Polish Kings castle "Wawel" in Cracow - 15th c.

The courtiers were rewarded for their services by the king with landed estates, privileges or gold.

In the 16th century, the king bestowed on one such knight, whose son later became our Rymaszewski progenitor, a property in the large eastern region of Poland that generally carried the historic name of the Grand Duchy of Litva.

From the15th century, the ancestors transformed from the medieval knights - the warriors, to a new social class of landlords, which settled on landed estates.

They became the nobility and, in a feudal system, they possessed serfs who lived in a village or villages located on their estates.

The nobility were called "szlachta".

At those times modern formal surnames of Polish nobles and knights were being established. Lukasz's son, Gregory of Ryma, adopted the surname Rymaszewski after the name of their estate and became the first ancestor of our family.

The establishment of the Rymaszewski noble surname carrying the original Lukash's knightly coat of arms (Pobóg), as well as the perpetual land ownership of Ryma, was confirmed by the Polish king Zygmunt III Waza (1566 - 1632), in a royal deed dated 6 July 1610.

During the subsequent years the family of Gregory Rymaszewski, together with ageing Lukasz, greatly improved and developed their estate and prospered. Gregory's son, Jerzy, purchased an additional grange, called Mohylonka on 19 April 1637.

The next generations of Rymaszewskis were the families of Jerzy's three sons: 1. Pawel, 2. Tomasz and 3. Jan.

The family grew as follows: 1. Pawel had two sons Janusz and Jerzy. 2. Tomasz had a son Mikolaj, and 3. Jan had three sons Michal, Franciszek and Józef. Tomasz's first son Mikolaj had a son Michal and three grandsons: Stanislaw, Ignacy and Pawel.

I discovered later, that 2. Tomasz had another son, Jakób, who served as a "pancerny" (an armoured noble), during the Turkish invasion of Poland's Eastern Frontier and was killed in a battle at Kamieniec Podolski in 1672.

In the fifth generation there were eight families with 15 male grandchildren. Janusz had two sons: Michal and Kazimierz. Michal had three sons: Stefan, Floryan and Franciszek. Kazimierz had two: Andrzej and Franciszek, etc... see Chapter 12:(3)

Great growth and expansion of Gregory's descendants occurred from the seventh and eighth generation of families, and in the following decades the families expanded to various granges and estates over the woodland region between KOPYL, NIESWIEZ, KLECK, SLUCK and MINSK.

Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries the Rymaszewski descendants spread out westwards to various land properties, and could be found near LACHOWICZE, DAREWO, LIPSK, MIR, CHOTYNICZE, BARANOWICZE, STOLPCE, NOWOGRÓDEK, NOWOJELNIA and SLONIM.

They also moved southwards to farms and granges near PLOTNICA, PINSK, LUNINIEC, MOZYR and BOBRUJSK.

WILNO and KOWNO

Some Rymaszewski descendants migrated northwards, as far as two large historic towns of WILNO and KOWNO in the north.

The town WILNO was a large Polish cultural and intellectual centre where many Rymaszewskis were studying at Wilno University. After graduation, some obtained positions in Wilno, married local noblewomen and settled in the area.

All Rymaszewski noble families owned various landed estates.

Generally they were medium size to small landowners but some happened to be large and wealthy.

As nobles, they preserved their old knightly traditions, values and privileges.

Some Rymaszewskis were appointed as officials of the Crown or as military commanders in the administrative region of the Grand Duchy of Litva's own army.

• The basis by which Polish coats of arms were acquired differs from those of Western Europe where they were individual or familial. Polish coat of arms belonged to groups of families, i.e. to a clan (ród) who, either served the Crown together, or resided in the same territory, or carried out extraordinary endeavors. The coat of arms was an integral part of the noble's identity as warriors who fought in defense of the fatherland.
• Each Polish coat of arms had its own name, which was typically different than the family names. Some of the coat of arms names were clan rallying cries.
• Once obtained, a coat of arms was handed down through the generations. Every member of the clan had the right to use the arms. As a result, a higher proportion of the Polish population possessed noble status (about 10%) than was the case in Western Europe (1% to 2%).

"POBÓG" COAT OF ARMS

In a heraldic book "Herbarz Polski", dated 1839-1846, the author Kasper Niesiecki, a Jesuit monk, lists RYMASZEWSKI families as belonging to the Pobóg Clan. So all members of the clan were the bearers of the POBÓG coat of arms.

The name Pobóg means "for God", thus "Pobóg" was also used as a battle cry where families joined together to defend their country "for God" !

