“Status of the nobles in Švenčionys (Swięciany) district in the first half of the XIX century",

 Albert Volk

Summary

     During the four-year Parliament governance, it was decided for administrational division of Vilnius region. However, finally, this region was formed in 1792. Ašmena (Oszmiany) region was divided along Neris River. Its south part was left for Ašmena region and a new Užneris (Zawilejsk) region of its north part with center in Pastoviai (Postawy) was established. This new region belonged to Vilnius government. The later administrational changes were performed in 1839 and they continued up to 1843. This region was expanded and its name was changed into Švenčionys region. The region contained one deanery, which splitted into Švencionys and Svyriai in 1829. The nobles of Užneris region after the third division of the country started proving their origin. The same phenomenon happened in the others regions of the government.
     The majority of the rich nobles had taken care of the origin evidences before 1830-31. Small nobles could not do that due to lack of resources and documents. Because of the absence of the documents they were eliminated of the noble estate after the revolt. The nobles’ possessions were different in size, benefits and number of rustics. In this region, the biggest part of the average nobles prevailed that reached up to 1000 tithes.
     While analyzing church metrics, we get to know the information about the way the nobles were inscribed into metrics. It was born 5271 children of nobles over 23 years in the region; 55,2 percent of boys and 44,8 percent of girls. Irregular children were born mostly in small nobles’ families. Most of the nobles were born in the villages and only few in towns. To find out the number of families and their size is quite difficult and such a research requires more comprehensive study.
     We have little information about the history of Šimkovič (Szymkowicz) family. Therefore, it is sometimes difficult to establish the origin of the family and its progenitor. However, we know that this family lived in the region of Užneris until the 5 decade of the XX century. We get to know the genealogy of the family from the documents given for the nobles’ congress of Lithuanian government and they were studied from 1800 to 1840 08 10. This research supplies the information about the history of this family and their domains, as well as the family members’ status after the revolt.