The Nonkovic Family
A place to preserve family history, documents, photographs, genealogy, and land records for future generations.
The Nonkovic family is a Croatian family originating in lower Herzegovina that migrated under the leadership of Serdar Nikola Nonković in 1687 to the lower Neretva region near present-day Metković. Historical sources remember successive generations as formidable frontier fighters. During the wars of the late seventeenth century, they fought Ottoman forces across Dalmatia, Herzegovina, and the lower Neretva, while the family’s military service continued into the early nineteenth century—a period of more than one hundred years. Its members served as military commanders and Knights of St. Mark, while their military distinction, knightly rank, and later noble status placed successive generations among the leading authorities governing the lower Neretva and its delta for nearly a century. Their descendants now live in Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, other European Union countries, the United States, and elsewhere around the world.
Open the family portalThe family’s heraldry survives in several forms: a colour reconstruction of the principal family coat of arms, which corresponds to the surviving family seal; the stone relief on Kula Nonković at Klek; and a published heraldic description from 1873. Duško Nonković produced the colour reconstruction through extensive research into historical and family sources. These forms are presented here as historical evidence.
Duško Nonković produced this colour reconstruction through extensive research into the surviving family seal and other historical and family sources. Its principal devices—the eagle, crescent, sun, dove, and motto—are also recorded in Rosenfeld’s heraldic description.
The stone relief stands above the entrance to Kula Nonković. It shows a spread-winged bird above a crescent and star, surrounded by decorative heraldic elements.
In Der Adel des Königreichs Dalmatien, Friedrich Heyer von Rosenfeld lists the family as “Conte Noncovich” and describes a shield divided vertically silver and red.
The shield bears a crowned black eagle armed in gold, with a golden human-faced crescent beneath its right claw and a small golden sun to the left. The crest is a silver dove holding a golden crescent in its beak, with red-and-silver mantling.
VIRTUTIS PRAEMIUM
The motto literally means “The reward of virtue.” In heraldic usage, the Latin virtus can also encompass courage, valour, or excellence.
View the source, transcript, and translationThe story of the family's roots, migrations, service, and legacy across the centuries.
Explore land register records, cadastral parcels, and official documents.
A connected view of family members and their relationships.
A private collection of historical and contemporary family documents.
Photographs, memories, and the visual history of the family.
