The resources of State Archive in Siedlce on July 1, 1999 reached 1294 units, 2520 mb., 370594 j.a. and comes from the
period from 1651 to 1997.
State Archive in Siedlce embraces the area of the former voivodeship of Siedlce which in the result of the administrative changes consisted of the districts of Garwolin, Łuków, Mińsk Mazowiecki, Siedlce, Sokołów Podlaski and Węgrów. The garthered resources, apart from few exceptions, are agreed with the given territorial extent.
- The resources of State Archive consist of:
- state and self-governed administration files from the years
1651-1990;
- special administration files from the years 1864-1975;
- administration of justice files from the years 1810-1951;
- police files from the years 1869-1933;
- economic administration undertaking files from the years
1833-1992;
- registry files from the years 1810-1898;
- organisations and associations' files from the years 1855-1989;
- education system files from the years 1846-1993;
- files concerninig estates of people and their families as well as their heritage from the years 1719-1946;
- collections of posters, leaflets, postcards and photographs from the years 1880-1989;
- technical documentation from the years of 1950-1973;
- cartographical documentation from the years 1826-1981;
- microfilms.
To the most valuable documents in the resources belongs the king August III pergamin privilege for Siedlce coming from
December 10, 1746, written in Latin and signed by the king August III and Jan Wolski, the king's secretary. The document has also got a seal with a great crown which is pressed in a sealing-wax and put in a metal box.
Also a considerable value present, preserved in a residual state, manorial files from the years 1719-1946 of families from Podlasie like Kuczyńscy, Wierzejscy, Czartoryscy and Szenejko.
General administration - state and self-governed files referring to municipial, district and communal adminictration contain materials that present almost all fields of life that means political, econimic and social life of the region. In this group municipial files come from the earliest period.
Communal nation councils files from the years 1944-1950 contain materials on functioning post-war national councils and communal departments. There are mainly minutes of meetings, resolutions, work plans and documents referring to elections of new members to national councils, communal departaments and foremen. A large group of files consists of self-governed files, which focus on elections to communal authorities to take up a post of chief officers of a group of villages and posts in communal councils, elections to be village administrators and under-village administrators, and also elections of various commissions and committees and their activity.
The units of communal starosties are the richest in content in the group
of state administration files. From the interwar period only fragments of Communal Starosty in Siedlce, Sokołów Podlaski and Węgrów are susbisted. The attention should be paid to situational raports in starosties from legal political movement of national minorities which were regularly handed in to the voivode of Lublin by starosts. They contain a general characteristics of social and political situation, a detailed description of activities taken up by political parties and social organisations.
Better preserved files of starosties in a postwar period refer to materials on economic issues. They show the difficulty of economic life in the first postwar years, insufficiency in adopting health care system and processes of rebuilding.
In the resources of State Archive in Siedlce there are 53 units of communal files from the years 1859-1954. It can generally be said that there can be found the reflection of almost all the smallest problems of the least administration groups in the region: village economy, agricultural structure, wealth of farms and their liabilities, elections to local self-government. Similar material is contained in files of group national councils from the years 1955-1972, files of communes and communal national councils from the years 1973-1990.
The most interesting are files created by tsar's administration in the
gubernya of Siedlce, especially by Gendarmerie Board of the Gubernya from the years 1876-1914 and gendarmerie boards for districts of Siedlce, Sokołów Podlaski and Węgrów from the years 1900-1915. These files show the policy of invades' authorities and picture the socio- polictical life in the gubernya of Siedlce in the period 1876-1915.
In the field of economy, the valuable material is included in special administration files which consists of files of commissions and estate offices for districts of Sokołów Podlaski, Siedlce, Węgrów from the twenty-year-interwar period. They focus on the problem of comasating lands, parceling out and dividing communities and servitutes.
The units of financial and tax offices show the structure of farms in the region of Podlasie, their acreage, wealth and liaabilities.
In the files concerning administration of justice from the yeears 1810-1951, embracing about 50% the whole resources of our archives, there are three groups:
- court and prosecution files;
- authenticated deeds;
- hypothecary institiution files.
These are files of the Distric Court in Siedlce from the years 1876-1915 and 1918-1951, Meeting of peace judges from I and II District in the Gubernya of Siedlce from the yers 1867-1915, peace courts, communal, town and appeal courts.
