- Archives of the Orthodox Church in America (Syosset, N.Y.);
- Balch Institute (now at Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pa.);
- Byzantine Catholic Seminary of Ss. Cyril & Methodius (Pittsburgh, Pa.);
- Greek Catholic Union of the U.S.A. (Beaver, Pa.);
- Heritage Institute of the Eparchy of Passaic (Woodland Park, N.J.);
- Immigration History Research Center (Minneapolis, Minn.);
- Jankola Library and Slovak Museum (Danville, Pa.);
- Library of Congress (Washington, D.C.);
- New York Public Library (New York, N.Y.);
- Pennsylvania Anthracite Heritage Museum (Scranton, Pa.);
- Pennsylvania State Library (Harrisburg, Pa.);
- (former) Slovak Museum & Archives (Middletown, Pa.);
- St. Tikhon Orthodox Seminary Library (South Canaan, Pa.);
- Ukrainian Museum and Library (Stamford, Conn.);
- University of Pittsburgh – Archives of Industrial Society (Pittsburgh, Pa.).
I am indebted to the staff and curators of these institutions and to those who collected and deposited the materials over many decades, and who welcomed me in some cases as many as on seven different occasions.
Additional valuable sources include the following.
- Naturalization documents:
- County courthouses (Cambria, Carbon, Clearfield, Indiana, Luzerne, Northumberland, Schuylkill)
- Pennsylvania State Archives (Lehigh, Indiana)
- Ancestry.com, Fold3.com
- Census records - Ancestry.com, Fold3.com, etc.
- Immigration records (ship manifests) - EllisIsland.org
- Incorporations/charters of churches, ethnic clubs, and fraternal lodges - mainly in county courthouses
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pyrohŷ-making in Jessup, mid-1900s
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And I am grateful to those individuals who made their own substantial – and unique – holdings of relevant materials available to me:
- Joel Brady
- David Felix
- +Joseph Krawczeniuk
- Paul R. Magocsi
- +John Schweich
- Anthony X. Sutherland
- John Uram
- and others.
Original material is © by the author, Richard D. Custer; all rights reserved.
Hi Rich, looks like a great project. Please don't forget Windber PA and the Berwind White Coal Company. Many Rusyns immigrated to this wonderful little town, including my gps. The coal museum is now closed but the Windber Historical Society Museum has a good bit of information. I've also always wondered about my childhood church, Sts Cyril & Methodius Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church, Scott Ave, Jeannette, PA. I always wondered why it had both "types" of church listed in its name. Best wishes, Mary Kay Radnich
ReplyDeleteThanks for the feedback, Mary Kay. Absolutely Windber and Jeannette have wonderful stories to tell and will receive detailed treatment.
DeleteAs to "Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic," there are several explanations about that. One is that this term fully expressed what the Russian Orthodox Church saw itself to be -- also Catholic (not Roman Catholic sense), and also Greek (but not ethnically Greek). The Russian Orthodox Church in America, experiencing explosive growth in the late-19th/early-20th century due to Greek Catholics (mainly Carpatho-Rusyns) joining/converting, added "Greek Catholic" to its official name in 1900 probably to indicate that it saw itself as the proper home for "Greek Catholics," that in conversion these people were not abandoning that identity, but "fulfilling" that, as the case may have been. It could also have been a response to the few court cases that had already played out in a few communities contesting the ownership of parishes chartered as "Greek Catholic" but which transferred (or tried to) over to the Russian Orthodox Church. As to whether a given parish chartered itself as "Russian Orthodox" or "Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic," neither was more than the other a sign of a parish being of Rusyn origin. It was more whichever name better corresponded to the prevailing usage of the Russian Orthodox Church in the U.S. at the time.
Hi Rich. I caught the second half of your lecture this afternoon in Hermitage, PA. My paternal grandmother worshiped at the SS Peter & Paul Russian Orthodox and Greek Catholic Church in Goodtown, PA in Somerset County. She lived at the top of the hill across from the Popovich farm. I was wondering if you had any info on the members of that congregation. My dad and all his siblings are gone now and all I have are a few articles written by David Hay when he interviewed my uncle Frank Drabish, along with stories passed on to me. I also have some photos of the interior of that church when I visited it in 2003. Before that, I had only been in the church in 1970 for my grandmother's (Mary Drabish's) funeral, and then in 2015 for the Sunday liturgy when I attended my cousin John Drabish's labor day weekend reunion. Will any info on this church be included in your project? Thanks so much for all your work. Debbie (Drabish) Romesberg, Akron, OH
ReplyDeleteHi Debbie, that's great! I will absolutely be writing a chapter on Goodtown / Pine Hill and the community around Ss. Peter & Paul Church and would love to see what materials you have. When I went there the first time back in the 1990s a Mr. Popovich let me into the church to take photos. I returned in 2015 to photograph the parish cemetery and take some fresh pix of the church amidst its picturesque surroundings.
DeleteWhile I have yet to study the metrical records of the parish (that's pending, whenever I find a good weekend to go back to that part of PA), I have much earlier data on the Rusyn settlers of Goodtown/PH from the records of St. Mary's Greek Catholic Church in Windber, whether the priest from there traveled to Goodtown to baptize/marry folks or they actually made the journey to Windber.
DeleteIf I recall correctly (away from my data at the moment) most of them came from the village Stuposiany and vicinity in far SE Poland.
Stuposiany area on Google Maps
My paternal great-grandmother and her siblings emigrated from the Austrian-Hungarian empire in the 1st two decades of the 20th c. They all settled in Westmoreland County PA (Donora, Renton, New Kensington). On early census records they list their nationality as “Ruthenian.” She was baptized Greek Orthodox. Based on a cross-reference of many documents and family oral history, I believe the spelling of their surname was Wagaluk. However, due to phonetic mis-spellings the W became a V and the rest of the name found in a variety of forms. My Gr-grandmother entered Baltimore from Hamburg Germany and must have traveled from there to New Kensington PA, where her brother lived. She settled in Donora PA and lived there until she died in 1964. After settling in Donora she met and married my great-grandfather, who was Roman Catholic, so she converted. They married and baptized all their children in St Dominic’s RC Church in Donora. On a passenger record it is recorded that her surname was Wagaluk and most recent address was “Pooski Austria.” I’d love to know if you have any information on this town and where it might have been located, as the borders stand today. She listed on one census that she spoke “Polish” and on later censuses listed she was from Ukraine. I surmise this was due to changing borders over the centuries. Growing up, I was always told she was Ukrainian, but recently discovered the “Ruthenian” piece. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteA family member gave me the link to your site. Thank you for the information you're providing. I would suggest you make contact with the National Czech and Slovak Museum in Iowa.
ReplyDelete1400 Inspiration Place SW
Cedar Rapids, IA 52404
Phone: 319-362-8500
This museum is part of the Smithsonian. This is a wonderful museum which was started by the Czech living in Iowa. The Slovak people were included. In my visit there to donate Slovak relate artifacts from my family, I found the museum could use more input on the life of the Slovak people and I am sure whatever you publish would be welcomed into their library. As they are a good distance from PA, they do have traveling exhibits that can be sent to other states.