page_title: Tutkowski
section_title: Family history
hierarchical_section_title: Tutkowski / Family history
caption_attribution_description: English: Tutkowski family property on Starowiejska St. in Gdynia, Poland
context_page_description: The House of Tutkowski is a Pomeranian noble family known mostly as landowners at the current site of the city of Gdynia.
context_section_description: The Tutkowski's were originally most likely of Lithuanian descent. This theory is supported by parochial documents from Kościerzyna County, which indicate that the last name's original form was Tutkus. The original last name is still common in the Anykščiai area in Lithuania.
  The pivotal point in the family's history was the rapid transformation of the village of Gdynia into one of Poland's major cities in the interwar period thanks to the construction of a nearby port. The local branch of the Tutkowski family owned vast fields at the site of the current downtown area of the city, the port, and the villa district of Kamienna Góra. Because the family was one of the main families involved in the construction of the port of city of Gdynia, they are commonly referred to as one of the Four Big Families of Gdynia, along with the clans of Skwiercz, Grubba, and Dorsz. Along with their substantial growth in wealth, the Gdynia branch of the Tutkowski family, once local Pomeranian nobility (which historically wasn't strictly tied to any nation-state), became part of the Polish elite, marrying into established families of Wittstock, the owners of the village of Wittstock in the Free City of Danzig (nowadays the Wysoka district in Gdańsk); Brygman, owners of several estates in the Żuławy region (the Vistula delta); and Przesławski, one of the greatest families of Greater Poland.
  After WWII, the Tutkowski family lost most of its estates in the Gdynia area due to expropriations executed by the communist government against landowners. The government motivated the expropriations with the provisions of eminent domain laws; their illegality stemmed from the lack of reasonable compensation offered. The Tutkowski's and other families in the city were only able to keep some of their built-up parcels. After the communist era, another blow was dealt to the Tutkowski family when their grand villa in the Kamienna Góra district was torn down before being returned to the family. It was only in the 2010s that the family started recovering its land and getting compensation for illegal expropriations of the 1960s.
caption: One of Tutkowski family's first major income properties, Starowiejska 11
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