Hypothecary institiution files totalling 14624 registers of mortgage from the districts of Łuków, Mińsk Mazowiecki, Siedlce, Sokołów Podlaski and Węgrów from the years 1802-1946 embrace a greater extent than the adninistration structure would suggest, for example land registry in Siedlce contains the region of former voivodeship of Podlasie with borders from 1815. It means that it is spread to districts of Siedlce, Sokołów Podlaski, Węgrów, Konstantynów, Biała Podlaska, Garwolin, Mińsk Mazowiecki, Żelechów, and Siennica. These files show the financial and economic state of estates.
Similar material incude authenticated deeds created in offices of 99 notaries
working in our region in the years 1810-1951 in the areas of Siedlce, Łuków, Sokołów Podlaski and Węgrów.
Factories and economic administration files are a small group in our resources but their chronology is unsettled. The files of the Older Factory Inspector in the Gubernya of Siedlce from years 1898-1913 include information on difficult workers' economic situation and on number of factories in this gubernya. Also, they have raports about workers' strikes. The files of this group are well preserved from the period of functioning the voivideship of Siedlce. They contain statistic materials in the field of production, employment, finances, analising economic activity. Additionally, in these files there are materials reporting workers' protests and strikes in 1981.
The major group of files refers to civil status files. They embrace 186 parishes of different faiths from the area of a present voivodeship from years 1810-1898. In a prevailing way there are files of Roman Catholic parishes (80 parishes), Jewish faith parishes (21 units), Greek-Uniat parishes (13 units), Orthodox parishes (9 units) and two Evangelical-Augsburg parishes. It needs to be underlined that except for the former district of Garwolin for the rest of the area of the former voivodeship of Siedlce these files are fully preserved. They are a valuable source for genealogical research, but also a lot of other information can be obtained from them which will be useful for demografical, onomastcal and sociological research.
In the group embracing social organisations and assotiations' acts the Municipial Credit Company in Siedlce which existed in 1899-1949 should be mentioned. It reached following towns: Siedlce, Biała Podlaska, Łuków, Miedzyrzec Podlaski, Kosów Lacki, Ryki, Sobienie Jeziory, Brześć near the river Bug, Kobry, Prużana, Kowel, Słonim, Wysokie Litewskie, Zambrów, Ostrów Mazowiecki and Pułtusk.
The attention also needs to be paid to the fact that in our archive we have managed to gather about 40% occupation posters published in 1940-1944 by SS commanders and Warsaw and Lublin District Police, foremen and mayors. In a few collections embracing districts the biggest number of posters has been preserved from areas of Sokołów Podlaski and Węgrów (84), far less from areas of Siedlce (30) and Łuków (25).
In the group of audiovisual documentation the collection of postcards of Siedlce from the beginninig of 20th century should be exposed. It consists of 36 j.a. They remind the previous appearance of the town, no longer existing architecture and monumental objects of municipial style before its postwar modernisation. The photographs from social and political events in the region held in the years 1929-1990 show people who took over the most important posts in the town in those days. The considerable group of photographs in our supplies refer to industrial objects, blocks of flats, schools and public administration buildings.
In the group of cartographical resources mostly the farm plans from the years 1826-1924 in the area of Siedlce are presented. The separate collection refers to farms included in registers of mortgages. These plans embrace both acreage divided on sorts of arable lands and buildings: a palace or mansion with parks and garden nad farm buildings. Plans of Siedlce elaborated by a landsurveyor called Wejhert in the twenty-year-interwar period should also be mentioned. They reflect spacious arrangement of the town and its buildings - non existing any more today. Moreover, we have military maps which are of a wide territorial range embracing Podlasie, the region of Lublin and former areas which were once annexed by Russia and Austria.
Only a small percent of resources was microfilmed. Civil statues files were microfilmed as the first in order to protect them from damaging because they belong to the most often used. We also have microfilms of these files which are stored in different archives but concerning our region, for example School Management of Siedlce which functioned in 1864-1918. Its oryginals are kept in State Archive in Lublin.
Summing up, it needs to be told that State Archive in Siedlce gathers in its resources plenty of valuable materials, mainly used for regional research on the history of Podlasie in XIX and XX century.
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