Tomasz Wayne Nykaza

This is the lil' guy that started it all!  I had never really had any interest in genealogy until I heard the story of Tomasz. I walked into Joanne and Archie's house when my youngest was just a little older than this baby and this picture was sitting on the desk.  When I asked about him, I found out that he was Archie's little brother and that Archie really didn't know much.  So I set out to find him!

I found his death information on the Cook County online death index, and on the PGSA (Polish Genealogy Society of America) database, but it wasn't until I found out there was a very large Polish cemetery nearby that I actually found him.  I went in and spoke with the cemetery staff about finding his grave and they gave me directions to it.  They also mentioned that he was in with another child, Kopiech Nykaza. When I went to the grave site I found graves for Wojciech Nykaza, Helena Makowski and Jan Makowski with Florence Adamczyk with Helen.  I took this information back to the office and they pulled the record for Wojciech.  Turns out that when he died in 1929 he was originally put into a "pauper grave".  This is a grave set apart for poor people who can't afford a final resting place, it gives them time to save money to pay for a "normal" grave (like 20 years or something).  During this "rental" time, his family saved up and purchased the grave plots where these three are resting.  But since so much time had passed, he had decomposed quite a bit and they were able to move his remains into a smaller casket (usually for children), and the handwriting on the cemetery card (all loopy and fancy) was translated into the computer as a child's grave for a Kopiech instead of a grown man, Wojciech.  So...long story short, Tomasz is buried with his grandpa.  And through all of this...a love for family history was born!