The Odrowaz Family Page
The Odrowaz Family Origins::
Written and researched by Margaret Odrowaz-Sypniewski
The Odrowaz family was very prominent, in Poland, in the 12th century.
Members of this family included:
When Hyacinth and Iwo were alive, the Poles and the Czechs were still one nation, and they spoke the same language. Many think that clans, like the Odrovans, descended from ancient Slavic aristocracy.
Odrowaz is one of the oldest arms in Poland. The Medieval Polish armories (Dlugosz and Paprocki) tell us that the Odrowaz arms was imported from Bohemia. A coat of arms called Odrivous was found as early as 1162. We know that heraldry arrived in Poland from the West. The Odrivous arms came well before the Odrowaz arms.
The Dzialynski family, who later bought the estates of the Sypniewski family (who were given the Odrowaz arms by the king) had these components in their arms. The symbol was said to have been used by three Bohemian families. For example the escutheon of the Lasota von Stemblau family was similar. Johann Lasota, a Prague appellete judge was ennobled in 1582. Another Lasota family claiming the Odrowaz coat of arms was in Lwow, in 1854. And Siebmacher shows the arms being used as early as 1284, by a family named Benesovic, which then spread to Silesia and Moravia. The Czech family Hroch used a Odrowaz-like tamga over a horizontal white bar with a red field. The von Mezilec branch of the Hroch family displays the same shield as a crest without the bars.
