Let me tell you all I know: Katherine was (is) my Great grand mother on my Fathers side.
Unconfirmed information is that she is of Russian descent. I have copies of her Marriage and divorce paperwork to my Grandfather. The divorce paper indicates she has a relation, possibly brother, named Adam.
They were married in Indiana on June 2nd 1931. My Granddad, Harry Swiatek lived in Cook County, Illinois, Chicago on the 1930 census, but I cannot find any Katherine Tyznik's on any census that I can confirm.
The marriage Certificate indicates that Katherine was born on March 24th, 1911.
I have had correspondence with a guy named Gary who has a Katherine Tyznik in his family who has since died. She was living in Nebraska.
My problem with his information is that Katherine shows her birth date on the marriage license as March 24, 1911, indicating she was 20 when they got married. The other Katherine that may or may not be the same one, has a birthday of March 12, 1915, this would make her about 17 when she married my Granddad and this could be a reason she made herself older on her marriage license. Of Course the birth date is off by 4 days, but that could be a loss of information over the years.
Just to further burden you with information, I'm pasting the 3 letters I received from Gary for you to read.
Anything you can help with will be great, Thanks
David Wyatt
{{{{{start of received letters}}}}
Hi David,
Thank you very much for your e-mail. First, note that I have a new e-mail address....it is
lew23@charter.net I was able to receive your e-mail because I haven't cancelled my old account, which I'm going to on Monday.
I have found that Tyznik isn't a very common surname, and so far I have been able to find a link to all Tyznik family members that I come in contact with.
My grand mother was also Katherine Tyznik, she was born in 1891 and died in 1964. Her parents were Maksym(Maxim) and Anastasia Tyznik. My family pretty much is located in Clark and Taylor county, Wisconsin.
Maksym Tyznik had a brother named Michael Tyznik who lived in Wisconsin and had a daughter Katherine. She was born in 1915. I don't have a lot of information on her other than she married a man named Ray Eggersgluess. She died 1999 in Omaha Nebraska. I was told they had 1 child. Katherine had brothers and sisters, one brother being Adam. Some of her siblings lived in Illinois. I know Adam lived in Florida.
There was also a Wasyl(William) Tyznik who lived in Brooklyn New York. He had the following children Anna, Olga, John, Michael, and Catherine who was 9 years old in the 1920 census. This family was from the same village as mine in Europe, but I haven't been able to find any descendents to verify any relationship.
I have more information, but didn't know what to list here. I'm curious to know where you live. I myself now live in southern Wisconsin, and most of my Tyznik family still live in Clark and Taylor counties in central Wisconsin.
We must be related and it would be nice to find out how,
Gary
Letter 2.
Hi David,
I have a birth date for Katherine Tyznik. I received it from someone who was researching that line of the Tyznik family. Her birth date was March 12, 1915.
I was told that Katherine left home at an early age. For the 1930 census she is not living with her mother. The 1920 census image for her family is not available at Ancestry, otherwise it would list her age.
I'll keep looking and see what I can find on Katherine..oh, her parents were Michael Tyznik and Agnes Terlikowska, Terlikowska is the feminine version of Terlikowski. The women would use the surname Terlikowska, and the males would use the name Terlikowski. Michael and Agnes were married in Europe. I found Agnes at Ellis Island web site. I have attached the original copy of her ship manifest page. She arrived with her children, and her mother(Terlikowska) Also traveling with her was her sisters family(Wronski)
These families came from Busk, Galicia. Galicia was a province of the Austria_Hungary Empire. Today this area is western Ukraine.
Gary
Letter 3.
Hi David,
I was looking at the Ellis Island original ship manifest pages that I have for the people in my family. I do this every so often. Well today I was looking at the 1904 manifest for Lukas Pirus who was husband to one of Maksym and Michael Tyznik's sisters(Irene)
The manifest page lists Lukas Pirus, and I belive it has Michael Tyznik(spelled on manifest as Mykita)
Then I looked at the name directly after theirs...Michal Swiatek. Maybe this is a coincidence..but I thought I'd mention it to you.
Gary