Jesuit monk describes in his book he POBÓG Coat of Arms as follows:

"Azure, a horseshoe argent, surmounted of a cross patée, or, mantled of his liveries, whereupon is set for a crest: out of a ducal coronet a demi greyhound rampant, collared and leashed, all proper." (Herbarz, VII, 331 - 335).

Later heraldry sources describe the arms thus:

"A horseshoe is shown with its ridge upward in a blue field; it is silver or polished iron, atop it is a cross of gold. On the helmet a half greyhound appears, as if leaping from the crown, facing the right: it is collared and leashed."

RYMASZEWSKI family, like all noble families, had their own family motto which was placed on their seals and the coat of arms.   It was in Latin: "Tendit ad Astra Viribus" and meant "Reach up for the stars by your own effort". Translated into Polish "Dosiegnij gwiazd swojá wlasná pracá"
TENDIT AD ASTRA VIRIBUS
Oral accounts and family records handed down, bear testimony that the ancestors preserved their dignity and for centuries lived in accordance with the above heraldic device.

Could it be the spot where the original 16th century knightly estate RYMA existed — not far from Kopyl, as mentioned in the historical notes?

In any case it must have been the property of a family of Rymaszewski descendants who lived there in the 18th century, and the place was described after them.

A place name called Rymasze suggests in the Polish language a plural word meaning "a place inhabited by, or belonging to, Rymaszewskis"

The word "rymasze" has no other meaning in the Polish language (neither in Belarus or Russian language), and therefore must come from the surname.

Also notice on the map a small rectangular dot above it, marked H.H. Rymasze. According to map's legend, which is in the Austrian language, the H.H. stands for "herrenhaus". In English it means "manor house". So it could be that Rymaszewskis, the owners of the "Rymasze" estate, lived in the manor house and owned on their land a village with its surfs, which they named after the estate.

After the third partition in 1795, Poland disappeared from the map of Europe, believe it or not. Alongside is a map of Eastern Europe dated 1838.

Its central part was restored for a short period from 1806 to 1815 by Napoleon as a Duchy of Warsaw. After Napoleon's defeat it was taken over by the Tsar.

As a result, Poland remained under the rule of foreign masters for 123 years until the end of World War One in 1918.

In the 19th century a number of insurrections was attempted by Poles to win back the independence, especially in the Russian partition.

Very many Rymaszewskis were involved in conspiratorial activities and uprisings. This brought heavy reprisals on participants including exile to Siberia and confiscation of their properties, either whole or substantial parts or their estates. The families became poorer, their estates smaller.

But their noble status was still respected. For example, tsarist police employed punishment by lashing, which did not apply to nobles, no matter whether they were Russian or Polish or how small landowners they were.

Many RYMASZEWSKIS emigrated. Some to France but mostly to the United States of America, also to Canada and Argentina.

Some Rymaszewskis subdivided land among children or sold their estates and moved to live in towns, where many achieved important positions and prominence.

Many studied in St. Petersburg, some in Kiev, and then served as doctors, public servants, etc. and, being of noble status, as commanders in the Russian Army. The commanders were posted to various key locations including military academies. Similarly those qualified as doctors went to specific hospitals, etc.

However, majority of Rymaszewskis still run their land properties in the original ancestral homeland.

The Russian Imperial coat of arms dated 1840.

Notice small coat of arms of component countries on top. Second on top left is the Polish Eagle.

Two nobles : a Polish noble on the right and a Russian noble on the left.

FIRST WORLD WAR : 1914 -1918

After the First World War, in independent and democratic Poland, the noble status of "'szlachta" was discontinued by Polish Constitution of 1921, which made all people equal in law.

SECOND WORLD WAR : 1939 -1945

From the beginning of the war in September 1939, when Germany and Russia attacked Poland, all the lands where the Rymaszewski families lived, called KRESY, have been incorporated into the Soviet Union.

The area was named "Soviet Western Byelorussia", part of the U.S.S.R. The people were subjected to a Communist terror.

After the end of war, in 1946, any Rymaszewski families that survived extermination, were expelled to new Poland, a communist state created, occupied and controlled by the Soviet Union.

This removal was described as "repatriation". In fact, it was ethnic cleansing of Kresy, the removal of former Polish citizens who were resistant to communist rule.

The Rymaszewskis were dispersed to various locations, mostly in Western parts of Poland called Regained Territories, marked black on the map.

Other Rymaszewskis, like myself, were scattered around the world from the beginning of the 1939 - 1945 war. My fate has thrown me on the shores of Australia. I am the only survivor of our family from Pinsk, Poland.