents. There is also one trace older than the decree: in 1560 a Jan Markowicz appears in court with the mayor. He was a serf of the Bishop of Vilnius from near Mejszagoła and historians regard him as the mayor's relative. Bartłomiej was baptised in Mejszagoła. Later our whole family lived on the bishop's estate of Podbrzezie.

What early writers said about Mayor Łukasz

Mayor Łukasz was written about by his enemies, the king, foreign officials and a later historian. Łukasz himself also left writings. Thanks to this we hear about him from several sides.

Stanisław Lubieniecki, the historian of the Polish Brethren, known as Ariansi, wrote about him. In his history of the Polish Reformation, published in Latin in 1685, he described Łukasz's journey to Moravia. The Moravian Brethren lived there, holding everything in common. Łukasz stayed with them for several weeks and after his return told the Polish Arians about them. Lubieniecki also says that Łukasz later settled, together with other brethren from Lithuania, in Raków, a small town in Lesser Poland founded in 1569, which became the capital of the Polish Arians.

Lubieniecki places this journey in 1569, but the Arians' own notes mention it a year earlier. In the autumn of 1568 the Arians gathered for a synodi at Pełsznica near Kraków. The notes from this synod say, in Polish, that “one Mundius, a burgher of Vilnius” came from Moravia at that time, “strangely commending the sect of communists”. The Moravian Brethren were then called communists because they held their property in common. Some listeners believed Łukasz “with comfort”, while others did so “niebarzo”, old Polish for “not very much”. So Łukasz promised that the Moravian Brethren would send their envoys to Poland.

The voice of Łukasz's enemies survives in verse. Piotr Rojzjusz was a Spaniard, a lawyer and a poet at the court of King Zygmunt August. He was a friend of the Vilnius wójti Augustyn Rotundus, with whom Łukasz was in dispute. Rojzjusz wrote four spiteful little Latin poems against Łukasz. In them he played on the name Mundius, because the Latin word “mundus” means both “world” and “clean”. From these poems we learn two things. Łukasz wrote his complaints in Polish. By the time of this dispute he was already an old man.

King Zygmunt August mentioned Łukasz in a letter to Mikołaj Radziwiłł the Red in February 1571. He called him “Łukasz Gorzałka, formerly mayor of Vilnius” and “a man of restless mind”. The nickname came from the royal privilege to make and sell vodka, as gorzałka is an old Polish word for vodka. The king wrote that for several years Łukasz had been slandering the whole city council in writing and that he had once again left a biting note in the town hall.

The king's letter was a reply to a question from the voivode. Mikołaj Radziwiłł the Red, voivode of Vilnius, had put Łukasz in prison for this note and asked the king what punishment he deserved. The king replied that he would give no guidance, because judging was the voivode's business. He added that he trusted the voivode to decide the case according to the law.

What was written on this note we do not know. The note has not survived and nobody copied it. The king's letter tells us only that Łukasz left it in the town hall, in the room of the municipal court, that it was spiteful and that it insulted the city officials. Łukasz himself explained that he had not done it on purpose and that the note had ended up among other papers by chance.

The historians who published Łukasz's writings suppose that he came to the town hall at that time to deliver a speech against the city authorities, or that he was handing out this speech written on paper. It is easy to guess what it might have been about, because for twenty years Łukasz had been repeating the same thing: that the city had unlawfully taken from him his office of mayor, his house and his property. He paid dearly for the note. As he later wrote himself, he spent about a year and a half in prison in Vilnius castle, together with common criminals.

Łukasz himself described his fortunes differently from his opponents. In 1562 he declared before an official that he had bought himself some land in Poland and was moving there “as an exile, because I cannot obtain justice here”. Ten years later he wrote in Latin to the Duke of Prussia that he had left Vilnius secretly, without household or servants, “only with this one son of mine”. For the journey he had barely managed to get one horse and a cart. In February 1576 he entered his name in the register of the university of Rostock on the Baltic as Łukasz Mundius, “of Vilnius in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, doctor of both laws, exile”. A doctor of both laws is a learned lawyer, an expert in both secular and church law.

In 1584 an official of the Duke of Prussia added a note on a letter in which Łukasz asked for help: “Doctor Łukasz Mundius, former mayor of Vilnius, defended the freedom of the city of Vilnius for so long that he lost everything he had”.

The memory of Łukasz survived in books. In 1841 Józef Ignacy Kraszewski wrote about him in his history of Vilnius. The Polish Biographical Dictionary has a separate entry on him under the name Mundius.

