John Nyznyk The Enigma: The Story is Complete

John  Nyznyk   November, 1914.

John Nyznyk, my paternal grandfather has been a mystery.  A  I knew about him was that he was a terrible man, so terrible that my grandmother left him when my father was very young.  According to my mother, my father never met him.  When I was growing up, he was rarely mentioned and I never thought to ask my father about him.  My father was very happy to talk about his childhood, his life in New York City, but his father was never mentioned. My grandmother remarried years before, so it was not unusual that he was never brought up. When I started to work on family history, his story was front and center.
First of all, I found that he lived in New York City, a few blocks away from where my father lived with his mother and step-father.   I had been told that he wasn't interested in working, but according to census information and his petition for citizenship, he had a job.  He applied to become a US citizen and became one in the 1930.

Second, I found from his citizenship petition that he had two children that he left behind when he came to the United States.  According to his marriage license information, his first wife died shortly after he immigrated here.  His daughter, Michalina, was born in 1910, so she was an infant when he left.

John Nyznyk's petition for citizenship, showing the two children left behind in Europe.

In 1931, his daughter Michalina  came to the United States, and John Nyznyk was her sponsor.  She settled in the Orange, New Jersey area and became a US citizen in 1939.  In her petition for citizenship, she made no mention of her father.  She changed her name legally to Mildred Nesnick when she finalized her filing for citizenship.  At that time she was a live-in maid in New Jersey.
Although Michalina/Mildred was living in New Jersey, her father continued to live in New York City.  According to the 1940 US Census, he was living in Manhattan, on East 6th Street, and had been unemployed for over a year.   My mother told me that he had been asking relatives about my dad, and seemed to know that he had a job.  He also thought that my father should be supporting him.  Since my father had nothing to do with him since before 1920, he paid no attention to this.  This was third hand information by the time I heard it, again, my mother was the source, not my father.

By the time I started my family history search, both of my parents has passed away.  The only was that I was going to find any information about  my grandfather was by looking for it on genealogy sites.  I found the information about his other children, his daughter's immigration and citizenship from sources on Ancestry.com.  It is not surprising that I found his death information on Ancestry.

My mother told me that he died and was buried in a charity cemetery.  From this I assumed that he was indigent and was given a charity burial somewhere in the New York City area.  I found an article about Harts Island in the New York Times, where the unclaimed dead and poor and indigent of New York were buried in mass graves.  From this, I thought that Harts Island was were he ended up.  I was going to pursue this avenue, as soon as I found the date of his death.  I really didn't want to go through many roll of film records of the New York City death index, so I did nothing.  One day a hint came up on Ancestry and I found the date of his death, June 6, 1950.  I requested the death certificate and the detailed certificate of the cause of death.
So now  I knew how his story ended.  He was not indigent, he died at the Cancer Institute, Welfare Island of lung cancer.  He was buried in a Catholic Cemetery on Long Island.  The arrangements were made my the Jerema Funeral Home, not far from where he lived.
So John Nyznyk's  mysterious life in no longer unknown.

Genealogy Surprises and Family Secrets.

Michalina Nyznyk's  Declaration of Intention, 1936.

Ancestry.com has been a friend and and a nemesis. Spending hours looking through lists and finding nothing is a part of genealogical research, and I have spend a lot of time doing this, but the other day, Ancestry dropped a gift right in my lap.

Several years ago I found my paternal grandfather's John Nyznyk's petition for naturalization on Ancestry.  It was full of surprises, the biggest one was that he had left behind two children  in Pomorany, Ukraine.  As far as I knew, my father was an only child, and I doubt that he knew that his father had other children. According to his petition, John had a son, Paul, born in 1903, and a daughter, Michalina born in 1910.  If my father did know, it was a big, dark family secret.  Over the years, my mother shared a lot of family secrets, and this one was so big, that I doubt that she could hold it back.

A few years, I got a hint in Ancestry; Michalina  came to the United States in 1931, and that she was going to live with her father in New Jersey.  That was it, no further mention of her in any records.  In the 1940 Census, I found my grandfather living in New York City without Michalina. What happened to her? Did she marry, did she return to Europe.? I even sent in an application to  the PBS production Genealogy Road Show,  trying to get on the show and find out what happened to  Michalina.  Unfortunately, my question was  not accepted.

Then out of the blue, I found her again on Ancestry.  Michalina was still in New Jersey, and she was applying to become a United States Citizen!  She started her application in 1936, after she was here for five years.  She was living in South Orange, New Jersey and her occupation was housework.  She also had an alias--she was known as Mildred Nesnick.   On her final petition, she legally changed her name and would be known as Mildred Nesnick.  She swore an oath of allegiance on February 14, 1939 and became a United States citizen.

What surprised me was that my grandfather was not a part of this process, there is no mention of him in her application.  According to family information, he was not a part of my father's life at all.  After he and my grandmother separated, he had no contact with my father at all, even though he lived only a few blocks away in New York City.  I wonder if Michalina had the same experience--her father brought her  to the United States, and after that, no more contact.  There is another question--did Michalina's brother come to the US at some later date?

So, My advice to readers who are trying to find lost family members--genealogy is a tedious hobby--lots of work with few results.  Use all the resources that you can afford, one of them might have the answers you are looking for.