Adam Mickiewicz was born on 24 December 1798, either at his paternal uncle's estate in Zaosie (now Zavosse) near Navahrudak (in Polish, "Nowogródek") or in Navahrudak itself in what was then part of the Russian Empire and is now Belarus. The region was on the periphery of Lithuania proper and had been part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania until the Third Partition of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (1795). Its upper class, including Mickiewicz's family, were either Polish or Polonized. The poet's father, Mikołaj Mickiewicz, a lawyer, was a member of the Polish nobility ("szlachta") and bore the hereditary Poraj coat-of-arms; Adam's mother was Barbara Mickiewicz, "née" Majewska. Adam was the second-born son in the family.