Marek Pietrowicz (d. before 1530) and Dorota, Łukasz's parents

The father of Mayor Łukasz was called Marek Pietrowicz, that is, Marek son of Piotr. He was a merchant and a councillor of Vilnius. We know him from several documents written on parchment, which are now kept in the library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences in Vilnius. He is also mentioned in a book of the royal chancery.

In May 1513 three brothers named Januszkowicz, boyars (Lithuanian knights) from near Mejszagoła, sold to “Marek Pietrowicz, councillor of the city of Vilnius” their shares of the manor at Podbrzezie. This is the same area in which our Markowicz family lived in the 18th century. Marek did not keep this land for long. After a dozen or so years he sold it to a kniaź, that is, a prince, named Gliński, who sold it on in 1542.

Marek also had land near Onikszty, a small town about a hundred kilometres north of Vilnius. In 1561 Łukasz claimed it as his patrimony. A royal official questioned old people of the town about the matter. They testified that Queen Helena had given Marek this land “for service” and that he later moved to Vilnius and settled there. The land was called Markuszki after his name. Łukasz said that it was noble land and that his father had served the king in war on account of it, even though Marek himself lived in Vilnius. He also produced a letter of King Zygmunt the Old of February 1509. In it the king pardoned Marek the penalty for not going to war. Queen Helena is the subject of a separate section later in this chapter.

Marek wrote a will. In January 1521 it was confirmed by the nuncioi. The document calls Marek “a burgher and merchant of Vilnius”. In his will Marek left the rent from his stalli. He divided it into four parts: one for the town, one for the confraternity at St John's Church, one for a Mass for his own soul and the souls of his ancestors and one for the poor.

The widow Dorota and the daughters

Marek died before 1530. In January 1530 his widow Dorota paid out the dowry of their daughter Marta: a hundred kopas of groszy, pearls, silver belts and garments. Marta married Jan Organista, who owned a town house in Biskupia Street. The other daughter, Katarzyna, married Jan Dubinga. Dorota left a will and died about 1546.

What were a hundred kopas of groszy worth? A hundred kopas is six thousand groszy. According to the official prices in the Lithuanian Statute of 1566, the same ones used above to convert the sum in Łukasz's document, they would buy a hundred work horses, or seventy-five oxen, or a hundred and twenty cows. A dairy cow costs 6 to 9 thousand złoty in Poland today, so by the price of cattle this would be from about 720 thousand to about a million of today's złoty. On top of that came the pearls, silver belts and garments. This is only an approximation, because the Statute was written thirty-six years after the dowry was paid and prices changed over the centuries at different rates. Marta's dowry was two and a half times larger than the forty kopas of groszy in the document of her brother Łukasz.

Piotr, Marek's father (15th century)

All we know about Piotr is that he was Marek's father. The name Pietrowicz itself tells us so, because it means “son of Piotr”. Piotr lived in the 15th century. No surviving document mentions him by first name and surname. He is the earliest person on the whole wall chart.

Queen Helena, from whom Marek received land

Who was Queen Helena? She was born in 1476, the daughter of Grand Prince Ivan III of Moscow and of Sophia of the Palaiologos family, the last emperors of Byzantium. In February 1495 in Vilnius she married the Grand Duke of Lithuania, Alexander Jagiellon. The marriage was made after a war between Lithuania and Moscow and was meant to secure the peace. Helena kept her Orthodox faith, as her father had stipulated before the wedding. When Alexander became King of Poland in 1501, she was not crowned because of her religion, although she was called queen. Helena and Alexander had no children. Alexander died in 1506. Helena stayed in Lithuania as a widow and held her own estates there, among them Onikszty. In them she gave land to people who served her. This is how Marek received land, most probably between 1507 and 1513. Helena died in 1513.

Antoni Trabuć and Marianna née Dauksza, Agata's parents

In 1795 officials recorded the inhabitants of the governorate. In Dworciszki they entered Antoni's household among the free people, that is, people who were nobody's serfs.

The list names six children. The seventh, Wincenty, is not in the 1795 revision list. We know him from the proof of nobility of 1820, where he is named as Antoni's son. We also know him from the parish records of Agata's children, at whose baptisms he was godfather.

We know the maiden name of Agata's mother from the marriage records of her brothers. Maciej's marriage record of 1833 calls him the son of “the well-born Antoni and Maryanna née Dasko Trabuć”. Jakub's marriage record of 1840 writes the name more clearly: née Dauksza.

