Michael Kacsenyak is a 2X great grandfather on the paternal Carpatho-Rusyn branch of my family tree. However, while my paternal grandmother’s family are 100% Greek Catholic (today Byzantine Catholic) in every record in which they appear and identify them as Rusyns.

On the other hand, in my paternal grandfather’s family, there are a couple of Roman Catholics who sneak in through mixed marriages, which was accepted by both churches as they were all Catholics of some persuasion.

Michael Kacsenyak is one of my Roman Catholic ancestors, who would be considered half-Slovak and half Rusyn given that his father was Roman Catholic and his mother Greek Catholic.

With this background, let’s look at the life of Michael Kacsenyak.

Michael Kacsenyak [sometimes spelled Kseniak] was baptized on 21 September 1834 and, according to Catholic practices when faced with extremely high infant mortality, Michael, or Mihaly, was most likely born just a few days before his baptism. The family lived in Nizna Sebastova.

Of Michael’s ten siblings, the four born before him all died in infancy, as did the two youngest children. Only Michael, brothers John and Andreas and sister Barbara lived to adulthood and married.

He was the son of John Kacsenyak, Roman Catholic, and Anna Fucsik, Greek Catholic, and the fifth of the ten children born in the family. Neither John nor Anna were still living when Michael married Anna Haluska, Greek Catholic, on 28 September 1858 in the nearby village of Ruska Nova Vez.

Being Roman Catholic rather than Greek Catholic didn’t make life any easier.

Michael lived past 1899, which is when the online church records end. Wife Anna also lived to see the 20th century.

The only records in which Michael appear, aside from the baptisms of his children, are his own baptism, his marriage and the 1869 Hungarian census, which included this area of Slovakia.

All members of a household are listed in the census and a huge improvement over U.S. censuses is the listing of all women by their maiden names.

As with most of his neighbors, Michael’s occupation matches that of my Greek Catholic family in Udol. He was a zseller – a landless peasant who worked for others to survive.

Michael and Anna were the parents of ten children, although like with Michael’s siblings, there is a high child mortality rate.

Children: (Kacsenyak)

1. Maria, born 14 August 1869; died 5 March 1926, Passaic, Passaic, New Jersey; married Stephen Kucharik, 28 August 1877, Vysna Sebastova, Slovakia. They were the parents of seven children.
2. Anna, baptized 9 February 1862; died 17 September 1863
3. Barbara, baptized 25 February 1864; died after 1869
4. Anna, baptized 12 June 1866; died before 29 July 1870
5. John, born 28 August 1868; died 29 October 1868
6. Anna, born 29 July 1870
7. Stephen, born 11 February 1873
8. Elizabeth, born 16 January 1875; died 16 January 1875
9. Maria, born 3 February 1879
10. John, born 23 July 1881

Whether Anna, Stephen, Maria or John, the younger children in the family, lived to adulthood and married is unknown. No further record has been found. It’s possible that they married after 1899 with the records being inaccessible.

Michael and Anna (Haluska) Kacsenyak evaded child mortality and death by epidemics like cholera and typhoid fever and lived to see the 20th century. Sadly, daughter Maria left for America in the late 1880s, never to return home and denying Michael and Anna the opportunity to know their grandchildren.

No photos are known to exist of Michael or Anna and it’s likely that they never had the means or opportunity to have their pictures taken.

I would love to know when and where my 2X greats died and whether their younger children survived and have descendants, but that will require more church records being made available.