The Russian Brotherhood Organization: An Important Resource for Rusyn Genealogy

First published in the New Rusyn Times, May/June 1999, pp. 13-15.

NOTE: This article is about a database based on death benefit claims of the Russian Brotherhood Organization (RBO) that was created by the Balch Institute and maintained today by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. While the Balch Institute had put that database online (it wasn’t as complete then as it is today), it was taken down after the Balch folded and their collections were acquired by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. It’s available to researchers onsite at HSP in Philadelphia. Thus this article would primarily help those visiting HSP, but we are posting it here as it provides insight into the history, membership, and original extent of the RBO. We hold out hope that one day the database will be posted online again.

An excellent resource for researching our Rusyn ancestors who settled in the United States has recently been made available on the World Wide Web by the Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. What is the RBO, and who might benefit from the information in the database?

The Russian Brotherhood Organization

The RBO is a fraternal insurance society whose national headquarters is in Philadelphia, Pa. Like other Rusyn societies like the Greek Catholic Union, Orthodox Society of America (formerly UROBA and Liberty), United Societies of the U.S.A., and the Russian Orthodox Catholic Mutual Aid Society, their first function is to sell insurance – at the time of their founding, such insurance was of great benefit to the families of immigrant miners and factory/millworkers who were the frequent victims of industrial accidents resulting in their death or disability. The local lodges in various community centers of Rusyn settlement also provided an important social and cultural role, providing a means for Rusyn immigrants to gather with their fellow villagers and countrymen in the new world, and resulting in a stronger cultural identity (of various orientations) through the dissemination of Rusyn immigrant newspapers and other periodicals and the performance of Rusyn-language plays and music, song and dance.

Today these fraternals have almost exclusively retained only their insurance function, or have replaced their Rusyn cultural activities with typically-American pastimes. But their records are an unparalleled wealth of genealogical information for Rusyn Americans.

This explanation of the RBO’s background is excerpted from Handbook for Lodge Secretaries and Organizers of the Russian Brotherhood Organization of U.S.A., Philadelphia: Pravda Press, 1937.

Over fifty years have elapsed since the time when the first Russian emigrants from Galicia and Uhorskaya Rus have landed on the shores of America. There are no records available to prove the exact date of their landing, but from conversation with some of the first settlers, we gather that this happened in 1882. The fact that the first Russian church was built in Shenandoah in 1884 practically proves the correctness of that date.

From 1882 the tide of Russian emigration began to swell gradually increasing up to the beginning of the World War.

The first immigrants settled in the Anthracite Region of Pennsylvania. We find the earliest settlements springing up in the coal towns of Schuylkill, Luzerne, Carbon and Lackawanna counties. A little later we find other emigrants of our nationality settling in the western part of Pennsylvania and in the states of Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Michigan and West Virginia. …

The chief causes of emigration of the Russians of Galicia and Uhorskaya Rus was poverty, and religious and political oppression to which they were subjected by the tyrants of the Old World. …

The Russian Brotherhood Organization or the R.B.O., as it is called for short, was organized in the mining town of Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania, on July 1, 1900. It was organized by a group of pioneers who were dissatisfied with the work of renegades and traitors of the Russian cause in the other Russian fraternal orders. The founders of the R.B.O. were true Russians who loved their nationality and wished to free it from exploitation by Ukrainian radicals and priests of pro-Magyar leanings.

With that as our starting point, what else do we know about the RBO’s membership? Specifically, it was founded in response to the Magyarone-dominated Greek Catholic Union and the Ukrainophile Russian/Rusyn National Association (f. 1894 in Shamokin, Pa., now the Ukrainian National Association). The RBO was both Greek Catholic and Orthodox in membership -- one of the only such "ecumenical" Rusyn fraternals. Eventually, instead of a patriotic-Rusyn orientation it took on more and more a Russian orientation and unofficially, Orthodox affiliation. Yet today there are still RBO lodges in Greek Catholic churches, even in "Ukrainian" parishes like Simpson, Pa. and Ansonia, Connecticut. Most of the early lodges were at Subcarpathian (vs. Galician)-dominated Greek Catholic churches in Pennsylvania, e.g., Mahanoy City and Hazleton. Most majority-Lemko Greek Catholic parishes had RBO lodges, and were quite strong in places like Shenandoah, Mt. Carmel, Marion Heights [Keiser], Plymouth, Olyphant, etc. A strong but not overwhelming majority of the RBO membership was Rusyns from the Lemko Region. One also finds a number of Roman Catholic Poles and Slovaks among the members, although surely they didn't consider themselves "Russian" in any way.

The RBO Death Claims Database

With funding from the Russian Brotherhood Organization, the Balch Institute created a database from the insurance death claims filed between 1900 and 1926. The claims, 2519 at this time, were written in the Cyrillic alphabet [either Russian, Rusyn, or Ukrainian], or the Latin alphabet [Rusyn, Polish, Hungarian, and English]. Claims in the database are stored in the Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies Library. [As of the author's most recent access to the database, it now contains more than 11,200 claims filed through 1959.]