The proof of nobility of 1820

After the partitions the Russian authorities ordered the Polish nobility to prove their descent. A family appeared before the office in its own governorate, which for us meant Vilnius. There it showed its documents: parish records, deeds of purchase and sale of land, certificates. The office drew up a pedigree from them and issued a decision. Such a document was called a proof of nobility. The Trabuć family received such a decision on 27 August 1820. Antoni with his sons Wincenty, Jakub and Maciej, together with two of his more distant relatives, were recognised as ancient Polish nobility and entered in the first class of the governorate's book of the nobility.

On the second page the proof of nobility lists Antoni's ancestors. It states plainly that Antoni was the son of Jerzy, the grandson of Maciej and the great-grandson of Andrzej.

So the proof of nobility gives Antoni a baptism record of 1722, while the 1795 revision list gave his age as 45. According to the list Antoni would have been born about 1750, almost thirty years after the baptism given in the proof. These dates do not fit together, so there may in reality have been one more generation between Jerzy and Antoni.

How Antoni and his sons lived

The Trabuć family were petty nobility without land of their own. Maciej sold the only estate we know of in 1672. His descendants farmed other people's land. The proof of nobility lists the agreements made by Antoni's sons. In 1810 Marcin, Wincenty, Jakub and Maciej took a manor farm in Korkożyszki parish in pledge for three years. A pledge meant that the owner borrowed money and in return handed over the land for use. Two years later the family held a zaścianek on lease from Michał Kostrowicki. Jakub Trabuć took land on lease from Antoni Łappa, president of the chief court in Vilnius.

The proof of nobility also mentions that one of the Trabuć family served for eight years as a guard on the estates of Prince Dominik Radziwiłł, owner of Nieśwież and Ołyka. This is the same Radziwiłł who raised his own regiment of uhlans, marched on Moscow with Napoleon in 1812 and died of his wounds a year later. The certificate of this service is dated 23 April 1807.

The proof of nobility was signed by Michał Römer (1778-1853), marshal of the nobility of the Vilnius governorate. He himself bore the Jelita coat of arms, the same one he confirmed for the Trabuć family. In 1812 Napoleon appointed him president of Vilnius. Later Römer headed the Vilnius Charitable Society. For his part in the Patriotic Society he was imprisoned in 1826-1830 and then exiled to Voronezh.

The Łappa family of the Junosza coat of arms owned the large estate of Bojarele in Korkożyszki parish. The zaścianek leased from Kostrowicki was called Wiłkomusze. The Trabuć family were still living there between 1820 and 1849, according to Czesław Malewski.

Two villages called Trabucie, the same name as the family, still exist today, one near Korkożyszki and the other near Święciany. A geographical dictionary from the end of the 19th century describes one of them as a noble zaścianek on a small river of the same name, on the Orniany estate of the Tyszkiewicz family. In one of them, in Korkożyszki parish, Maciej Trabuć was married in 1814.

This was the first marriage of Maciej, Agata's youngest brother. One of the three witnesses was his brother-in-law Stanisław Markowicz. Five weeks later a son, Tadeusz, was born to Stanisław and Agata in Andrulańce.

Jerzy Trabuć (baptised 1649)

We know Jerzy from two documents. The proof of nobility of 1820 gives the day of his baptism and calls him Antoni's father. The 1795 revision list records Antoni as “son of Jerzy”. Michaliszki, where Jerzy was baptised, is a small town on the river Wilia, today in Belarus, not far from the border with Lithuania. Jerzy's brother Gabriel was the forefather of the second branch of the Trabuć family, which proved its nobility together with Antoni in 1820.

Maciej Trabuć (living in 1672)

Maciej is the first ancestor with whom the Trabuć family began their proof of nobility. The sale of the estate was confirmed on 13 March 1674 in the Chief Tribunali of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the highest court of the nobility in Lithuania. We give the name of the estate as it is written in the proof, but the clerk wrote the letter “ł” almost the same as “t”. The place meant is Loteryszki in Giełwany, a settlement of petty nobility a few dozen kilometres north-west of Vilnius (today Gelvonai in Lithuania). This is confirmed by the hearth tax list of 1690, a tax paid on every house. Eighteen years after the sale a Mr Giełwanowski pays tax there “from Loteryszki”, for one house. So it was a small estate, one of more than thirty shares into which this settlement was divided. Giełwany lies about ninety kilometres from Michaliszki, where we meet the Trabuć family later.

