Hello, and welcome to this Tusick family album.

(This is also a genealogy resource about people named Tusick, Toczik, Tocik, Dupilka, Lyoch, Csorey and Szopko, with references to other relatives named Mayernik, Serbak, Prokop and Varkonda -- most of them from eastern Slovakia, in the old Zemplen and Ung counties of Hungary.)

These pages trace the lives of Michael and Anna Dupilka Tusick, my grandparents. They were emigrants from northern Hungary -- present-day Slovakia -- who came to the United States at the turn of the century and settled in West Virginia, where Grandpa worked as a coal miner. They had 12 children and eventually moved to Cleveland, Ohio, where the family thrived. Grandma and Grandpa died in the 1950s, but today the Tusick family includes more than a hundred children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren.

What follows is part family history and part investigative reporting as my cousins and I try to better understand our heritage. It's a curious fact that even with so many Tusick relatives in the United States we know little about our Slovak past. As recently as a year ago I had no idea where in Slovakia my grandparents came from, nor the names of their parents -- not even the original family name. (It's Tocik, although older generations wrote "Toczik" in Hungarian.)

I've learned a lot in recent months, thanks to stories from my mother, Agnes Batteiger, and my aunt Margaret Rinzler; from the research of my cousin Lynn Vizdos; and many hours squinting at microfilm copies of U.S. census records and Slovak church registers. Help has also come from family in Slovakia, most notably from a second cousin, Dan Dupilka. Thanks!

-- John Batteiger

San Francisco, California, April 1998

Tracking Tusicks (and Tociks) and Dupilkas
Click on the box at left (it's from a Slovak church record listing Grandpa's father, George) to reach this page. It tells the story of Grandma and Grandpa's early years in Hungary and then follows their life in the United States. It also tracks several generations of Tociks and Dupilkas in Slovakia and deciphers the original spelling of our family name. It ends with Slovak genealogy links and resources.

Tusick Photo Album
Click on the photo at left (Grandma and Grandpa's wedding photo) to reach this page. It's an online album with family photos spanning 100 years, including a remarkable picture of my great-grandmother Elizabeth Lyoch and a few other photos from Slovakia that no one's been able to identify -- yet.

Slovakia Today
Click on the photo at left (the present-day Dupilka family) for a look at modern Slovakia. The page is still under construction but is slowly filling up with photos, maps and information about relatives living in the region today. (The gentleman at far left in the photo is Grandma's nephew, Jan Dupilka).

These pages are maintained by John Batteiger (batt@sfo.com). They went online in April 1998 and were last updated in November 1999. Click HERE to send me e-mail, or click HERE to jump to my home page.

Perhaps you've heard a story or remember seeing a document or photo that can fill in some of the gaps in our knowledge? Please pass it on. Send e-mail to the address above. If you have a photo to share, please make a copy and send it on, too. (Overnight-photo shops charge $5 to $7 to make a copy without a negative, and the quality is surprisingly good.)

(Can't figure out who's in the photos at the top of this page? Grandpa and Grandma Tusick are at the top left. Moving clockwise, the next photo shows aunts Mary, Ann, Betty and Sue in 1965 at the wedding of my sister Elaine. The next photo, taken in the late 1960s, shows the house that Grandpa built in Simpson, West Virginia. The final photo is of Uncle Mike.)