Searching the RBO Death Claims Database

To access this database on the Internet, you should either directly access http://www.libertynet.org/balch/rbo/ or link to it from the main page of the Carpatho-Rusyn Knowledge Base, http://www.carpatho-rusyn.org. When you get to the search page, you will be asked to provide the information you want to search for. [The database is no longer available online.] Searchable fields are: Last Name, First Name, Lodge City, Area of Origin, and Province/Region.

Area of Origin contains the names of the districts. Examples of names used in this field include Nowy Sacz, Lesko, Sanok, Saris, Suwalky, Maramaros, Gorlice, and Zemplen.

Province/Region refers to the larger geographic region. Examples of terms used in this field include Galicia, Uhorshina [meaning Hungary], Poland, U.S.A., Russia, Austria, Hungary, Austro-Hungary, Bukovina, Germany, Serbia, and Czechoslovakia.

A search may yield information in these: Last Name, First Name, Sex, Marital Status, Lodge City, Lodge State, Year of Birth, Region of Origin, Village, District, Occupation, Date Joined Russian Brotherhood, Medical Condition, Date of Death, Cause of Death.

Information that was not supplied or is illegible will have an "i" [indistinguishable] or "ng" [not given] recorded in the field.

Because of the irregular nature of the information in the Area of Origin and Province/Region fields, we wouldn’t recommend trying to search on those fields. Because of the large number of variant spellings of first and last names, you will also probably have difficulty finding persons by that method.

Key to the Best Searches: Lodge City

Your best bet for online searching is to search on Lodge City. As an exclusive guide for C-RS members’ benefit, we present the list of locales, sorted by state, of the lodge cities in this database. You must enter them exactly as printed here for the online search to give you the correct data. Remember, right now the database includes death claims which were filed through the year 1926. That means even if you know your ancestor was an RBO member, if they died after 1926 they won’t appear in this database yet. [The database now contains death claims at least through 1959.]

Colorado
Rouse
Pryor

Connecticut
Ansonia
Bridgeport
New Britain
Seymour
Stamford
Terryville
Waterbury

Delaware
Wilmington

Illinois
Benld
Buckner
Chicago
Madison
W.Frankfort

Indiana
Gary

Michigan
Calumet
Detroit

Minnesota
Chisholm
Minneapolis

Missouri
Bonne Terre
Desloge
St. Louis

Montana
Stockett

New Jersey
Bayonne
Bayonne City
Elizabeth
Garfield
Jersey City
Newark
Paterson
Perth Amboy
Passaic
Rahway
Singac
Trenton

New York
Bay Side
Binghamton
Brooklyn
Cohoes
Elmira
Endicott
New York
Rome
Spring Valley
Syracuse
Watervliet
West Tray
Yonkers

Ohio
Akron
Bellaire
Belle Valley
Buffalo
Cleveland
Connorville
Neffs
Piney Fork
Wolf Run

Rhode Island
Woonsocket

Washington
Cle Elum

West Virginia
Coketon
Elkhorn
Ennis
Follansbee
Logan
Rossmore
Switchback

Pennsylvania

Alden Station	Lopez
Allentown	Lykens
Altoona	Lyndora
Ambridge	Mahanoy City
Arcadia	Mahanoy Plane
Ashley	Maizeville
Atlas	Manifold
Beaver Meadows	Marion Heights
Berwick	Masontown
Bethlehem	Mayfield
Betula	McAdoo
Boswell	McKees Rocks
Braddock	[McKeesport - see comments]
Branchdale	Middleport
Breslau	Minersville
Brockton	Monessen
Brownsville	Monongahela
Butler	Morea Colliery [near Mahanoy City]
California	Mt. Carmel
Canonsburg	Nesquehoning
Carnegie	New Kensington
Cassandra [near Portage]	New Salem
Catasauqua	Newboro [New Salem]
Central City	Northampton
Centralia	Old Forge
Charleroi	Olyphant
Coaldale	Philadelphia
Conemaugh	Phoenixville
Curtisville	Pittsburgh
Donora	Plymouth
DuBois	Ramey
Duquesne	Rankin
Edwardsville	Reading
Eleanor [near Punxsutawney]	Rhone [Nanticoke]
Elizabeth	Richmondale
Emerald	Roscoe
Excelsior [Shamokin]	Russelton
Fayette City	Scranton
Fern Glen	Shamokin
Ford City	Shenandoah
Forest City	Sheppton
Frackville	Simpson
Freeland	Slatington
Gilberton	St. Clair
Greensburg	Stockton
Hauto	Sunny Side [near Monongahela]
Hazleton	Trenton [near Mahanoy City]
Hudson	Tresckow
Irvona	Tyler [near DuBois]
Jacobs Creek	Vestaburg
Jeannette	Wick Haven
Jerome	Wilkes Barre
Jessup	Wilmerding
Johnstown	Windber
Keiser	Wood
Lansford
Leechburg
Lehighton
Listie

Because the editor has assisted the Balch Institute in the preparation of this data, we are able to offer the following to C-RS members: If you don’t have Internet access, you may send us information that you want to search for in the database, and we will search the data and send you the results. Please send your queries with a self-addressed, stamped envelope to C-RS. [With apologies, we can no longer offer this service.]

Original material is © by the author, Richard D. Custer; all rights reserved.