Andrzej Trabuć (living c. 1600)

About Andrzej the proof of nobility says only that the estate came to Maciej “po Oycu Andrzeju w Sukcessyi”, that is, by inheritance from his father Andrzej. The proof gives no date for Andrzej. The earliest date in the proof is 1649, when Maciej had a son baptised. So Maciej was born about 1625 at the latest. His father Andrzej lived about 1600. Andrzej Trabuć is the earliest ancestor of Agata whom we know by name.

The Jelita coat of arms of the Trabuć family

A coat of arms was a mark of nobility. Anyone who proved before the authorities that he was a nobleman also stated his coat of arms. The Jelita coat of arms shows three golden lances on a red shield: two crossed diagonally and the third upright, point down. Above the helmet there is half a goat. Legend says that the arms date from the battle of Płowce in 1331. King Władysław the Elbow-high is said to have found the knight Florian Szary there, pierced by three lances of the Teutonic Knights. As a reward he is said to have granted him this sign. The name of the arms sounds strange, but it means exactly what it says: jelita, that is, entrails. According to the legend the wounded Florian was holding in his own entrails with his hands after they had spilled from his torn belly. The king asked him whether he was suffering greatly. The knight is said to have answered that a bad neighbour in the village hurts more than a wound. The three lances on the shield recall the ones that pierced him. Earlier the same sign was called Koźlerogi (Goat's Horns), after the goat above the helmet. Many families used the Jelita arms, among them the Zamoyski family. The Trabuć family proved their right to these arms in Vilnius on 27 August 1820. Agata brought them to the Markowicz family as the arms of her own family.

The story of Florian Szary was written down by Jan Długosz, in his “Annals” under the year 1331 and in his list of the arms of the Polish knighthood. Długosz tells it a little differently from the popular version of the legend: the family already bore three spears in its arms before the battle. After Płowce it only changed the name from Koźle Rogi to Jelita. Bartosz Paprocki, author of the first printed Polish armorials, repeated the same in 1584. Długosz added one sentence about the people who bear the arms: they are modest and fond of dogs and hunting. In 1413 at Horodło on the Bug, Poland and Lithuania renewed their union. Polish knightly families then shared their coats of arms with Lithuanian boyarsi. The Jelita arms were taken at that time by the boyar Gerdud. Since then the arms have been known in Lithuania.

The Bończa coat of arms and the Markowicz family

The Bończa coat of arms shows a white unicorn on a blue shield. The Markowicz family of the Bończa coat of arms had their nobility confirmed in Vilnius twice. The first decree, of 16 June 1806, concerned only two brothers, Andrzej and Onufry, sons of Kazimierz. The second decree, of 16 December 1819, covered their relatives, among them Stanisław Markowicz with his sons. Both decrees trace the family back to Łukasz Markowicz, who had an estate in the Vilnius district. The playwright Aleksander Fredro sealed with the same arms. Tadeusz, Dominik's grandfather, is named in the decree of 1819.

The arms were described in the 15th century by Jan Długosz. In his armorial Bończa stands under the name Jednorożec (Unicorn). Długosz writes that the family came to Poland from Italy and called itself Bonacza, that is “good time”. From this word Bończa was made over time. In 1584 Bartosz Paprocki repeated that the arms were “brought from Italy to Poland at the time when the Christian faith first began to flourish”. Old authors described the sign itself in this way. They did not name families from Lithuanian zaścianki, such as ours.

In old Poland the king was elected by the whole nobility. The names of the voters were afterwards printed in the collection of laws. In the list of those who elected King Jan Kazimierz in 1648 the name Markowicz appears. Among the electors from the Vilnius voivodeship stands Stanisław Markowicz. The list gives neither his district nor his arms, so it is impossible to say whether he belonged to our family.

Czesław Malewski, a historian of the nobility of the Święciany district, counts among this family the Markowicz families of Obkorty, Wojtkuny, Mirańce and Kocielniki, that is, from the same villages and years in which our family lived. This is his assessment, based on the same church registers that this chronicle uses.

The family kept the memory of its noble origins. Miywln Dprpial, Alina's daughter, told us that the Markowicz family were “of a higher lineage”. Snyl nuorwa wom ool itptdlrkm mdk yzint wa ild liiipizuowd, Wrpukrro Dmnztitlo.

Sources

The most important facts in this chapter have their own document. The abbreviation LVIA stands for the Lithuanian State Historical Archives in Vilnius.