According to the tradition of our family branch, Modestia Victrix is ​​the family's motto, which translated from Latin means humility in victory / success. 

The family, originated according to it´s own tradition from Russia and later from the villige of Stavenow in Germany on the border between Brandenburg and Mecklenburg. However, no Stavenow has lived there since 1349. Why did that happen? That, and countless follow-up questions have now occupied us for over 20 years.

The origilan name was Stognew, which was germanised/latinized to Stavenow in the German speaking parts of the territories. In the Slavic speaking territories, they continued to call themselves Stognew. 

This is an ongoing research project since 1988 and the texts are constantly evolving. The first 20 years have mostly been about collecting historical source information in the form of land books, church books, etc. It is really only in recent years that we have begun to seriously analyze the very extensive source material and begin to place it in context with contemporary phenomena. For example, we are beginning to investigate which interesting historical persons and relatives in addition to our own relatives appear in history. Therefore, the texts are processed continuously.

One goal is to compile the results of the research in book form. The path to the completion of all chapters of the book/s,  you can follow on this website.

Sometimes you will see bold words in the texts, these are due to different connections between people in the material that we especially need to remember. Most often, these names or places appear in different places in the material or have some other significance for the family's history.

The oldest named Stavenow to date is Sigfrid, who is mentioned in a legend from Lenzen in Prignitz. Different branches of the family and different family members have carried with them slightly different traditions about the family's background. None of these traditions contradict each other, or the source material, but complement the image that emerges from the source material. The website is built with love and aims for everyone in our family to have access to historical information about the family. As new knowledge is added and new source material is found, we thus adjust texts, analyze and supplement the information that has been collected and has previously only been lined up in a chronology.

The oldest known Stognew was mentioned in 1015 and might be related to Stoignew, the Slavic Duke that died at the Battle of Raxa in 955.

The Battle of Raxa was fought on 16 October 955 over control of the Billung March (in present-day Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, northeastern Germany) between the forces of Otto I of Germany, allied with the Rani. tribe on one side, and the Obotrite confederation under Nako and his brother Stoigniew (Stoinef, Stoinneg, Stoinegin, Ztoignav) with their allies and tributary Slavic neighbors on the other.

We start mostly from our own family branch, something we have taken the liberty to do but have now also started to include several other family branches that are interesting historically and that are needed to put our own family branch's history in its context. We are very grateful for all the basic research work in the archives that the following competent and professional historians have assisted us with. Without your help, we could not tell this story. Special thanks to: Baron Christoffer v. Warnstedt, Mr. Karl Heinz Steinbruch M.A. Mr. Heiko Klatt, Mr. Christian Andreas Hoske. There are many others who have contributed information to the project and we would like to thank you in a special order. Including all the wonderful relatives who have contributed interesting stories and pictures. Not least, we thank all the accommodating archivists in various German and Swedish archives who assisted with copying the transmission of source material. We hope you find the content interesting! 

Updated 2023-06-10

Research is still ongoing and both new historical sources and connections between people are often discovered.

We are very happy to annonce that a new polish close bransch of the family has been added!

Best regards!

Click on the pictures below to move on. If there is interest for translation of any of the pages below, please send us an E-mail and let us know!

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BACKGROUND

Family trees

Darsband I Pommern

Stavenow I - Woldenberg I 

Woldenberg II - Ättlingar till Friedrich (IV) 

Woldenberg III - Ättlingar till Andreas I